KEY FACTS

Holding Organisation: Streetbank Status: Not-for-Profit Organisation Financing: NESTA (Innovation Fund) People involved in the project: Management team of 4 people Approx. 19,000 members Public Partners: Private Partners: Variety of organisations Sources & Links: www.streetbank.com Contact: sam@streetbank.com

1. The idea

Streetbank is currently building a network of sharing communities across the UK (and further afield) because it believes that by sharing, people can strengthen their communities while saving money, reducing waste and helping the environment. It is a tool that makes it easy to share. It enables neighbours who might never have met before to make a connection by sharing their things and skills with each other, thus meeting our deep-seated need to connect to our communities.

The aim is to get people involved in their community, to foster altruism, a generosity of spirit and volunteerism. It is to help local needs to be met by local solutions. It makes sense environmentally. It helps people to reuse things, and for things that are under-used to be used more, and that all helps to reduce consumption.

It also makes sense economically. If there are 100 houses on your road and each of them uses a ladder maybe once a year to clean the guttering, they probably don’t all need their own ladder. One ladder shared between everyone should be enough.

2. The local context

Streetbank believes in the power of community. Too many of us live in neighbourhoods where we don’t know our neighbours or where people find it hard to make ends meet. Community can change this. If we choose to be a little bit more interdependent, we could actually have much richer, fuller and more interesting lives.

But to knock on an unknown neighbour’s door is a brave thing to do. That’s where Streetbank comes in. It gives a reason to make that first connection since communities that help each other are generally closer, nicer, and friendlier to live in. Streetbank can therefore help make your neighbourhood a nicer place.

3. The starting point

Streetbank evolved from a “simple” idea of its founder, Sam: the idea of lending as a means to building community. Sam began to consult with others, including Nic, who knew a lot about web creation and web design. It was here that the project Streetbank was born.

As the idea went from strength to strength, Sam and Nic realised that they needed a skilled project manager so Alice joined the team, full of inspiring ideas and the know-how to make them happen.

They forged on, working hard and well, but they knew that to develop their network of sharing communities across the UK and beyond they needed to promote it more so they searched far and wide until they found Tess, whose love of words and general campaigning creativity made her just the person for the job.

4. How does it work?

Streetbank allows you to connect with people no more than 1,000 metres within your postcode. You have three options - you can lend something (think hedge trimmer, drills, or that vintage dress you never wear); you can give something away; or you can share a skill (language lessons, guitar lessons, gardening).

Streetbank is founded on the principle that people behave in a decent, responsible and generous way. Therefore, its sustainability relies on the honesty of its members and on the ‘success factor’ of an exchange. Good results ensure that people will continue to use the site as well as give it publicity by ‘word of mouth’. Streetbank also benefits from a considerable amount of feedback from its users who communicate to management improvements or errors on the site.

Moreover, Streetbank is now established as a Community Interest Company and has decided on a donations-based model, inspired by that of Wikipedia, to help ensure sustainability. This option does not require membership or usage fees, which could deter people from joining or using the site. It is also expected that donations will generate more income than advertising or fees.

5. Participation and Governance

Streetbank has been growing fastest in areas of high trust, which tend to be middle class areas. However, some of its most active users are from less affluent areas since their need drives significant activity on the site. Streetbank has partnered with a wide variety of organisations including New Economics Foundation, Friends of the Earth, People who Share and more. It also regularly promotes other collaborative consumption initiatives via its weekly newletter, blog and social media.

Streetbank receives funding from the Innovation Fund, NESTA. It is managed by a team of four people: - Sam – Founder - Nic – Chief Technician - Alice – Project Manager - Tess – Marketing and Social Media Manager

6. Added value of the project

Streetbank uses community to tackle environmental, social and economic challenges. Primarily it has the potential to connect higher and lower income communities that, although living side-by-side, are often out of touch with one another. Therefore, its concept of sharing tools, skills, commodities, etc. is a means to foster communication, social solidarity and inclusion. By enabling the sharing (or giving away) of a wide variety of resources between people, Streetbank is also reducing the waste of both material and non-material items as well as promoting a more eco-friendly, sustainable way of living.

7. Challenges/Risks/Inertias

The three biggest struggles are: 1. A shortage of good Ruby developers – that means they cost a lot! 2. Local Government Publicity – local government love Streetbank but they are sometimes so big and uncoordinated that they struggle to publicise it to their residents 3. Culture change – people love shopping…. We need to make it as easy for people to borrow from their neighbour as it is to go to a shopping mall or to Amazon.

8. Future perspectives

We are conducting a major user testing exercise to understand our users better and to see what changes we can make to make Streetbank more user friendly. We are also working on making it easier to tell others about Streetbank and the concept of sharing with your neighbours so that Streetbank spreads more rapidly.

9. Proposals for change

It would be great if local governments could promote collaborative consumption websites more energetically. Ideally they would offer run preferred supplier competitions in which they would select one sharing website to really take hold in their area – they would provide a grant to cover the local marketing of it and use all of their channels to promote it.

10. Other Valuable Projects

I’m fond of The Amazings theamazings.org, the Good Gym goodgym.org and Blablacar blablacar.com