The Archive
14 solutions documented and sourced.
Showing 1–12 of 14 · Page 1 of 2
Pennsylvania Barn-Raising — Amish Mutual Aid
Old Order Amish and Mennonite Communities
A community raises a neighbor's barn in a single day using donated labor and pre-cut timbers — the …
Lewis Hyde's Gift Economies — Anthropology of Reciprocity
Anthropological Synthesis (Lewis Hyde, drawing on Mauss and Malinowski)
Hyde's documented examples of long-running gift economies — Kula ring, Pacific Northwest potlatch, Iroquois harvest distribution — and …
Tanda — Mexican Rotating Savings Circle
Mexican Traditional Finance
A fixed group of trusted savers each contributes the same amount on the same day each week or …
The Jubilee Cycle — Periodic Debt Cancellation
Hebrew Biblical Law and Ancient Near Eastern Precedent
A periodic cancellation of debts, return of mortgaged land, and release of bondservants every 50 years — Hebrew …
Susu — West African Daily-Collection Savings Clubs
Ghanaian and Yoruba Traditional Finance
Daily door-to-door collection of small deposits by a susu collector, with the saver getting one month's worth back …
Friendly Societies — 18th and 19th Century English Mutual Aid
Working-Class English and Welsh Mutual Aid
Working-class mutual-aid lodges that paid sickness, funeral, and old-age benefits from member dues — covered roughly half of …
Raiffeisen Cooperative Credit Unions
Rhineland German (Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, 1860s)
Rural cooperative credit organized by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen in 1860s Rhineland: member-owned, member-deposit-funded, and member-governed credit at agricultural …
Time Banking — Edgar Cahn's Hour-for-Hour Exchange
American Civil Rights Lawyer (Edgar Cahn, 1980s)
A community currency where one hour of any member's service earns one Time Credit, redeemable for one hour …
Gleaning Rights — Hebrew Law and Medieval English Custom
Hebrew Biblical Law and Medieval English Common Law
The customary right of poor villagers and travelers to gather leftover grain, grapes, and olives from the corners …
Paluwagan — Philippine Workplace Rotating Savings
Philippine Traditional Finance
Office-based rotating savings group with payroll-aligned contributions, common in Philippine factories, hospitals, and government offices.
ROSCA — Rotating Savings and Credit Association
West African (Susu / Esusu), Caribbean, East Asian, and global informal finance traditions
A group savings circle in which members contribute a fixed amount each round and one member receives the …
Ndugu Circles — East African Savings Groups
East African Community Finance (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda)
Small, self-managed savings groups that pool contributions, extend micro-loans internally, and share profits — a community bank in …
14 total solutions across 2 pages