hOURS - org. usage

Just as individuals proffer/obtain goods and services through hOURS, so may organizations and businesses. In the same way that the distribution of dollars fails to serve many individuals, so too does it fail many institutions. They may also find alternative currencies useful. With hOURS, many groups are apt to find themselves better funded, or better financed in the case of a business.

Organizations		Businesses
To the extent your group’s mission is about promoting the sorts of things that come about through the use of hOURS, it’s simply an additional means of doing what you do.	Using hOURS allows you to do "green marketing". Attract socially-conscious customers who will prefer to patronize your establishment because you're doing the right thing.
If your organization has a specific, specialized need(s), hOURS allows you to ‘do it yourself’ and thereby avoid large outlays of dollars. In other words, you could hire someone through hOURS for such task(s), without spending a single cent. Hours can be earned for the group by doing, well, whatever. Please keep in mind as well, that funds don’t need to be raised in advance for things. Members of hOURS have the ability to issue new money, which conveys great power and flexibility to the system (and hence your organization). All in all, operating this way, you address specific needs yourselves, pretty directly, using hOURS like a sort of skills exchange.	Another new market you'll tap into (although it overlaps with the first a little) is that of all the individuals who use hOURS. The ability to spend Hours will attract these new customers to you. Dollar sales will increase as well. It's quite likely they will pay partly, or even entirely in dollars on some occasions. Current economic difficulties are described as a 'credit crisis'. Economic activity gets constrained by insufficient levels of the exchange medium (dollars). Maybe your business will survive the squeeze. But why chance it? Why suffer at all? Diversify with an additional exchange medium, and realize the opportunities there.
Of course, even better than doing it yourselves might be to have someone else pony up Hours for the task. Since Hours may be given as a gift, this opens up a whole new fundraising avenue. People in the system can donate to your efforts. Even if you have no use for their particular skills, the hOURS trading mechanism enables them to pitch in. You can also incorporate hOURS into your regular fundraising efforts. Why limit yourselves to soliciting dollars from people? People who lack dollars to contribute might be interested in joining hOURS and contributing in that way. So hOURS can be a means of mobilizing your supporters. When they join hOURS their capacity to contribute to the cause increases. They can earn Hours doing whatever and put those Hours toward your efforts. The sort of organization with the most to gain from this would be one with many nominal members who are interested in helping out, but for whom there’s little to do because the needs of the group are specialized.	Are loan payments a drag on your bottom line? With hOURS you gain some ability to self-finance. As a democratic form of money, the issuance of Hours is not the exclusive prerogative of the banking industry. The issuance of Hours does not take the form of a loan. Your interest costs get eliminated. Why pay (interest to) a bank for the privilege of using a fictional construct (dollars)? We can do that ourselves just as well. In hOURS, all the participants mutually share "banking power". If your business has financial needs, simply issue Hours, and spend them on what you need. All that's required of you is a willingness to accept them back in trade. Which of course would mean you have a customer! Presto, the economy and your business are humming. Refuse to be a victim of the economic downturn.

Why would you do this?

In addition to all the good social reasons, outlined elsewhere on this site like community enrichment, socio-economic justice, environmental protection, sustainability… here are some selfish reasons.

Organizations Businesses

To the extent your group’s mission is about promoting the sorts of things that come about through the use of hOURS, it’s simply an additional means of doing what you do. Using hOURS allows you to do "green marketing". Attract socially-conscious customers who will prefer to patronize your establishment because you're doing the right thing.

