Books / bristol pound
Value Beyond Money: A love letter to the Bristol Pound
The Bristol Pound was meant to be an innovative way to keep money generated in Bristol within Bristol, rather than bolstering supply chains thousands of miles away.
In 2009, a group of like-minded individuals laid the blueprint for the currency and made it into a reality in 2012.
Businesses, local communities and policy makers came on board with unbridled enthusiasm, and former mayor George Ferguson committed to receiving his full salary in Bristol Pounds.
is needed now More than ever
Yet, by 2020, the currency was withdrawn from circulation. So what went wrong?
Diana Finch was the managing director of the Bristol Pound – photo credit: Diana Finch
This question and many more are answered in an upcoming book by Diana Finch, the former managing director of the Bristol Pound.
Value Beyond Money, released on Thursday, is her attempt to assess what went wrong and the lessons that can be learned to help overhaul our global economic system.
Finch first became interested in community organising when she was a young mother. She said: “The nursery school my oldest child attended was suddenly placed under threat of closure. It was in a poor area of Bath and so I spearheaded a campaign, which at that point was successful.”
The school in question was eventually closed but, for Finch, that sparked a lifelong commitment to making change: “It made me think, I really would like to work for the good of society and planet earth,” she said.
“So I started working in charities, from around 2001. First as a finance manager, because finance was what I knew best. Then I was CEO and a consultant to charities.”
Finch was pleased to join the Bristol Pound team in 2018 but knew early on that its trajectory was heading downward.
“It was clear by my first day that the Bristol Pound was had been in decline for a couple of years,” she said.
“I spent the rest of my time at the Bristol Pound trying to come up with other potential ways of creating a shift within the economic system, hopefully something that would have more longevity than the Bristol Pound.
“I never managed to get that off the ground, but the book explains not only the history of the Bristol currency, but also explores the ideas we were trying to develop in that latter phase.”
Finch’s book details not only the brief history of the Bristol Pound but also her economic vision for the future – photo: Milan Perera
When asked about factors that may have played a part in the Bristol Pound’s decline, Finch said: “there are several reasons. One is that Apple Pay came along in 2014.
“There were much easier ways to pay using your phone and our ‘cutting edge tech’ was based on text-to-pay with old fashioned phones.
“Apple Pay was all done with smartphones – very frictionless and very cutting edge. There was no way, with our tiny budgets, we could do anything to rival that.”
But Finch’s book, Value Beyond Money, importantly reminds readers of the optimism that led to the creation of the Bristol Pound in the first place.
“It was the time of the riots about Tescos opening in Stokes Croft,” she continued.
“So I think it was just hitting that zeitgeist. It spoke to people on that independent level and on that kind of social idealism perspective. It grew very rapidly at first, especially compared to other local currencies. It was startling and made world headlines.
“It really gained, I would say, almost more of a following around the world than in Bristol itself. It had a very wide reach as a brand.”
The book is so nearly out! #ValueBeyondMoney pic.twitter.com/3TEwawaHsb
— Diana Finch (@DianaJFinch) July 30, 2024
Value Beyond Money also encourages readers to consider existential questions, such as can you put a price on clean air, water quality, or peace? Readers should be prepared to be challenged.
As Finch put it: “What I hope happens… is that enough people, including those high up CEOs of the biggest corporates on the planet, start to understand that there is a moral imperative to shift the rules of the game now.”
The launch event for Value Beyond Money will take place at Waterstones in Broadmead on Saturday, August 3. To reserve a place for the free event visit this link. The book, published by Arkbound Foundation, is available for purchase from Thursday, August 1.
Main photo: Bristol Pound
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