In the same week, a banana and a boat were given away by neighbors. In her local Buy Nothing group in Seattle, neighbors share what they have to give, up for grabs to whoever wants or needs it.
If you want to join a Buy Nothing group, try to offer something up or ask your neighbors first. Users are required to give and receive without restriction. Everything is worth the same. Next to dryer lint and chicken feces are bikes and boats.
The banana and boat are just gifts, and they are a way to connect with your neighbors. They are actually equal.
There are 7,000 Buy Nothing communities in 44 countries, from a group for New York's Chinatown to a suburb of Reykjavk.
The Buy Nothing Project is a success story of digital community-building on Facebook that blossoms offline. The project grew organically and exploded in popularity during the Pandemic, now having more than 5 million members. There are 7,000 Buy Nothing communities in 44 countries, from a group for New York's Chinatown to a suburb of Reykjavk.
Buy Nothing is facing a dilemma: should they leave Facebook behind? The platform allowed Buy Nothing groups to spread across the globe. It has posed an increasing number of problems, from reaching people beyond the walls of the social network to moderating bloated, disconnected communities.
The Buy Nothing Project launched a mobile app in November to solve those problems, and they hope it will be a sustainable option long term. The project co-founders formed a public benefit corporation, ShareThing, in 2021, and raised money from friends and family to fund the app's development. Clark and Rockefeller had been approached by potential investors before, but finally felt ready to build their own platform.
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Users are encouraged to ask their neighbors for help.
Buy Nothing Project is an image.
The app tries to solve headaches that have been dealt with while using Facebook. It's difficult to know how many Buy Nothing community members there are because most of the groups exist on Facebook. Volunteers must count memberships using a spreadsheet and log them for each of the thousands of groups. The admins of groups have to go through the steps of creating groups, manually adding new members, and come up with geographic boundaries before people can start giving and receiving items.
Asking 7,000 groups to try a new platform presents its own issues. The thousands of Buy Nothing groups follow the same manual and guiding principles, but each is responsible for its own. There are different rules of engagement for different administrators. Some people who work or go to school in the area are allowed to join a group on Facebook, even though the exact boundaries of where they must live are not always clear. There are regular community events in the neighborhood that might not be available in a nearby area.
The app creates a borderless experience with the individual user at the center. The app uses a person's location and distance preferences to create a circle with other users nearby. The role of admins on Facebook has been redefined, as they are responsible for even the most tedious of tasks. Anyone who takes a training course can become a community builder, whose job is to model best practices and facilitate activity.
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The Buy Nothing app creates a borderless experience that is different from what Facebook groups have.
Buy Nothing Project is an image.
Clark admits that this in-between period is a little awkward. Thriving communities might feel threatened by another space with the same mission.
Clark says that at times people will feel like there is only room for one group. If we do this over and over and over again, we won't need an app or a Facebook groups. We will be doing it in real life.
The Buy Nothing app only has 166,000 downloads as of late December, but Clark says it is growing by 5 percent week to week.
Eddie Chang, a moderator of a Buy Nothing group on the Upper East Side in New York, said that some administrators felt the addition of the app might unnecessarily complicate a system that was already working well. If funding dries up, the project could be in a tough spot because it needs the money to cover increasing costs.
He says that you already have a rich product that you created, and you have people who have skin in the game as owners of their own individual communities within the umbrella organization. If donations dry up, how does that change the philosophy?
Money is a key question in this new chapter, even though buying and selling aren't allowed in the Buy Nothing universe. Clark and Rockefeller have covered all costs associated with the project since day one, even though it is free to participate. In December, the Buy Nothing website had a banner asking supporters to chip in.
Clark wants to see volunteers compensated for the time and skills they've already devoted to keeping groups afloat, and the fine print currently allows for admins to have a "gratitude jar." The topic of compensation has been controversial, with many administrators against it.
Do I need to work 40 hours a week? I don't. It is a labor of love.
Clark thinks there are people who believe that an endeavor like this should be free. We can't earn a living and just give away all our time. We need to feed our families.
The administrator of the Upper East Side group doesn't think he should be paid for his work. Chang believes that Buy Nothing can remain a safe, influence-free space if money doesn't change hands. He says the reward is meeting and building relationships with the people around you.
Do I need to work 40 hours a week? He says no. It is a labor of love.
Clark and other project co-founders encourage keeping the Facebook group and app active if it makes sense for the group. Chang suggests that members try out the app or crosspost items. Most admins don't say anything about the app or the platforms.
Chang says they are trying to embrace it. We are not getting out of it yet, so it is not fully adopted. It is in early days.
I will have to tell people the water is fine. You don't know who your neighbors are.
The transition away from Facebook to something custom built for the Buy Nothing mission is excited by admins likeKatylin. The move helped her prepare to leave Facebook, a platform she has spent countless hours on while building a community.
The water is fine on the app. You don't know who your neighbors are. You will probably be comfortable enough to show all the sides of yourself in time.
Clark says that a fresh platform owned and operated by people dedicated to Buy Nothing feels like a blank slate. She says the borderlessness is an attempt to correct a phenomenon of Facebook group boundaries that recreated historic redlined maps. Leadership is considering how Buy Nothing could work with states and municipalities to promote reuse and recycling.
Clark believes that the less social media platforms are used to do this work, the better. Clark believes that people are exposed to the ethos of a gift economy and that both can thrive.
Clark wants to bring about behavioral change. That is our top priority.
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