hOurworld®️: Time and Talents - Free* Time Banking Software
hOurworld®️ is an International Network of Timebanks

hOurworld®

an international network
of neighbors helping neighbors

 

• 35,449 members • 375 communities • 3,142,602 hours service received!

Software FAQ

We believe in Open Innovation (Think 'open source' but in a corral!) We implement the best ideas of our members and coordinators. This broad based co-production model of development affords us all the best tools for sustaining our local communities!

We believe in removing ALL the barriers to time banking that we can. Access to the hOurworld® platform is and will remain FREE. It's easy for new members to join and learn, and easy for coordinators to manage and report on their members and activity.

We believe in supporting local diversity while maintaining a central cooperative organization to provide accessible support, training, and communications.

We believe that every member should have control over their own privacy and content. (You own your data.) We operate on private secure servers on HIPPA compliant data centers where all information passing between users and clients is encrypted before going out on the internet.

We believe that time banking is one spoke in the wheel of the Solidarity Economy. We foster local community organizations drawing together to create powerful Movements moving Together: Local economies integrating CSA, Food Co-op, Buy Local, Transition Town, BALLE, CAP and others. The opportunities to provide and support our interdependence are profound!

My name is Stephen Beckett. I joined Hour Exchange Portland, our local time bank in Portland, Maine back in 2006. At that time Community Weaver and Time Keeper were not adequately meeting their needs so I offered to write new software! Watch this short 3 minute video about the history of Time and Talents, the web platform with free access that supports timebank communities like yours.

Access to Time and Talents is and will remain FREE. There are no annual dues or fees of any kind, and Conversion from your existing software to the hOurworld Time ane Talents platform and training are also free!

If you'd like a tour we're happy to Zoom with you. You may want to watch a few of the more recent (2022) videos on our YouTube hOurworld TNTv1 playlist. TNTv1 users: let us know if you would like to evaluate v2. We have an engine to copy your data there so you can have a look!

If your timebank administrative needs are light and you want more of an app like user experience you may want to get setup or move to Time and Talents v2. See the YouTube hOurworld TNTv2 Playlist

Why Change?

Time and Talents is home to over 400 timebanks with over 35,000 happy members in 39 countries! Together we are co-creating the largest active timebanking system on the planet! We're home! Our inclusive network allows inter-time bank transactions and communications.

What about our existing data?

We've written a Community Weaver 4 conversion engine. (We have one for CW-3 too.) We can pull over your offers and requests, member profiles, and full transaction history. We can have you up and running in a day! Conversion doesn't change your existing Community Weaver data, so you are free to try out Time and Talents before you move for keeps.

We've written a Community Forge conversion engine and have moved a few of their timebanks into hOurworld. We've even converted timebanks that were all on spreadsheets!

Have other timebanks moved to hOurworld's Time and Talents platform?

Over 100 timebanks have converted from Timebanks.org Community Weaver and other platforms to hOurworld's Time and Talents!

Do you want to set up or move your timebank to hOurworld? Get started!

Your timebank will appear on our World Map, and in the hOurworld Timebank Directory.


Hear from former Community Weaver Coordinators now enjoying the many benefits of Time and Talents:

'Kudos to a wonderful innovative team there at hOurworld, ON TOP of the latest technology, blazing trails.... but more importantly listening to your users. You are wonderfully responsive and I am really happy to work with you all.'
De Raynes, Sussex County Hour Exchange, DE

'The new feature on the software where people receive a weekly update has literally changed the way our Time Bank is being used! We have seen a huge influx in exchanges, and the best part is that they are between people who haven't exchanged with one another before.
Jennie A Weakley, Unity In Our Community, Detroit, MI

'The short of our coordinator experience in Columbus (I'm one of them, so I know first-hand) is that the software issues went away, for the most part, once we made the conversion to TnT. We found that the conversion caused more work of a different kind, though. We no longer had software as an excuse to occupy our time instead of growing our time bank through member development and community engagement. The enthusiasm people have for time banking has prompted new member enrollments, hence, a 20% increase!
Steve Bosserman, Care & Share Time Bank, Columbus, OH


Welcome!

