In the Common Good Economy, decisions will be made independently in each Common Good Community, about how to accomplish their mission (make the community sustainable, get everyone’s basic needs met, and help people elsewhere). And they will be empowered — with money — to act on those decisions.

We want the organizational structure of Common Good Finance to reflect those same principles. This means that decision-making and authority must be spread out through the organization, rather than residing solely in a few individuals in a hierarchy like this:

Our Senior Policy Analyst John G. Root, Jr. has proposed a solution. He suggests a system of Organizing Circles, based on sociocracy.

Origins

The idea is very simple and very similar to the committee/subcommittee structure typical of many small nonprofits and the workgroup  structure of many corporations (see diagram). Each committee and subcommittee is a team, charged with a specific mission. Representatives from related teams meet to coordinate their efforts in service to the larger mission of the “parent” committee.Team members may be volunteers, paid staff, consultants, or a mix, depending on the organization. Typically, committees and subcommittees are convened by someone in the parent committee, to take on a specific aspect of the parent’s overall mission.

Differences

That’s the conventional committee/subcommittee model. So how are Organizing Circles different? Two ways:

1. In the Organizing Circle model, each “child” team has not one but two people who participate on the parent committee:

• an elected representative of the child committee represents that team’s interests in the parent committee
• the convener represents the parent’s interests in the child committee

2. Subcommittees are created by invitation rather than by appointment. The invitation to participate on a subcommittee goes out to all members of the organization and details the skills, responsibilities, and commitment required.

Significance

At first glance these differences sound trivial and inefficient. But they have three enormously important results:

• Leadership. Leadership arises from both directions. People who are identified by their peers as potential leaders get elected to a position of broader authority (serving on the parent committee). And a person in a position of authority (serving on a parent committee) can take on leadership by convening a subcommittee. This system allows proven, trusted leaders to “bubble up” from the trenches.
• Accountability. Leaders are accountable not just to a single boss, but also to two entire committees — not just to their own leader, but to their peers and followers as well.
• Discipline. Mission and expectations throughout the organization are clear (in writing!) right from the beginning.

That’s it. That is the essence of Organizing Circles.

Board

One final piece: Where does the board of directors fit in? and the Executive Director?

We are proposing that the system be used throughout our organization, so that the board is the top-level parent committee and its subcommittees elect representatives to join the board. The board will elect an Executive Director. Leaders of committees will be accountable to their committee members and to the board as a whole as well as to the Executive Director. The Executive Director will represent the organization to the public. The IRS and other governmental agencies will represent the public to the board in the usual ways.

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Money Creation

We need to create money from time to time because things change and there is always a “right” amount of money for the current situation. Clearly a society could have too little money (for example none at all). We don’t want that. Likewise, society could have too much money. If the amount of money in society doubles overnight (or half the goods and services vanish), then the value of each unit of currency falls by half. Today’s dollar would be worth 50 of yesterday’s cents. That’s inflation. We don’t want that either.

Let’s say that at some point we have a society which has just the right amount of money. When, then, should additional money be created? The answer is obvious: it should be created when it is needed. And how much should be created? Naturally, as much as is needed.

So when is money needed? Well, of course, it is needed when someone needs it. We should create money when someone needs it.

And when might someone need money? Ah! Here we are at the crux of the question.

CASE 1: You don’t need more money. Suppose you have plenty of money saved up from your labors. Plenty to carry you through the coming year. You have a steady job that brings in money fast enough to cover your ongoing costs and whatever special costs you expect this year. You don’t need any more money! So no money should be created.

CASE 2: You DO need more money. Suppose now that you don’t have much saved up and

• You need a new car to get to work.
• Or you want to start a new business and don’t have enough saved up to buy the equipment and rent a building.
• Or you want to go to school for a new profession and don’t have enough saved to pay for tuition.
• Or you need a house (or an operation) so you can survive to be a contributing member of society.
• Or you were just born and need a few years to get on your feet.

You need more money! As stated above, money should be created when someone needs it. You need it, so it’s time to create some!

Okay, sure, you need more money, but why should society (your friends and neighbors, collectively) give it to you, if you haven’t earned it and saved the credit? Either

1. they take pity on you because you are unable to carry your weight — that is, you must consume more than you produce (which is a special case that I will not cover here) OR
2. you will be earning that money sometime in the future.

