Holy Cross Centre Trust

The Five Principles: #3 Reciprocity

Empowering the recipient

All of us are driven by a desire to make a contribution. But in practice, we don’t usually ask or encourage those whom we help to give back in some way. That means that they don’t get a chance to receive that very special feeling that we know comes from helping someone else. We may even be creating dependency if we do not provide them some way to give back.

Time Dollars have reciprocity built in. That does not mean paying back to the same person or agency that provided the help. Instead, Time Banking says: “Pay it forward by helping someone.” The message Time Banking gives is: “We need each other – if we are to create the kind of world we all want.” One member put it this way: “For me giving a ride is not just giving a ride; it is opening the possibility of a relationship.”

The world of helping others in need is now built around one-way transactions. Government entitlements are based on need. Charity is based on need. Volunteering is based on need. We mean well and all of those efforts are to be honoured. Too often, helping is a transaction that starts between two strangers who remain strangers. And with the best of intentions, one-way transactions often send two messages unintentionally. They say: “We have something you need – but you have nothing we need or want or value.” And they also say: “The way to get more help is by coming back with more problems.”

Time Banking changes that. The need a person has is only part of who that person is. In helping, we need to unleash the other part, the functioning part, to build the kind of world we want for ourselves and our children. Any parent knows it is easy to give something to a child – but one sees real joy when the child is able to give back by doing something that they can see is special to the parent. In Time Banking, like the movie, pay it forward, when one provides a service, one empowers the recipient to give back by helping someone else. That way every act of helping can unleash the capacity of the one helped to build a better world.

Here are some sample paybacks:

• In return for being taught how to bait a hook and flycast, teenagers have cleaned up the lake.
• Men who had had a difficult time finding a job have paid back for job referrals and help with résumés by coaching football and soccer, and by serving as school hall monitors who ended the bullying and the hanging out in the halls. ¦ Patients receiving health care have paid back by learning how to function as medical translators for Latino patients; once certified, they got jobs as translators with a sponsoring hospital.
• Teenagers charged with various misdemeanors pay back by staffing a Youth Court jury that has had a documented impact on reducing second arrests by over 50%; sentences include community service such as shopping for elders and watching their cars while they are in church.
• Seniors receiving rides and other non-medical support from their health care provider have paid back by providing informal support to others. One paid back by coming in with a new joke or cartoon every day; others helped out in ways that reduced the need for nursing home care, and reduced the rate of rehospitalization following discharge.
• Many seniors have told us that they could never have asked for help if they had not had a chance to give back – because it would have felt like charity or they might have been taking something from someone who needed it more.

RECIPROCITY affirms the recipient as an equal and empowers the recipient as a contributor.