The hOurworld® Team

  • Post or reply to Announcements to the whole exchange!
  • Receive an automated weekly newsletter of new announcements, offers and requests (or opt out)!
  • Post or reply to messages to and from groups you have joined.
  • Search Offers, Requests, Announcements, Members, Bios, and Help in one go!
  • Add offers and requests and publish them to the home page and newsletter.
  • Manage your contact information and privacy.
  • Report your hours and view/print/email your statement.
  • Add an image to any service offer, request or announcement!
  • Translate page content into your preferred language or select your default language.
  • [Contact Coordinator] or [Contact Tech Support] from any page after login.
  • Members are copied by email whenever a message is posted to a group or another member.

  • Members may indicate their satisfaction with a service, and endorse other members.

  • Hours reporting supports one to many and many to one transactions.

  • Members may delete any transaction they have provided, effectively issuing a 'refund'.

  • Members may Search with multiple terms and include city or zip.

  • Service descriptions are included in the content that is searched.

As an admin you may do all the tasks above for other members and then some.
  • Communicate with, report on, and Map any cross sections of your membership using 30 built in reports wiht selectable criteria.
  • Manage the Service, Attribute, and Group pick lists associated with member accounts and admin functions.
  • Create and manage your own login/landing page content.
  • Edit all automated outbound system notices and emails.
  • Track applicant's join process with the dynamic Applicant Pool report.
  • Access context sensitive help, search help or 'Contact Support' from any page after login.
  • Manage a 'Paper Only' branch of your membership with printed directories and listings.
  • Ebuddy feature where one member may Use Account As: (another member)
  • Guardian Angel feature for admins or an assigned guardian to be coppied on all content created by, sent or received by the member who may be at risk or be a risk.

Whether you are setting up a brand new Timebank, or converting from your existing software, Time and Talents® offers simple, intuitive and user friendly tools to help you manage and grow your organization!

If you are using TimeBanks.org Community Weaver 3 or 4, we have coded a conversion engine for your existing data.

Conversion is a relatively simple process at your end. You notify your members of a cutoff date. We'll hold some training to get your admins up to speed with using the new system, and that will be ongoing via email and zoom as needed.

We obtain Admin Role credentials from you to your CW-3 Instance. We download ALL your transactions, ALL your offers and requests, ALL your members from all Roles, in any state (enabled yes/no, Applying Member, Russian bot accounts, all of it.) In the case of CW-4 you will be provided with a link to download your data in json format. We pre-process your data in 'holding tank' tables, then use our conversion engine to filter the silver from the dross, and load all of your data into the Time and Talents database. This will include members' profile photos, bios, attributes, transaction histories, offers and requests. We perform the conversion in a half a day.

You let your members know when they may log in to the new platform and provide them with links to a few of the videos (basic intro, recording hours) and together we manage the fallout as it happens! A few members will continue to use the old system regardless of what you have told them, so it will be important to have Timebanks.org take the old platform offline (for members) and remove it from their Directory of Timebanks.

Access to hOurworld, supported by Time and Talents® is and will remain FREE!

To date (Spring 2023) the system member side has been translated into 9 languages. Members may select their preferred language from their Profiles. The timebank may select the timebank wide language from the $btnI Organization Info $xS area. Members and admins may also use Google Translate built into the footer of each page. This will translate any content that is not a hard coded translation, like member or admin generated content not in the default language.
Language editing will soon be table based for easier access to complete unfinished transalations (marked 'no' in the table below)
Language Member Area Admin Area
Arabic no no
Czech yes no
German no no
Greek no no
English USA yes yes
English UK yes yes
Spanish
(Castilian)
yes yes
Estonian no no
French yes yes
Hebrew no no
Italian yes yes
Korean yes no
Macedonian no no
Spanish
(Mexican)
yes yes
Polish yes yes
Swedish no no
Thai yes no
Ukrainian no no
Chinese no no

  • Automatic email and login notification on member's join date anniversary.
  • Automatic debit of hours if any, and placement in the Accounts Receivable report queue.
  • Report and mark paid or collect hours or forgive as responses come in. A thank you letter is automaticall sent. Embed PayPal if you have it.