So society creates a certain amount of money (however much you need) and fronts it to you in advance of expected future productivity. That’s a loan. That’s debt. That’s how money should be created! So the Common Good Bank system will create money as debt.

Money Destruction

The flip side of the question is: How should money be destroyed? That is, when and how should the amount of money in circulation be decreased?

Similarly to the creation question, the answer here is: Money should be destroyed when it is no longer needed. That is to say, when a person who once needed it needs it no longer. That is, (a) when a loan is repaid or (b) when a person has more money than they need. The (a) case is exactly how money destruction works in our current system. So we’re all set in the (a) case.

Too Much Money

The (b) case is more difficult. We will need to establish a formula for deciding how much is “more than enough”. For example, anyone who has a net worth more than 100 times the median probably has more than enough. However we do not want to simply confiscate that money, in order to destroy it. That would remove any financial incentive for future productivity.

Likewise, suppose someone has more than enough because they are dead. We cannot simply confiscate their money, because that would encourage a wide variety of socially unproductive schemes to hide the money as death approaches.

How to Fund Nonprofits

At the same time, we have an unrelated problem. How should nonprofit organizations get funded? They typically depend on gifts. We want these funding decisions to be mostly made collectively at the community level, rather than disproportionately by wealthy individuals. Maybe a community could spend money into existence, as a grant to a nonprofit?

Well no. Permanent money creation (spending it into existence) is a gift from society as a WHOLE. Why would we want to do that? It would only make sense if we expect the nonprofit to produce enough value to justify the creation of that money.  Otherwise the ratio of money to products would rise, making each dollar worth a little less (inflation).

In order to avoid inflation, if we spend the money into existence, the nonprofit has to produce a corresponding volume of goods and services regularly and often enough so that the money does not have time to circulate (and be used more than once). That means it has to produce that much DAILY or thereabouts.  In exchange for a $1,000 grant, the nonprofit would have to produce $1,000 worth of new goods and services every day until the end of time. Clearly that is unworkable, so spending money into existence is out of the question.

On the other hand, we do not want to LEND money to the nonprofit unless, like a for-profit business, it plans to increase its business income by expanding production of goods or services. That is not the usual case for nonprofits.

This leaves no choice but to give the nonprofit money that already exists. In the Common Good Bank system, that means giving the nonprofits the bank’s profits (plus whatever else goes into the Community Fund). So we will do that. The nonprofits could certainly use more, but it’s a start.

Two Problems Become One Solution

Getting back to the problem of what to do with people’s excess money, the problem of how to fund nonprofits adequately is a magical match. We can ask the person with excess money to give it to nonprofit organizations — wherever the person thinks it is most needed. This maintains some motivation for gainful productivity without condoning private fortunes. That solves both problems!

Similarly we can allow some amount to be passed on as inheritance and ask that the rest be distributed to nonprofits for the common good, as directed by the deceased or by the heirs.

The same proposed solution applies to businesses that accumulate more money than they need. After covering the business’s costs including reasonable compensation to its workers, all net profits should go to the common good as directed by the workers — OR to the Common Good Bank Community Fund for distribution by the community as a whole.

Redirecting excess money to nonprofits (directly or through the Community Fund) does not destroy money. Rather it eliminates the situation where someone has more money than they need (the (b) case, described above).

The Down Side

Creating, destroying, and redirecting money as described above appears to satisfy all of society’s funding needs. But is there any down side? Is there any reason NOT to create money as debt?

Since money is just accounting, we need only consider the possibility of damage to the accounting system itself. Specifically, does creating (and destroying) money as debt affect the value of the monetary units? That is, does it result in inflation or deflation? Or will the amount of money in circulation tend to increase and decrease as it ought to, in proportion to the goods and services being consumed? Will there be enough money so that people and businesses can buy what they need, without there being too much extra money?

If money is created as needed and destroyed or redirected whenever there is too much, then the answer to this last question is self-evident. Yes.

There is no down side. Hurray! Let’s create money as debt! The Common Good Bank system will lend money into existence whenever and wherever it is needed.

Is There Another Way?

We CAN create money as debt, but MUST we? Can we also create money some other way? Yes and No. We can lend, spend, reward, or gift money into existence but the creation is always accompanied by a debt.

Money represents the right to goods and services. Those goods and services have to come from somewhere — that is, someone has to provide them. Therefore money also represents an obligation to deliver goods and services. Who is obligated to deliver those goods and services varies.

