What's been tried before.

The 30-year experiment that mostly stagnated.

Time banks issue hour-credits rather than dollars. One hour of any person's labor equals one hour of credit, a plumber's hour and a child-minder's hour are deliberately the same. This egalitarian frame is the philosophical core (Edgar Cahn called it co-production) and also the operational ceiling: it works for low-stakes neighbor-to-neighbor service and breaks down when specialized professional value enters.

1. 1995

   The movement begins.

   Edgar Cahn, civil-rights lawyer, founds TimeBanks USA. The philosophical core, "co-production", is that one hour of anyone's labor equals one hour of anyone else's, regardless of market value. Radical, egalitarian, and ultimately the structural ceiling that makes scaling hard.

   TimeBanks.Org · 501(c)(3), now mostly advocacy + software steward
2. 2002–2004

   The flagship cohort.

   Hour Exchange Portland launches, founded by Richard Rockefeller (MD and funder). Members go on to exchange 150,000+ hours including 25,000+ hours of free health care. Fourth Corner Exchange begins in Bellingham, WA with "Life Dollars" ($10/hr at local living wage), already drifting from the strict egalitarian model.

   Founder-funder pattern + paid coordinator = survival; both still operating
3. 2003

   A hybrid model diverges in Cape Town.

   Community Exchange System starts as the Cape Town Talent Exchange and federates internationally. Decentralized: each local exchange sets its own rules. Mixes time-banking, LETS, gifting, and barter on one platform. Today: 1,366 exchanges in 105 countries, ~1M trades total. Proof that hybrid models work, but proof remains regional.

   SA not-for-profit, federated · lesson: hybrid is permitted by the IRS-adjacent abroad
4. Late 1990s → 2010s

   The dwindle.

   Cahn himself writes that "by the mid-1990s, the number of time banks dwindled." Academic research is consistent: time banks fail from coordinator dependency (volunteer-only roles burn out within ~3 years), critical-mass problems (below 150 active members, supply and demand don't match), egalitarian-unit ceiling (skilled professionals stop participating), and no acceptor of last resort. The founder admits stagnation in print.

   UK time banks need £20K–£50K/yr just to operate; mostly underfunded
5. 2014

   The Rockefeller test.

   Richard Rockefeller dies in a plane crash. Hour Exchange Portland survives because of institutional depth: paid coordinator, board governance, diversified service categories. The exception that proves the rule. Most time banks do not survive their founder.

   Single most important lesson for HAND: anchor with founder-funders, not just volunteers
6. Mid-2010s

   Consolidation onto a single platform.

   hOurworld emerges as the dominant free software platform ("Time and Talents"). 100+ banks migrate off the older Community Weaver (TimeBanks USA's legacy software). The field is no longer growing; it's concentrating onto one technical rail.

   A movement that consolidates without growing is in maintenance mode, not expansion
7. 2021–2022

   The academic obituary, then the founder dies.

   Springer publishes Time Banks as Transient Civic Organizations: Exploring the Dynamics of Decline (2021). Edgar Cahn dies in January 2022. The movement gets a published autopsy from peer-reviewed scholarship and loses its founder in the same window.

   Source: Springer 2021, NPQ obituary 2022
8. 2025

   Where it stands.

   hOurworld hosts 400+ banks, 35,000+ members across 39 countries. A 2025 medRxiv scoping review documents the same participation barriers researchers have named since the early 2000s. For a movement that's been running since 1995, this is small. The lesson for HAND is in the structural details, not in copying the form.

   Net: 30 years, 35K active members, one dominant platform · do not build this

The most recent natural experiment, and its honest aftermath.

The 2020 mutual aid surge is the most recent large natural experiment in informal-vs-formal community exchange. Honest summary: most networks that formed in 2020 have either dissolved, returned to small-circle informality, or struggled to formalize without losing their character.

Where the legal lines actually get drawn.

LETS, Local Exchange Trading Systems, originated in Comox Valley, BC in 1983 under Michael Linton. Members earn and spend in a local unit (often called "green dollars," "tokens," or local-named units). Unlike time banks, LETS units typically reflect market value, not equal hours. The commercial cousin is corporate B2B barter (BizX, IMS Barter, Bartercard), which is fully taxable and tightly regulated.

This category is where HAND's most important legal decision happens. Read carefully.

The closest analogs to HAND, and where they stop.

This is the category HAND most resembles in form. Catchafire is the dominant, best-funded, most successful model, and is widely admired for good reason. But its model has a specific shape that's worth understanding clearly.

