On Thursday, July 18 at 7pm the Old Creamery Co-op is hosting a free community introduction to the Common Good payment card and a chance to become a new Common Good card user!
Common Good was launched in Greenfield, MA in 2013 and Common Good credits are now accepted at 80+ small local businesses in Western Massachusetts! Credits are exchanged instead of dollars, building economic democracy and generating a community grant and loan fund that supports great local causes, projects, and entrepreneurs---the "common good".
Put Money In. You Get Credit. When you put money on your Common Good card, the money goes into a Community Fund and you get that much credit to spend at a participating business. The business uses a smartphone to scan your card (or your phone) at no cost to either you or the business.
Credit Circulates. The business can then use that credit to pay its employees and suppliers, employees spend it again at a participating business, and the credit goes in circles, in your community.
Community Fund Grows. Meanwhile, the money you put in from your bank account is still there in the Community Fund. That’s the “float”, representing the amount of credit being actively used, going in circles within the Common Good system. The Community Fund typically holds about $250 per member. With a thousand members, for example, that’s a quarter million dollars.
If you get more credit than you can easily spend within the Common Good system just transfer it to your bank account and the Community Fund goes down by that much.
As the amount in the Community Fund grows overall, we can invest it in worthwhile projects for the community and the common good. We can even make grants, backed by guarantees from supportive members.
