Wembley High St is an area of high deprivation. Big Local, a Lottery funded project has given the area around Wembley High St £1 million over 10 years to improve the area. High St Coin will collaborate with Wembley Big Local. High St Coin is an innovative idea, bringing all stakeholders together with a common purpose of improving the local high street and the local economy. Rather than focussing on a physical space, High St Coin will drawn on the physical interaction occurring on a High Street between stakeholders. Our theory of change focusses on empowering local human capital as agents of change, combined with local retailers supporting the change by accepting a High St Coin that volunteers can use for a purchase in local participating retailers.
A local competition will be held for the community to design one side of the 3D printed High St Coin, offering the local people an opportunity to enagage and take ownership.
High St Coin could easily scale and be offered to other areas.

What we'll deliver:

• Circulate High Street Coins to volunteer teams helping to improve Wembley High Street.
• Collect coins from retailers once spent
• Design / Print 3D High Street Coins.
• Oragnize volunteer teams to improve high street (Keeping street clean, retail window displays, area info etc)
• Sign up Wembley retailers / traders to accept High St Coins
• Circulate again to volunteer teams to encourage circular collaborative local economy

Why it's a great idea:

1. Increases local volunteering and human capital of volunteers
2. Volunteers will help improve local high street and streetscape, in turn encouraging footfall and economic activity for traders.
3. Actively encourages community engagement in local High Street
4. Volunteers learn new skills
5. Encourage local ownership of a high street
6. Improved employment prospects for volunteers
7. Stakeholder community engagement
8. High St Coin binds circular collaborative local economy together

Research to support
http://ijccr.net/2014/11/28/what-kinds-of-volunteers-become-more-motivated-by-community-currency-%e2%80%a8influence-of-perceptions-of-reward-on-motivation/

Steps to get it done:

• 3D printing training
• Local community competition to design one side of High St Coin
• Organize volunteer team to improve High St
• Print 3D High St Coins
• Purchase 3D Printing machine and computer equipment
• Sign up local traders and retailers to accept High St Coin
• Wembley Big Local have just secured a local shop in Wembley and we plan to use this as a community base
• Circulate High St Coins to volunteers
• Collect High St Coins from traders and retailers
• Monitor and evaluate usage and impact of High St Coin
• Review and scale up to other localities and possibly integrate with a digital platform to manage

High St Coin is part of a wider range of initiatives that we are seeking to understand
We have submitted funding to Nuffiled is entitled : Follow the Money
Mapping local money flow and its impact on economic deprivation and development.
We believe natural flow of money within deprived local economies is disrupted from circulation as a direct consequence of expensive debt and a disproportionate concentration of expensive money lenders. Our theory of change hypothesis asserts that plugging destructive force of money constantly leaking out of local economies via loan sharks and payday loans would in turn have positive economic benefits in areas of high deprivation. Constant circulation of money within a local economy would reduce the amount of money ‘leaking’ from the local area into the hands of the few unscrupulous lenders.
High St Coin while not the ultimate solution, however could form the basis of improving local circulation of alternative forms of money within a local economy