Smaller, more interesting, harder to scale.

A few experiments worth knowing because they get at the relational depth HAND is after, even if they can't scale to platform size.

Can a 501(c)(3) actually do this? Yes, carefully.

Everything in the legal section below has to be vetted by HAND's attorney before incorporation. What follows is the framing that conversation should start from.

The Private Benefit Doctrine is the central risk

A 501(c)(3) "may not confer any benefit, monetary or otherwise, on any individual or entity that is not incidental, quantitatively and qualitatively, to furthering the organization's exempt purposes." Penalty for violation: revocation of tax-exempt status.

The IRS uses a two-prong test for "incidental":

• Quantitative: private benefit must be insubstantial relative to public benefit.
• Qualitative: private benefit must be necessary to achieve the public benefit.

Implication for HAND: if the skill-exchange operates so that members trade among themselves to advance their own businesses or get personal services, that looks like a members-benefit club (closer to a 501(c)(7) or 501(c)(6)), not a 501(c)(3) charity. This is the central legal risk to design around.

Five mitigations to design in from day one

1. Frame exchanges as serving a charitable class (low-income, underserved, healers serving the public good), not the contributors themselves.
2. Keep contributor benefits truly incidental, recognition, education, occasional credits, not market-value services.
3. Document that any private benefit (e.g., a contributor receiving a service from the pool) is necessary to the charitable purpose, i.e., it sustains contributor engagement so they keep serving the charitable class.
4. Consider a two-entity structure: 501(c)(3) for charitable programs + a separate co-op or 501(c)(7) for the member-exchange layer.
5. Plan for UBIT (Unrelated Business Income Tax). If HAND charges fees that look like a for-profit marketplace, UBIT (21% federal) likely applies. Catchafire and Taproot avoid this by structuring revenue as foundation/corporate grants, a pattern worth copying.

Texas specifics

TX nonprofit filing fee

$25 under Chapter 22 of the Business Organizations Code.

State income tax

None. Texas does not impose corporate or personal state income tax.

IRS Form 1023 timeline

Typically 12 to 18 months from filing to approval.

Fiscal-sponsor admin fee

5 to 10 percent on funds raised through the sponsor.

Texas distinguishes between public-benefit nonprofits (intend to seek 501(c)(3)) and mutual-benefit corporations (serve members, like co-ops or trade associations, not 501(c)(3) eligible). HAND's skill-exchange layer may legally need to be a mutual-benefit corp if it serves members directly. The Austin Community Foundation is the natural fiscal-sponsor candidate for the 12–18 months before HAND's own 501(c)(3) approval lands.

What HAND is taking from all of this.

Six categories, dozens of organizations, decades of attempts. The short version, distilled.

1. Pure time-banking has stagnated for 30 years.
   → Don't build that.

2. Catchafire-style marketplaces work, but only with
   funder-pays economics.
   → Solve "who pays" before anything else.

3. HAND's give-OR-exchange-OR-earn hybrid is genuinely novel.
   → No playbook to copy. Construct one. With legal care.

4. The IRS treatment hinges on ONE decision:
   FMV-equivalent unit, or not?
   - Non-FMV → time-bank precedent, no 1099-Bs, 501(c)(3) OK
   - FMV     → commercial barter, 1099-Bs, needs non-(c)(3) entity

5. The 2020 mutual-aid wave is a cautionary tale.
   → Sustained ops require paid coordinators + institutional
     backing. Plan for both.

6. Most likely successful architecture for HAND:
   (a) 501(c)(3) charitable program, foundation-funded
       (à la Catchafire)
   (b) Separate co-op or LLC for the rewards/exchange layer
   (c) Shared brand, clear money & governance separation
   (d) Start under a Texas fiscal sponsor for 12–18 months
       before incorporating

The four things HAND is copying directly:

✓ Catchafire's funder-pays economic model
✓ Taproot's project-scoping discipline
✓ Hour Exchange Portland's founder-funder anchor pattern
✓ East Brooklyn's two-entity (co-op + 501(c)(3)) structure

The four failure modes HAND is explicitly avoiding:

✗ Hour-credit egalitarianism (1 hr = 1 hr), breaks supply/demand
✗ Volunteer-only coordination, ~3-year half-life
✗ Cash-equivalent rewards inside the 501(c)(3), IRS risk
✗ Building a platform before seeding with in-person trust

That's the playbook. The vision doc describes how it shows up for participants; this one describes why it's structured the way it is.

What this is built on.

40+ sources cited inline. The most load-bearing ones: