The OANM Story

Created in 2011 by Donnie Maclurcan of the Post Growth Institute, the OANM emerged in response to the detrimental effects Donnie saw global capitalism having on his community. Individual trust was being eroded. Small, family businesses were being  ruthlessly undercut by online marketplaces and massive corporations that were engaging in heartless takeovers. In a system predicated on inequity and a deepening sense of ‘never enough’, the growing addiction to ‘low-cost’ products reliant on human and environmental exploitation was obviously unsustainable. It also seemed unstoppable.

In response, online, peer-to-peer exchange platforms emerged, attempting to strengthen communal exchange and other forms of solidarity. But they often proved inefficient, lacked innovation, were financially unsustainable, or were dogmatic about their exclusion of monetary exchange. Few failed to reach a critical mass of users. If they did gain popularity, they were commonly co-opted by corporate interests (for example, the ‘sharing economy’, or the specific case of Couchsurfing).

Donnie felt that a community-owned process for local exchange, rather than a platform, might offer greater immunity to co-option. And that such a process needed to build on insights from asset-based community development, human scale development, indigenous sharing circles, the Social Solidarity Economy, mutual aid, and online commerce, while complementing existing practices such as time banking, gift economics, and local exchange trading systems. More than anything, he felt that such a process must efficiently meet the full spectrum of human needs.

This is where the Offers and Needs Market is shining. Worldwide, more than ten thousand participants have benefited from the OANM’s intentional design, highlighting that there are healthy, local alternatives to exploitative global economics. Its diverse application continues to expand, from electrical cooperatives in the US, to youth groups in Zimbabwe.