If I as an individual issue money, who will deliver the value that it represents? I must not obligate someone else to deliver that value — that would be a kind of theft or fraud. Likewise, I must not obligate myself beyond my ability to deliver. That too would be irresponsible. If I issue money, then I must acknowledge (implicitly or explicitly) that *I* am obligated to deliver that much value to society. It is a debt.

Likewise, a community or nation cannot obligate the rest of society to deliver goods and services. A community or nation can create money responsibly only by obligating ITSELF to create the value that the money represents. Even if we as a society create money, for example, as a reward to an individual for work they have already done or as a grant to a nonprofit, the money is a promise that the rest of society will provide that much value (goods and services) to the individual or organization, on demand. It is a debt.

Money is a promise of goods and services. Money is always debt, by its very nature. We MUST create money as debt — and only as our own debt to society. Anything else is irresponsible.

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Bank of North Dakota

Yes, The Bank of North Dakota is a vast improvement over our national banking system in the United States. There are two reasons why it is an improvement:

1. North Dakota’s bank is owned by the state, so all profits go to the public. The Federal Reserve banks are privately owned, so all profits go to private investors.
2. North Dakota’s economic decisions are controlled at the state level, where decisions can be more responsive to local needs. The Federal Reserve system acts at the national level.

However, decisions at the state level are still far removed from the concerns of individual communities. Most individuals have very little say in those decisions. State governments, like federal governments, tend to cater to big business — to the detriment of small business, communities, families, individuals, and the planet. Money influences the decision-makers.

Common Good Bank is not just about who gets the profits. Yes, the profits go to the wider community, just as in state-owned banks. But Common Good Bank will be different from conventional banks in two additional ways:

• Who is in control – Common Good Bank will empower communities to take democratic control of their own destiny – deciding by direct democracy what gets funded and therefore what gets done in their community and in the wider world.
• What is the bank’s mission – Common Good Bank will be committed to economic justice and sustainability, putting people and planet first. By contrast the Bank of North Dakota’s mission is “to encourage and promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota”. This is the sort of mission we can expect from state banks. According to Wikipedia:

“Though initially conceived by Non-Partisan League populists as a credit union-style institution to free the farmers of the state from predatory lenders, the Bank’s functions were largely neutered by the time of its inception by the business-backed Independent Voters Association. The recall of NPL Governor Lynn Frazier effectively ended the initial plan, with BND taking a more conservative central banking role in state finance.” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_north_dakota)

Another question:

Do we need both? If Common Good Bank gives each community, in effect, its own virtual democratic bank, then is state-level or national-level banking useful?

Yes and no:

• Diversity: We want there to be more than one formally chartered bank like Common Good Bank, so that different regions can evolve differently, according to their needs. This will also provide something analogous to biodiversity — letting us learn from each other and giving us security in case one of the chartered banks gets legislated out of existence (individual communities can then shift to a different formal parent Common Good-type bank).
• Interaction: Financial interaction between community-level banks is important. The check-clearing function of national-level and state-level banks can be handled by each formally chartered Common Good-type bank. Several community banks together can fund large-scale cooperative projects such as regional energy production, agricultural processing plants, and telecommunications cooperatives. We do not need a separate, state-controlled financial intermediary for either sort of cooperation.

There is no need for a state- or national-level bank in a Common Good Bank system, other than the chartered Common Good-type banks themselves.

Final question:

Okay, suppose tye Common Good Bank system is better, isn’t it ALSO okay to promote a nationally-owned bank (as Stephen Zarlenga proposes) or state-owned banks (as Ellen Brown proposes)?

Yes. Anything that is substantially better than what we have now is worth working for. If you can get your state legislature to create a state-owned bank (or if you can get the American Monetary Act through Congress) before Common Good Bank is up and running, go for it!

Unfortunately, all you can do toward that goal is advocate. The rest is out of your hands. The power to make those decisions lies with our representatives in government. The gears of government turn very slowly and reluctantly, except when lubricated by big business and the implicit promise of campaign contributions.

In any case, government-controlled banks would leave us still without much say in the destiny of our communities and the world — we will still need the Common Good Bank system.

In Massachusetts, where I live, a state-owned bank would require a change to the constitution. So it looks much more promising to go after what we really want: community-based, democratic economics for the common good. The Common Good Bank model does not depend on convincing legislators to do something that big business opposes. It does not depend on society achieving a higher level of consciousness. It is something we can do for ourselves right now.