Report Types (listed by frequency of use):

Contact List (*may be mapped) Accounts Receivable
Transactions by Provider (*may be mapped) Email List
Applicant Pool Newsletter Recap
Transaction Count Between Members Transactions by Service
Hours of Service Provided by Category Services Provided by Hours
Transactions by Receiver Count of Services Proviced by Category
Services Offered by Member Services Offered by Service
Last Member Year Transaction Hours Donations Report
Birthday List Members Without Services
Services Provided by Count Mailing Labels
Members Without a Bio Member Attributes
Services Offered by Count Members Without Photo
Members Without Contact Info Members Without Attributes
Ebuddy Report No Attribute in a Categroy
Members Without Groups Members Without Address
Any of these base report results may be customized in real time using a query by example form to narrow search results to a specific cross section of your membership or transaction history! Easily meet your Outcomes Reporting and Grant Funding requirements.

Our service provider, Top of Third, manages our servers at secure data centers in New Jersey, USA.

hOurworld® / support and setup:

Backups: Daily/Weekly/Monthly backups of files and databases with roll over archiving of daily backups for two weeks.

Servers: All servers are RAID 1, mirrored storage, with multiple processors. They are providing us with a Virtual Server up to date with standard OS and web server LAMP stack upgrades.

hOurworld® - Time and Talents Maintenance and Upgrades

Upgrades and New Features are available to all exchanges immediately when pushed from the developement platform to the live system via a private GitHub repository for version control, etc.
The source code is proprietary and written in PHP, MySQLi, HTML5, JS, Ajax, CSS, Bootstrap 4.6
We operate in an arena of 'open innovation': co-producing and implementing our members and coordinators best ideas! Think 'open source', but in a corral!
Easy integration of Time and Talents® into your existing web site, so navigating between the two is transparent. (Though no website is required for startups.)

hOurworld® derives funding from trainings, personal investment, brokered agency software, RPF research data access, grant funding and member gifts. Access to hOurworld® for local 'mom and pop' timebanks is and will remain free.

Linda Hogan, Terry Daniels and I (Stephen Beckett) co-founded hOurworld® in 2010. We have member helpers and consultants that are participating in software development projects, training and research. John Saare, a 'Silcon Valley Refuge' and Enterprise Software Developer has become a co-founding member of hOurworld® and together we are creating a new software platform TNT 2.0 which will be ready for early release mid 2023! We expect the two versions will live sisde by side for some time. There will be no push of users from one platformt to another.

Speak with BJ Andryusky at the
St. Pete and Tampa Bay Timebanks in FL:
or Beth Thorpe, Communications Chair and Webmaster, Louisville TimeBank:
or Steve Bosserman, Columbus Ohio's Care & Share Time Bank:

They'll share honest reports about their conversion process and how they are doing now.

Here's a list of the many timebanks that have converted to Time and Talents from Community Weaver

