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I wrote in June about the Greensboro Currency Project, which aims to create a local currency and is partly motivated by the recession's impact on local businesses.

It turns out about 80 Triad area businesses participate in a bartering system called Velocity Trade Exchange that Cathi Vogel, of Greensboro, started in 2007. (I will add here that Deep Roots Market has its own incentive program that provides its members with discounts at a number of local businesses.)

Vogel said she started the company, which is affiliated with a national business bartering organization, after learning that her brother-in-law in Wisconsin joined one.

"It just clicked," she told me last week. "The clouds parted, the lights came down and the angels started singing. I knew this is what I was supposed to do."

The exchange basically works like this: Members earn U.S. dollar-based credits for products and services they supply other members in the network. Vogel, whose company has two full-time employees and one part-time employee, earns a fee from member companies for managing the program.

"I couldn't have timed it better," Vogel said about starting the company in 2007. "We started before the recession really got going. We had time to get established and form a reputation."

Member companies benefit in that they can save money on certain expenses and attract customers who might be hesitant to spend cash on an unfamiliar business, Vogel said. But the system does not work well for companies that can't handle additional customers, don't get paid directly from clients (such as insurance agents) or provide specialty services with mostly non-local supply chains (i.e. pharmaceutical company).

I spoke today with Velocity member Lea Frederick, who started All Wrapped Up Gifts in Greensboro about three years ago. Frederick said she has used her credits to pay for brochures and business coaching. Once she earned $100 in credits for making a gift for another member's wife. She then spent those credits on boarding her dog and getting a pedicure.

"I have a lot of customers in the exchange so its been very beneficial because I might not have them as customers (otherwise)," she said.

Frederick added that she would be interested in a local currency because she already makes a lot of gift baskets from locally-sourced items. The Greensboro Currency Project differs from Velocity Trade Exchange in that the group is interested in circulating a physical currency throughout the community rather than primarily bartering services/products between businesses.

Still, maybe the Greensboro Currency Project should talk to Vogel.

"One of the things I'm trying to do is start a movement about the local economy," Vogel said. "I think there's a lot of things we can do as a community beyond barter and currency to partner and work together for the greater good."