Our current project is focused on advancing a practice called the Offers and Needs Market (OANM) developed by Post Growth Institute. The Offers and Needs Market is a 90 minute facilitated gathering which allows groups of community members to quickly explore and map the range of offers and needs present within their block club, neighborhood association, or community organization.

We have found this to be an invaluable step for communities to engage in advance of presenting the timebank platform because it goes to the root of asset based community development and makes the practice of timebanking much easier to understand. Through OANM, the skills and capacities already present within a community can be immediately connected to the needs while surfacing other opportunities to connect with our neighbors which we did not know were available to us.

Our Purpose

—Develop a cohort of 20 experienced OANM practitioners embedded in local community organizations
—Build stronger relationships among this cohort personally and organizationally by sharing skills and resources
—Expand the use and impact of timebanking practice within Chicago communities
—Ground ourselves in community building which centers equity, reciprocity, & self-determination (solidarity economy)

Our Outcomes

—A network of connected practitioners who can make the Offers and Needs Market (OANM) process more available across in Chicago
—Stronger general facilitation practice for Chicago organizations
—A culture and practice of skill and resource sharing which transforms communities