Hour Exchange Portland, ME
Hour Exchange Long Island, NY
Time Exchange of the North Shore, MA
L-A Time Dollar Bank, Lewiston ME
KNEx, Kalamazoo MI
The Michigan Alliance of Timebanks
Merry Meeting Community Shares, ME
Greater Lansing Time Bank, MI
Lathrup Village Time Bank, MI
Plymouth-Canton Time Bank, MI
Royal Oak Time Bank, MI
TimeBank Mahonning Watershed, Ohio
Woodstock Time Bank, NY
New Hope Time Exchange, RI
Care & Share Time Bank, OH
Worcester Time Trade, MA
Sonoma County Time Exchange, CA
Ferndale Timebank, MI
Villages Neighbor to Neighbor Time Bank, MI
Share Care Time Bank, MS
Skill Share, CO
Unity in Our Community Time Bank, MI
Southeastern Massachusetts Time Exchange
Valley Time Trade, MA
Time Bank of Lake County, CA
Time Trade Circle, MA
Akron Time Bank, OH
Milwaukee Area Exchange, WI
Umpqua Valley Time Exchange, OR
Barn Raisers Time Bank, PA
Sedona-Verde Valley TimeBank, AZ
Santa Fe Time Bank, NM
Greenbelt Time Bank, MD
Salem Time Bank, MA
San Benito Time Exchange, CA
Waterloo Region Time Exchange, Ontario Ca
Orange County Time Bank, La Habra, CA
Milwaukee (Area) Time Exchange, WI
Berkshire TimeBank, MA
First In Families of North Carolina
Harvest Connect Timebank, High Point, NC
Time Trader, Rochester, MN
Long Beach Time Exchange, Long Beach, CA
Santa Barbara Time Bank, Sanata Barbara, CA
Central de Talentos, Oaxaca, Mexico
North County San Diego TimeBank, San Diego, CA
Dallas Neighborhood Time Bank, Dallas, TX
Guelph-Wellington Time Bank, Ontario Canada
The Daily Seed, Cary, NC
North Texas Time Bank, Fort Worth, TX
Upper Valley Timebank, White River Jct, VT
Rock Hour Community, Evansville, WI
Hour Dollars, St Paul, MN
Battenkill Time Traders, Greenwich NY
Central Coast Hour Exchange, Los Osos CA
Fidalgo and Friends Timebank, Anacortes WA
Grapevine timeXchange, North East PA
Transformation Team, St. Louis MO
PDX Time Bank, Portland OR
Ventura Time Bank, CA
The Tapestry, Cedar Rapids IA
Erie TimeBank, PA
Louisville Time Bank, KY
Crooked River Alliance of Timebanks, Kent OH
St. Pete Timebank, FL
Northeast Ohio TimeBank, OH
Spring Hill Timebank, FL
Kansas City Timebank, MO
Athens Time Exchange, OH
TimeBanking Team Waiheke, NZ
TimeBanking Aotearoa, NZ
Cape Ann Timebank, Rockport MA
Hutt Timebank NZ
Lyttelton Harbour Time Bank, NZ
Tierrasanta Village of San Diego Time Bank, CA
Timebank Auckland, NZ
Phoenixville Area Time Bank, PA
Waikato TimeBank, NZ
Addington Timebank, NZ
Timebank Raglan, NZ
Dunedin Timebank, NZ
Wellington Timebank, NZ
Co-Thrive Timebank, IN
Sacramento Timebank, CA
St. Ann's Bay Timebank, CA
Brattleboro Timebank, VT
Tampa Bay Timebank

Once logged in there is context sensitive help throughout the admin side of the system. Click [Help] for help about where you are in the software.

Searchable Help (Knowledge Base) built from answered support tickets and an original more verbose copy of the help system is available throughout.

[Contact Us!] button in the footer of every member page to activate the member help ticket system.

[Contact Support] on the admin side to activate the admin help ticket system. Many responses are archived and searchable.

We're here! Contact Us!

The user will login..., which is required to determine the identity of the user agreeing to the TOS. Before they are permitted to do anything else, they are prompted with the TOS agreement page.

This page will always refer to the hOurworld TOS and Privacy agreements/pdfs. If the specific timebank has provided its own TOS..., that will be presented as well.

The user must check the two (or three) checkboxes and click [I AGREE] before they are permitted functional access to the system.

Whenever any of the 2 or 3 docs are updated, the affected users will be required to 're-agree' to the affected terms.

If the user clicks [I DECLINE]..., nothing is done, the session is terminated, and they are redirected back to the login page.