Seedstock: a community currency in Vancouver

This project explores Seedstock, a community currency based on the Community Way model. Seedstock founders demonstrate a commitment to advance social change using education to drive the uptake and use of a community currency. A conceptual framework is constructed to explore values behind exchanges by critiquing current economic theories and arguing for community currencies’ ability to generate positive change. Stakeholders were interviewed to reveal the story behind Seedstock. My findings indicate that it is not yet time to determine its success or failure and suggest that educational efforts required to communicate a relatively unknown and complicated concept were underestimated. Overall, miscalculated target audience, insufficient resources given over to communication and education resulted in a poor mix and slow uptake by local businesses, and low engagement by non-profits. The story of Seedstock demonstrates the values and risks of applying ‘small is beautiful’ economics in a contemporary urban setting like Vancouver.