The Kola Nut Collaborative

The Kola Nut Collaborative (KNC) is a mutual network of people engaged in reciprocal exchange of services, skills, and goods through a timebank where the currency is an hour of time for everyone. Through membership in the Kola Nut Collaborative people: create and strengthen community bonds, create economic freedom by providing an alternative means to get needs and desires met, and encourage creativity in redefining self-sufficiency, interdependence and valuation of time. The Kola Nut Collaborative introduces a paradigm where members reflect on the available resources in their lives moving from a perception of scarcity and lack to abundance and wholeness. Our guiding vision is to make social infrastructure visible within our communities. Social infrastructure describes the invisible bonds and relationships which constitute a generative capital that can be accumulated and circulated through timebanking. Our mission is to promote and sustain a robust timebanking infrastructure which supports these non-monetary transactions amongst individuals and organizations allowing a greater sum of the realized value of work to be retained and shared within local communities. Our goal is to develop and sustain a complementary community currency which decreases financial pressure, reinforces the fabric of trust and creates new opportunities for engagement between stakeholders within our communities.