Common Good Bank will allow all of us to be actively involved in guiding the course of human events. Ultimately, anything short of that is just not good enough.

Woody Tasch

Last night five of us from the Common Good Bank project joined about 40 others at the Gasoline Alley Foundation (GAF) in Springfield, Massachusetts, for three hours of schmoozing and an interview with Woody Tasch, author of Slow Money and founder of the Slow Money movement, which aims to create “a grassroots, non-profit seed fund supporting small food enterprises and building the nurture capital industry”.

Common Good Bank could be the vehicle for thousands of such funds. We will be talking more with Woody about how these two initiatives could work together to make both happen much more quickly.

Rob Thomas, founder of Social(k), and GAF’s Joe Sibilia hosted the evening. Joe asked some deep questions about the Slow Money movement, in an irreverent playful style that kept everyone engaged.

Green America's Business Seal of Approval

John White and I met last night with Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director of Green America (formerly Co-op America). Green America will likely play an important role in the Common Good Bank system.

Common Good Bank will invest only in socially and environmentally responsible businesses. Green America has a well-established program for certifying “green” businesses and has already given 2,860 businesses its Seal of Approval. Any existing business can apply. Any business that makes it through Green America’s rigorous tests is a sound candidate for Common Good Bank loans.

For startups, Common Good Bank will be able to borrow Green America’s criteria, to help evaluate how well the proposed business will serve the common good.

If you would like to join our team of Founding Investors, and give me a call.

William Spademan

Uncommonly Good Banking

Common Good Finance President William Spademan is leading an effort to establish the first-ever common good bank. After seven years, the bank is close to taking flight. [Photo by Emi Link

(from The Clean Yield, Winter 2009, Volume 25, Number 4)

Uncommonly Good Banking

Two years ago, a client suggested we look into the Common Good Banks, a proposed network of innovative institutions to be headquartered in Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley. We looked and were intrigued, but the bank didn’t exist then. It still doesn’t, but now it’s much closer to reality, and we thought readers might be interested in the concept as it emerges.

The core idea is simple: the bank becomes the epicenter of a do-it-yourself, democratic, community-based economy. Give a community of depositors the ability to guide its investment priorities, its use of investment profits, and its “creation” of money, and it can change who is in control. By offering everyone an equal say in what gets funded in the community, everyone gets an equal say in the community’s destiny.

On its face, CGB will be similar to many community banks and credit unions. As proposed, the Massachusetts-chartered bank would accept FDIC-insured deposits, make mortgages and other loans, and have regular checking, CDs, and ATM services–all the usual accoutrements, plus a local- use credit card that will not cost merchants the usual 2% fee.

But what’s really different? For starters, all net profits–beyond the roughly 6% return that is retained by the bank to compensate for “true” inflation–go to a community fund. The fund is then distributed to local and other nonprofits by vote of the investors and depositors; one person, one vote, regardless of account size.

A still more potent difference is the ability of the group of depositors to set priorities for loans. Food coops? A medical clinic? That town office building? Conserved land? Since capital flow largely determines community development patterns, when the local CGB membership sets loan priorities, it becomes a force in guiding that development.

Then there’s “creating” money, no printing press needed. Like most U.S. lending institutions, CG banks can, under law, lend up to ten times the money they originally receive from depositors and investors. Within that generous limit, all the money loaned is simply a figment of bookkeeping entries. This money-out-of-thin-air leverage is nothing new for banks–it’s how even the Federal Reserve creates money– but the community’s control of it is.

A Capital Idea

Common good banks are the brainchild of many, but most notably William Spademan, of late a community organizer and money theorist who has been working on the concept since 2002. He would urge CGB branches to go one step further: create a locally based currency on a par with the dollar. The theory, structure, and mechanics for CGB branches are outlined in a business plan that can be found on the bank’s Web site: www.commongoodbank.com. The big upside of local currencies is that by injecting additional money into an economy–not cash, in this case, but electronic I.O.U.s–a community can knock down unemployment, stimulate socially responsible enterprises, and generate a good deal of healthy community interaction, so-called “social capital.”

Once the first CGB is chartered and has a physical presence, it can be replicated in any community in the U.S. and beyond.

Each bank branch can be established with minimal capital investment–not even requiring a bricks-and-mortar presence–merely by rounding up 50 or so depositors. The branches form under the original bank charter and use centralized bank accounting and common backing for lending, but otherwise each branch is independent, and the profits stay to benefit its community.

