Since 1980s, Community/local currency systems have drawn attention due to their social effectiveness, and they have been employed in communities worldwide. However, unlike the economic effects measurable to a certain degree by indicators such as the volume of currency circulation, the social effects brought to the region by community currencies do not have a clear measure for assessment. This paper introduces the concept of social support as one such social effect and explores the ways of measuring it.

We used questionnaire survey and social network analysis of transactional records of two community currency organizations (“Ichi-Muraoka” in Japan and “Bytesring Stockholm (BYTS)” in Sweden). From the analysis, we point out the following with respect to social support provided by community currencies; (1)while the transfer of social support by community currencies are not something that affect the quality of lives of all users in a significant way, it is something that makes users aware that it is surely related to their lives if they become conscious.(2) community currencies are peripheral and supplementary support sources for many local residents and so forth; and this paper asserts that community currencies are effective as a system to provide social support to local residents.