If your organization has a specific, specialized need(s), hOURS allows you to ‘do it yourself’ and thereby avoid large outlays of dollars. In other words, you could hire someone through hOURS for such task(s), without spending a single cent. Hours can be earned for the group by doing, well, whatever. Please keep in mind as well, that funds don’t need to be raised in advance for things. Members of hOURS have the ability to issue new money, which conveys great power and flexibility to the system (and hence your organization). All in all, operating this way, you address specific needs yourselves, pretty directly, using hOURS like a sort of skills exchange. Another new market you'll tap into (although it overlaps with the first a little) is that of all the individuals who use hOURS. The ability to spend Hours will attract these new customers to you. Dollar sales will increase as well. It's quite likely they will pay partly, or even entirely in dollars on some occasions.
Current economic difficulties are described as a 'credit crisis'. Economic activity gets constrained by insufficient levels of the exchange medium (dollars). Maybe your business will survive the squeeze. But why chance it? Why suffer at all? Diversify with an additional exchange medium, and realize the opportunities there.

Of course, even better than doing it yourselves might be to have someone else pony up Hours for the task. Since Hours may be given as a gift, this opens up a whole new fundraising avenue. People in the system can donate to your efforts. Even if you have no use for their particular skills, the hOURS trading mechanism enables them to pitch in. You can also incorporate hOURS into your regular fundraising efforts. Why limit yourselves to soliciting dollars from people? People who lack dollars to contribute might be interested in joining hOURS and contributing in that way. So hOURS can be a means of mobilizing your supporters. When they join hOURS their capacity to contribute to the cause increases. They can earn Hours doing whatever and put those Hours toward your efforts. The sort of organization with the most to gain from this would be one with many nominal members who are interested in helping out, but for whom there’s little to do because the needs of the group are specialized. Are loan payments a drag on your bottom line? With hOURS you gain some ability to self-finance. As a democratic form of money, the issuance of Hours is not the exclusive prerogative of the banking industry. The issuance of Hours does not take the form of a loan. Your interest costs get eliminated. Why pay (interest to) a bank for the privilege of using a fictional construct (dollars)? We can do that ourselves just as well. In hOURS, all the participants mutually share "banking power". If your business has financial needs, simply issue Hours, and spend them on what you need. All that's required of you is a willingness to accept them back in trade. Which of course would mean you have a customer! Presto, the economy and your business are humming. Refuse to be a victim of the economic downturn.

Tips and perspectives for businesses:
Will using hOURS hurt your bottom line? Not if you're the least bit smart about it. If you can spend all the Hours you take in, then you won't miss the "lost" dollars at all. That's assuming you're spending those Hours on things you would have bought anyway, with dollars. Yes there is the decrease in dollar revenue, but it's matched by an equal decrease in dollar expenses. You could adopt a policy of spend first, earn later, and then you couldn't possibly lose. Over time, as confidence in your ability to spend Hours grows, you could relax that.
Another perspective on this could eliminate even that concern: Do you ever issue coupons as a way to lure customers - 10% off coupons for example? You could use Hours in this fashion. Limit your acceptance of them to 10% of a purchase. Who cares then if you couldn't find a way to spend those Hours? You could just throw them away. Isn't that what you do with the coupons? That would be silly of course. Spend them, or make a charitable contribution with them. We're just making a point.
What can you spend them on? There is a wide variety of goods and services offered by the other members of hOURS. In the unlikely, unfortunate event your business needs none of that, maybe you or your employees will. Spend the Hours on staff salaries then. And if no staff need anything available in hOURS - it still may make sense to spend them on staff salaries! How? Well what if your staff are also customers? Realize then that you have some amount of dollars running around in a pointless circle. Salary/wages, purchase, salary/wages, purchase, salary/wages, purchase... on and on. Why are you using dollars for that? Use Hours. No doubt you can find another use for the dollars.
How are Hours handled, logistically? We may print notes someday, which of course would be used like cash. In the meantime, all transactions are logged electronically, on the website, and account balances get adjusted accordingly. If your business has internet access and a computer, customers could log in right there and enter a payment to you. That would be the equivalent of a debit card. Or they could write a note with their name, account number and amount, to be logged later. That would be the equivalent of a check.
Each Hour of course, represents an hour of time - that's why they're called that. For trade in goods, prices need to be negotiated. Rather than tediously doing so for every item, the best thing to do would be to operate with a dollar equivalency. We recommend $20 to the Hour. It makes for easy math, and makes a statement about decent wages.

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