Once the first bank opens, stock will be offered at about $1.00 per share. Soon thereafter, shareholders can freely buy and sell their stock through a bank-operated trading desk. That 6% annually retained by the bank to cover inflation? It has the effect of boosting the book value of the bank. This enables investors to get comparable gains when they sell their stock, even though they never see dividends.

Today, the Common Good Bank has an advisory board of some 50 members including several names prominent in the SRI community. Add to that over 20 community-division organizers sprinkled from Oregon and Texas to Vermont, a dozen partner organizations, several legal consultants, and two core staff–one being William Spademan. Most of these are volunteers. A well-qualified CEO-designate and an experienced chief loan officer are biding their time at other jobs until the bank is ready to open its doors.

Comparing Bank of America to Common Good Bank probably isn’t fair. B of A is too big to fail; CGB lacks a few hundred thousand dollars of investment capital even to gain its initial charter. But if measured by social returns and interest (in the nonmonetary sense), the Common Good Bank also seems too big not to succeed.

“There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament and by the great Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest: And lending money at interest — what we now call investment — is the basis of our whole system.” — C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity”

“Those who devour usury will not stand except as stand one whom the Evil one by his touch Hath driven to madness.” — Allah, the Qur’an [Surah Baqarah, 2:275]

Is interest evil? Many people who have become disillusioned with capitalism, see quite rightly that investment interest is how wealth gets funneled to those who already have the most. It is easy to think that interest is evil and must be done away with.

In the United States, our money is created by private companies lending it into existence and charging interest on it. Clearly this is not fair. But even worse, many people argue, is that the interest can never be repaid because it is not created as part of those loans! This argument is so popular that the search phrase “interest can never be repaid” gets 115,000 hits on Google.

But (1) interest is not evil in itself. And (2) the “interest can never be repaid” argument is seductively righteous and simple, but wrong.

1. Interest is not evil.

People think interest is evil because the wealthy investor earns interest simply by being wealthy. The investor is not producing any useful goods and is not contributing any useful labor to society. Our current economic system rewards the investor for being wealthy much more than it rewards people for being productive. The investor “devours usury”.

For example, let’s say Bill Gates earns $5 million a year doing productive work and let’s say, generously, that that amount is complete and fair compensation for all of his work for the year. In the same year, Mr. Gates’ $50 billion brings in another $5 billion or so in income (a thousand times as much as his paid work). Since we agreed that $5 million was fair pay for his actual work, the $5 billion of “unearned income” (as the IRS calls it) must be undeserved income.

When I gave this example to a colleague recently, he argued that Bill Gates might actually deserve those billions because of the great value that he has already given the world. I could argue against that, but the objection is missing the point. Surely there is SOME amount that is fair pay for his or anyone’s work. Then whatever investment income he gets beyond that fair amount is clearly unfair pay.

Here we come to the root of the problem. What triggers our moral outrage is the unfair pay, not the interest per se. What rankles is not that billions follow billions, but that someone is profiting unfairly. And perhaps, less obviously, that the rest of us are unfairly missing out on that profit.

The common good bank design rights this wrong by dedicating all profits to the common good. No one “devours the usury”.

The "Unpayable Debt" Fallacy (from http://vimeo.com/raam)

2. The “interest can never be repaid” argument is wrong.

Like many attractive fallacies, this one has an element of truth. The error and the partial truth have to do with the fact that money is not designed to go just one way. It circulates.

Figure 1 shows a diagram of of how money is created and how at first it looks as though the interest is unpayable, since it never gets created. In the diagram, money paid as interest goes to the bank and never leaves except as additional loans. This makes it look as though interest is incompatible with sustainable economics.

The true situation is more complicated. In figure 2, I have added a crucial third party: the investors.

Most of the interest and fees that the bank receives goes to pay the expenses of operating a bank: salaries and wages for employees, utilities, legal fees, taxes, and so forth. Money for these expenses gets returned to the circulating money supply.

The remainder of the bank’s income is profit.

Mutual banks (also called “cooperative banks”) and credit unions do in fact generally hold onto and relend their small profits — otherwise they cannot grow. This is a problem, but not a big one.

The vast majority of financial assets are held by stock-based banks, which are required by law to maximize profits. Profits go to the owners of the bank, the investors. The investors also receive profits from investment in other businesses.

