The idea that neighbors can share their resources efficiently is not new, however there are very few examples of successful initiatives to date. Many sharing schemes failed after only a few years. A successful example of such a model is StreetBank, a platform in England that is growing steadily. We took a moment to chat with Sam Stephens, StreetBank's founder,
about the reasons for the site's growth.StreetBank
is an online platform that allows neighbors to collectively share items they possess individually. After having launched in April 2010, the site is growing steadily and is gaining several hundred new members every month. At the time of writing, StreetBank counts 19,000 members in total, mostly in the UK (80%), and has some small groups of members in other countries as well, especially in Washington State, Sydney and Iran. Its' evident international appeal shows that the site can be used everywhere and by everybody. Still Sam Stephens, the site's founder, is mainly focusing on the UK for the time being.
Garage Days
The project was self funded for the first 18 months until support was secured from Nesta, which allowed Sam to devote more resources to the project. The project has also been growing thanks to its passionate users who have been spreading the word about this helpful website. Last year the site got 100,000 unique visitors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3bxkKkn2cc
Building a community
The main focus of the project according to Sam is to build trust in the community. This seems to be working well since to date there have been no reports of theft or damage to the objects being borrowed. Besides community building, the site also reduce the over-consumption of resources, since it allows entire streets of neighborhoods to share for instance one drill or one set of hedge trimmers, instead of each having their own (hence the name). It seems that a problem some other neighborhood sharing sites have had is that, surprisingly, many people don't actually want to have contact with their neighbors. Despite all the rhetoric about community building, neighbors can't find good enough reasons to connect with one another. Maybe it's because they have had bad experiences in other neighborhoods or perhaps they just want to remain anonymous in the world of CCTV and online IDs. The fact is that
sharing sites require neighbors to enter into a short term informal contract with people they will have to (at least once) see again.
Maybe they are afraid of establishing contact with an exasperating, complaining or weird neighbor who now knows them and has an excuse to talk to them in public, under the watchful eye of other neighbors and CCTV. So the problem is, perhaps, that sharing involves more than one encounter, and this is where StreetBank excels.
Priming the Pump
StreetBank also allows users to simply give things away as well as share them. This gives people the chance to meet their neighbors first, in an encounter that may or may not lead to further contact. Perhaps if you give something away to your neighbors and then later receive something in return you will then be ready to embark on a sharing experience.
StreetBank's Future
An interesting observation that the StreetBank team has made thus far is that users acting as givers have been twice as active as lenders. Sam believes this is because it's nicer to give something away and also because lending something requires organizing two meetings, whereas giving something away only requires one. In my own time-strapped London neighborhood, there appear to be more givers than lenders. Nonetheless, people are meeting and exchanging actively, and membership is growing at a rate of 800-1000 new users every month. StreetBank plans to be translated into different languages as well in the future, making it more accessible to the rest of the world.
Sharing for Profit
There are other approaches to neighborhood sharing that are more lucrative than StreetBank but, for this reason, lack the core value of building trust in the long term. Again, few platforms have been successful since, in comparison to cars and houses, the sharing of small objects only brings in little rent revenue. Zilok, however, has managed to gain some traction, due in part to its car sharing platform. Neighborhood car sharing platforms such as WhipCar also attract users, but transactions are organized through the site and thereby limit the user's autonomy and leave little to chance or trust. With objects of such value however, it is to be expected that people are not ready to share expensive objects without the guarantee of an intermediary -- but perhaps they will be one day. Hopefully marketplaces like StreetBank will prepare the ground for neighborhood and other types of asset sharing without a middleman to become more established. photo credit header image: JohnnyEnglish via photopincc