Business

Bay Bucks Cooperative

San Francisco, CA | www.baybucks.com

About Us

Bay Bucks is a regional business barter exchange and complementary currency for the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mission: Create a functioning regional currency that helps local businesses thrive while promoting collaboration and building community wealth.

Vision: We envision a greater Bay Area where sustainable, regional economic growth and development are in service of the people and the environment, rather than corporate profits. We envision an economy that promotes stewardship of our land and local resources, supports local business and innovation, drives re-localization of production, and recreates the market from being merely transactional to a place for community building.

Values: Bay Bucks is aligned with the values of the New Economy 2.0 movement, which aims to create and spread successful models of local economies that value life over money.  We also value integrity, collaboration and respect. We strive to build a community where each member will uphold these values, so that we can all work together to achieve our goals. 

Strategy: We believe that our current monetary system is driving environmental destruction and destroying human relationships.  We must build a regional, complementary currency to uplift a new regional economy. The currency must be designed to incentivize collaborative and sustainable rather than selfish and destructive behaviors. We learned from an immensely successful regional currency from Switzerland called the WIR, enhanced it with more social features, and implemented it in the Bay Area. This complementary monetary system operates through a business-to-business barter exchange.

Why business barter? 
In order to build a truly regional economy, we must empower locally-owned businesses. Local businesses face two big challenges: the lack of cash and destructive competition from big box stores. 

Unlike other commercial barter exchanges, Bay Bucks only accepts locally-owned businesses as members.  This enables our business members to tackle these two problems at the same time. Instead of bank loans, members can create and issue the appropriate amount of Bay Bucks to meet their business expenses. Instead of letting their unsold products sit idly in warehouses or allowing their un-billed services to expire worthless, Bay Bucks helps members trade things they have in excess for things they need - turning their unsold items into assets.  Local businesses bartering helps everyone save cash, increase profit margins, share resources and reduce waste - all while building a stronger local economy.

Why complementary currency?
Buying local is great - it helps keep more cash in the community than shopping at chain stores.  However, about 30% of dollars still leak out of the local community, draining wealth away from Bay Area residents and businesses.  With Bay Bucks, 100% of the money spent re-circulates in the local community, creating real wealth and opportunities.  Instead of spending cash that will leak out of the local economy, support the Bay Area by using Bay Bucks.  

Bay Bucks is a regional business barter exchange and complementary currency for the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mission: Create a functioning regional currency that helps local businesses thrive while promoting collaboration and building…

Location

  • 465 10th Street #207, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States
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