How can sharing a power drill with your neighbor prepare you for a natural disaster? NeighborGoods is the leading online community for local resource sharing. By designing a community of trust, NeighborGoods provides a platform for building real connections in local neighborhoods. A connected neighborhood is a prepared neighborhood.
5. How can sharing a power drill with your neighbor help you prepare for a natural disaster?
6. jordanmac101 “ Recovery from natural and other disasters does not depend on the overall amount of aid received or on the amount of damage done by the disaster; instead, social capital—the bonds that tie citizens together—functions as the main engine of long-term recovery." - Journal of Homeland Security
7. drp “ Communities with more trust, civic engagement, and stronger networks can better bounce back after a crisis.” – Journal of Homeland Security
8. srippon Mid 1960’s – 2000 saw steady decline in the % of people who agree with the statement: “ Most people can be trusted,” from 55% to 30% - Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam
My name is Micki Krimmel and I’m the founder and CEO of NeighborGoods.net. How many of you own a power drill? Raise your hand.
It might surprise you to know that the average power drill gets used for approximately 12 minutes in its entire lifetime. That’s 12 minutes before it ends up in the landfill. Obviously not the most efficient use of resources. The question I like to ask is “Do you really need the drill or do you need the whole in the wall?”
NeighborGoods hooks you up with the hole in the wall. We connect neighbors to save money and resources by sharing physical goods in a safe and fun community. We have almost 15k members across the country sharing over $3 million worth of inventory So you can lend out your lawnmower or borrow a ladder. Books, movies and video games are popular.
For every power drill that gets shared on NeighborGoods, that’s one less that gets purchased. One less power drill getting produced, purchased and eventually thrown away. There are real costs that go into that power drill. Real economic and environmental costs. If you share that power drill 10 times in one year, you are saving your neighbors $1,000 and keeping 1 ton of carbon out of the atmostphere. If you extend that out, our average user is sharing $230 worth of stuff. If all those items got shared just once per year, you’re talking about saving the community millions of dollars. And potentially keeping tons of carbon out of the atmosphere So the financial and environmental benefits of sharing are very real, they are very tangible.
But what does all this have to do with regeneration? How can sharing a power drill or a bicycle with your neighbor prepare you for a natural disaster?
According to the Journal of Homeland Security,… Recovery from natural and other disasters does not depend on the overall amount of aid received or on the amount of damage done by the disaster; instead, social capital—the bonds that tie citizens together—functions as the main engine of long-term recovery. The level of social capital in a community, the level of trust and connectedness in a community has proven to be a better predictor of long term recovery after a disaster than the amount of aid received. Connected communities are resilient communities.
We see this if you compare the recovery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to the recovery of regions of India impacted by the 2004 tsunami. The tsunami caused almost 8 times as many deaths and left twice as many people homeless but one year after the disaster, 75% of housing had been fixed and most of the fisherman had been put back to work. A year after Katrina, some neighborhoods in New Orleans were still untouched. less than half of the schools, restaurants and jobs had returned. New Orleans had way more financial resources yet still struggles to recover. According to the Journal of Homeland Security, a deficit in social capital in the region may have something to do with it.
Sadly, we’ve been seeing a decline of trust in recent decades. As we’ve become an increasingly commerical and individualistic culture in recent decades, we spend less time in community-building activities and more time shopping and building fences to protect our stuff from our neighbors.
How do we turn that around? How can a tool like NeighborGoods help rebuild trust in local communities?
First, let’s look at the definition of TRUST. I found this on Wikipedia. These are the elements required for real trust. The interesting thing about trust is that it requires a sense of vulnerability. To build real trust, you need a sense of risk. The trust fall wouldn’t mean anything if there wasn’t a risk you would fall down.
Obviously, if you’re going to lend something out to a neighbor, there is a certain element of risk involved in that. But that’s a good thing. Because when the transaction goes well (and most of them do), it’s the RISK that makes it worth while. Without risk, there can be no trust. It’s our job to mitigate that risk just enough so that the transaction happens.
There are 5 fundamentals that we follow to design a trusted network. These first is that NeighborGoods is founded on a strong belief that people are fundamentally good and trusting. This belief is core to how we work every day.
A primary tool we use to build trust in the system is social profiles
Important to give you a sense that you know who you’re sharing with. Who they’re friends with, what they care about. Photo, some personal information. It’s important to know that you’re sharing with a real person. So every item on the system is listed as Claire’s power drill or Jason’s sleeping bag. Everyone knows they are sharing with real people. We are very familiar with social networking profiles so this really goes a long way toward building trust. It does most of the job.
Peer reviews and ratings are very important. eBay really broke ground here and since then, this has become a standard to building trust in a community. By seeing the history and ratings of previous transactions, members can decide who to trust on the network.
review user and item - those show up for everyone to see
importance of tribes/groups poeple are more likely to share with folks they know (at least at first)
we are encouraging people to sign up through their company or church group where there is already a level of trust and affinity. You can also select your nieghborhood and other groups you feel connected to.
Reduce Friction. Every time there is a hiccup inthe process, you give the user time to doubt. That’s when fear and distrust creeps in. by facilitating smooth transactions, you limit fear and doubt. the smoother you can make the process, the more trust you’ll have on the network.
As an example of that, here’s what a transaction looks like on NG. We give you all the tools you need to keep track of your stuff and to share in a trusted community. Those are the 5 ways we are working to design a trusted online community.
By building a trusted online community for sharing stuff offine, we are helping to build trusted relationships in local neighborhoods. And that’s how sharing your power drill can help your neighborhood recover from a natural disaster.