Accorderie
Founded in Québec City in 2002, the Accorderie network lets members exchange services using time as the only currency — one hour given equals one hour received, whatever the service. Local Accorderies across Québec and France run open service directories spanning tutoring, repairs, cooking and IT help, with every member's hour valued equally, an explicitly egalitarian design aimed at fighting poverty and social exclusion through solidarity rather than charity.
A 24-year-old time-based exchange federation in Québec and France whose one-hour-equals-one-hour rule is one of the purest egalitarian monetary designs in operation; limited by small scale, person-to-person-only exchange, and grant-dependent nonprofit plumbing.
M69 Score
Scored against the Money2069 Manifesto — see methodology. Higher = more aligned.
Detailed Rating Breakdown
Issuance Model3x4.0
Time credits are created only when a member performs a real service; new members get a 15-hour starting balance. Debt-free, mutual-credit-style issuance directly tied to labour, elastic in both directions.
Spending Power Stability2x4.0
The unit is one hour of anyone's time — structurally anchored to labour (framework SPS-02 band 4). Definitionally stable for 24 years, though there is no formal measurement apparatus beyond the ledger.
Fiat Independence & Interoperability2x4.0
Hours are a fully sovereign unit of account with zero fiat reserves; fiat touches only the nonprofits' operating budgets. Multiple independent local Accorderies operate on one shared standard, though the standard itself is a charter, not an open technical spec.
Traction2x3.0
24 years of continuous operation, ~12 Accorderies in Québec plus a French network, active leadership and city partnerships (Boucherville joined April 2026). Membership is thousands, not tens of thousands, and businesses do not participate — exchange is person-to-person only.
Sovereignty3.0
A federation of independent nonprofits: no single failure point kills the model, but each local ledger is organization-held, participation is member-registered, and nothing is technologically enforced.
Governance3.0
Standard democratic nonprofit governance with member assemblies and a network charter licensing the Accorderie model; deliberation is internal and monetary rules are convention, not code.
Resilience4.0
Survived 24 years including funder turnover; simple, low-tech model any community can rebuild. Ongoing dependence on grants and public subsidies is the main fragility (network petitions Québec for stable funding).
Inclusivity5.0
Open to anyone regardless of income, near-zero cost to join (cities subsidize fees), explicitly designed for excluded populations, and radically egalitarian — every member's hour is worth exactly one hour, which structurally prevents accumulation and hierarchy.