Nippon Active Life Club (NALC)
The Nippon Active Life Club is a Japanese volunteer network that runs on hours rather than yen. A member who helps another member banks one point for every hour of work, and can draw on those points later for their own care or for a spouse, parent or child. The work covers cleaning, cooking, shopping, hospital trips, childcare and time spent talking. Members take no payment for it, only travel costs. The club started in 1994 and reports 8,100 members across 72 local bases.
A 32-year Japanese time bank whose unit is one hour of care, debt-free and inflation-proof by construction, run as a single national non-profit with no technical enforcement and a shrinking membership.
M69 Score
Scored against the Money2069 Manifesto — see methodology. Higher = more aligned.
Detailed Rating Breakdown
Issuance Model3x4.0
Raw category average 4.4, rounded to 4. IM-01 3: any member can create points by working, but membership of the non-profit is the gate. IM-02 5: no debt mechanism exists anywhere in the system. IM-03 5: one point is issued for exactly one hour of delivered care work, the tightest real-activity link in the catalogue. IM-04 5: supply is whatever members earn, with no cap. IM-05 4: points are extinguished when a member draws on them.
Spending Power Stability2x4.0
Weighted 3.6, rounded to 4. SPS-01 3: the one-hour-one-point rule is administrative, not mechanical. SPS-02 4: the framework treats a time unit of one hour of care as a real-labour anchor. SPS-03 2: the ledger sits with head office and members see their own statements, not the whole book. SPS-04 5: the unit has not moved since 1994. SPS-05 4: an hour buys an hour whatever the yen does, though the club never states this as a design goal. SPS-06 2: the mechanism only works for members at a staffed base.
Fiat Independence & Interoperability2x4.0
Weighted 4.1. FI-01 5: the unit of account is an hour, with no yen reference. FI-02 5: there are no reserves to hold fiat in. FI-03 4: the non-profit banks its membership dues, the point system does not touch a bank. FI-04 5: no price feeds exist. FI-05 5: a yen crisis would not change what an hour is worth. FI-06 4: there is nothing to transition from, and no stated plan either. FI-07 3: the 72 bases run local books against one national unit, but they are branches rather than independent currencies. FI-08 2: no settlement path to any other time bank.
Traction2x3.0
Weighted 3.1. TR-01 4 and TR-10 2: still operating, with the 31st annual general meeting held in Osaka on 2026-06-04, but 8,100 members as of 2026-06-30 and 72 bases as of 2025-11-30 are both well below the figures older directory pages still quote. TR-02 5: founded 1994-04-20, certified as an NPO on 1999-06-07. TR-03 2: 8,100 members. TR-04 1: member to member only, no merchants. TR-05 4: every service inside the network is priced in points. TR-06 4: an active board and a national office. TR-07 4: municipal governments list and refer to it, including Minato City in Tokyo. TR-08 3: welfare and non-profit registries plus local press. TR-09 5: no subsidy or incentive drives participation. TR-11 4: a 32-year identity with a motto, a newsletter and a national NALC Day.
Sovereignty2.0
Weighted 2.1, rounded to 2. SO-01 2: the head office could wind the scheme up. SO-02 2: the system is administrative and not open source. SO-03 2: entirely inside Japanese non-profit law. SO-04 2: head office holds the point ledger. SO-05 4: 72 bases and an elected board spread the load. SO-06 4: almost no third-party dependencies. SO-07 2: membership can be withdrawn. SO-08 3: records are held by the non-profit and not published. SO-09 1: the rules are bylaws, with nothing technical stopping a change.
Governance3.0
Weighted 3.1. GO-01 4: standard Japanese NPO governance with an annual general meeting. GO-02 4: 8,100 members elect the board. GO-03 3: filings are public through the Cabinet Office portal, deliberation is not. GO-04 3: the membership structure makes capture unlikely but nothing prevents it. GO-05 4: rule changes go to the general meeting. GO-06 2: the point rule and the office budget go through the same door. GO-07 3: articles of incorporation and a stated motto, both amendable. GO-08 3: no extra protection for the one-hour-one-point rule.
Resilience3.0
Weighted 3.4, rounded to 3. RE-01 4: 32 years including 2008, the 2011 disaster and the pandemic. RE-02 4: 72 bases operate independently. RE-03 3: no documented recovery plan for the ledger. RE-04 5: the whole mechanism is one sentence. RE-05 5: no technology dependency. RE-06 4: no reserves means no run, and the unit is immune to inflation. RE-07 3: dues fund it, and the membership is falling. RE-08 4: works on paper, offline, asynchronously. RE-09 1: the work is physical care, so machine participation is not possible.
Inclusivity4.0
Weighted 3.8, rounded to 4. IN-01 3: open to anyone who joins and pays dues, in practice Japan and a few overseas bases. IN-02 3: annual dues apply; the amount was not verified this run. IN-03 4: it exists for older people who cannot buy the care they need. IN-04 5: the whole benefit goes to participants, with no seigniorage and no insiders. IN-05 5: one rule for every member. IN-06 2: real names and addresses are unavoidable when the service is a home visit. IN-07 4: points buy care and cannot compound.