Here again, it rankles that the investors are receiving all those profits without lifting a finger. But beyond our vague sense of unfairness, there are two very real problems.

Problem A: Investors typically receive more profits than they spend. This means that the buck stops there. The money stops circulating. It piles up.

Conceptually we can divide people into two groups:

(a) Investors — people who have more money than they need (and therefore have some extra that they can invest) and

(b) Non-investors — people who have less money than they need.

When investors receive more profits than they spend, the result is that people in group (a) who already have more money than they need end up with more and more of the money, leaving less and less for people in group (b) who already have less money than they need. This is a big problem. It is the root cause of poverty.

Problem B: Investors, being wealthy, typically spend and consume more than the average person. The big spenders are the worst offenders, but they are not alone. In fact, in the United States most of us  — rich or poor — consume much more than we  produce. For example, my family and I live on what is considered a “poverty level” income. And yet it would take us many years to produce for ourselves the goods and services that we blithely consume each year. This too is a big problem. It means that some people somewhere are working very very hard to produce the goods and services that we consume.

The Common Good Bank Solution

Figure 3 shows how the Common Good Bank system solves both problems, creating a sustainable economic system. Common good bank will charge interest, but the profit from that interest all goes back to the community as grants to schools and other nonprofit organizations. The money keeps circulating. None of the profits go to enrich individuals.

In fact, communities must dedicate half their profits to advance the common good outside their community. Wealthy communities will likely have larger deposits, larger loans, and larger profits than poor communities. So the wealth will gradually get distributed more evenly.

To clarify how interest can be repaid even though it is not explicitly created when the principal is lent into existence, here is an example:

Example of Paying Interest With No Problems

Imagine a world with just two people, Al and Betty, and one nonprofit bank.

Betty is a farmer. Al is a bank teller and tool-maker.

At first there is no money. Then one day Betty borrows $100 from the bank, to buy a plow from Al. The bank lends the money into existence, with interest of $1 per month. Betty plans to pay $11 a month, so that the loan will be paid off within ten months.

At first it looks as though Betty will only be able to pay back $100 (without interest) because there is only $100 in circulation. The interest seems to be unpayable. But in fact, since the money circulates, both principal and interest can be paid, without creating additional money. Figure 4 shows how it goes, along with Al’s balance and Betty’s debt at the end of each month.

The first month, Al pays Betty $11 for food. Betty pays the bank $10 plus one dollar in interest. The bank pays Al $1 in wages and retires $10 of the debt. This leaves Al with $90. Betty and the bank each have nothing.

The second month, these transactions are all repeated, leaving Al with $80. The transactions are repeated again the next month, and so forth, each month leaving Al with $10 less.

In the ninth month, just after Al receives his pay, he notices that the world is about to run out of money, so he decides to spend his last $10 on food. Betty immediately pays off the loan. No additional interest is due and Al has already been paid for the month. The bank retires the final $10 of the loan. No money is left in circulation and there are no outstanding debts.

In this example, the bank makes no profit. If the bank were to make a profit, say by paying Al only 50 cents a month, there is still no problem as long as the bank is a Common Good-type Bank. The profits simply go to a nonprofit that (for example) pays Betty and Al to create works of art. The money stays in circulation.

In the Common Good Bank system, interest is not evil and causes no problems. In the Common Good Bank system, interest contributes to economic justice and sustainability.

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As you can see, this is now a WordPress site, so you can comment on any page or participate in discussions in the Forum.

In the interests of transparency, we will be using this site as much as possible for all our advisory board and staff discussions.

Our lead translator and tech consultant Elifarley Callado Coelho Cruz has already translated the home page and video into Portuguese and we expect other languages to follow soon. You can help! Give us a call if you want to help translate into any language.

My hope is that this new site will allow much more active participation in the common good bank project and that I can avoid being the bottleneck that all information must pass through. Together we can make this happen.

Sorry to be silent so long. The Common Good Bank project has taken off in a big way. We now have 25 staff members working all over the country to create community divisions (up from just one staff member in Febrary). I have been scrambling to keep up, developing better promotional and training materials and bringing the business plan and website up to date. We’re getting there!

Collectively, in your local community, you indirectly borrow millions of U.S. dollars to keep track of the money that is circulating within the community. We all do. This makes no more sense than renting points to keep track of baseball scores.

Common good banks can save communities millions, by making it easy for us to stop renting our accounting units.