I joined this group awhile ago as I had an idea that was along the lines of a time bank. I don't think I've shared it with this group, just looked over this site to see if something like this might already exist.
I'm not in a position to do much with this, but, I thought I'd put it here. Maybe someone has some ideas.
I've been involved as a board member of a neighborhood association. President Obama started out as a community organizer, not the same thing, but, it was also engagement at a local level. A pretty constant topic at our board meetings was how to raise money and build community. Some funding came from grants of one sort or another, but, usually the grants were for a specific purpose, often for a specific area within the neighborhood. Also, grants usually have requirements to submit progress reports on how the money was spent, progress, etc. It involves some work to do this. As a grass root volunteer organization, keeping any sort of project together is tricky. You also have to anticipate the need for the grant, submit proposals and wait. Sometimes situations just arise that could use some attention now rather than later. That it why we were always on the lookout for ways to raise money that was free of a lot stipulations.
Here is an idea I thought of and thought through a little as a result of that. It might help raise some money, but, could also help build community by crating local connections and bonds. It is not something our organization could hope to try to pull off on our own, but, perhaps if it could be made to work our organization and many others could use it. It is actually a couple already existing ideas put together in a little different way. There are some technical hurdles involved and possibly some legal issues as well. An organization such as the Obama Foundation will certainly have many people with many talents attracted to it. Within this group there could easily be people with the needed expertise to look into these issues and come up with a solution to them or know conclude that it is unworkable.
This is an idea that groups such as neighborhood groups might be able to use to generate operating funds, create community, increase membership, etc.
The idea requires some software development. I had looked into the possibility of using crowdfunding to raise money to pay for programming. Maybe grants could be used as well I ran the idea by
http://ioby.org/, a crowdfunding site for local environmental initiatives (community building is considered environmental by this group.) They liked the idea and said it would be a good fit for their site. I also ran it by a local software development company and they said it was too small a project for them and suggested looking for others who share a passion for this to do the development. At this point as I'm not sure where to look for other software developers either for hire or programmers who like the idea. I developed some software and set it up on
http://sourceforge.net/. I got some help there, but, I did most of the programming (with lots of help from people in a number of software development discussion groups. It also took a long time.
It wasn't something that the members of the board of the neighborhood organization could handle on their own. I was also pretty heavily involved in elder care issues at the time and still don't have enough time or talent to devote to it.
There is also a potential legal issue. More lack of time and talent. I talked to someone about it and he said what I was thinking about was similar to something called time banking which has been around for quite some time. I see that it was used extensively, I think in Spain and other places in Europe after the recent currency collapse. It served as sort of an alternative currency since no one had any money. It is also similar to bartering. That is where the legal issues could come in. Some could view this idea as a scheme to avoid taxes. That was never what I had in mind, but, I can see how it could be viewed this way. Somehow a system would have to be developed that accounts for and sees to it that transactions that need to be taxed and the whole thing is properly reported, etc. Also, if services are involved, there needs to be some way to insure that the people offering any services are actually qualified to do so.
This idea also used a bit of software. It sort of allows people to bid on goods and services of (in this case) offered by people and businesses in their neighborhood. It is sort of like ebay or that sort of thing. Possibly, someone could contact an online auction place like ebay [my personal view is that working with ebay/paypal at the present time would be like making a deal with the devil] and they could provide a special adaptation to their site/services for this sort of thing and maybe handle any custom programming, etc.
Anyway, here is the idea:
The idea is that businesses in the neighborhood as well as residents/groups and others outside the neighborhood could donate their services or goods to the neighborhood association and residents of the area could bid on the items with the proceeds going to the neighborhood association. I got the idea from a silent auction that Fountain Street Church has used to raise money. The difference is this would be online. It would sort of be like a combination of Groupon and ebay.
This idea will take a lot of time and effort to setup as it involves creating some software. However, the idea is that the software will be designed to be readily modified for use by other neighborhood associations in the first place, plus it will be open source so it is freely available to other neighborhood organizations to use and modify I'm thinking that work could be farmed out all that work by hiring a software company through donations from crowdfunding or a grant because the software will be able to be used lots of other places. Potential donors and grant sources could be from outside our area as it could be used many other places.
The idea is that businesses in the neighborhood as well as residents/groups and others outside the neighborhood could donate their services or goods to the neighborhood association and residents of the area could bid on the items with the proceeds going to the neighborhood association. I got the idea from a silent auction that Fountain Street Church has used to raise money. The difference is this would be online. It would sort of be like a combination of Groupon and ebay.
For businesses this would:
Provide both free advertising/promotion of their products or services
Let people get an feel for quality of service for ongoing services (hair care, auto service, training and classes, etc.)
let people know they are supporting the neighborhood and building community
For businesses and professionals with established rates for services and items this besides being a nice gesture it is probably tax deductible
For residents and groups this would:
Let people share and maybe even teach some of their special interests in support of the neighborhood
partake in things they enjoy
help the neighborhood and build community
Besides raise money through the winning bids the process would also increase funding by:
Gathering contact information including email to inexpensively send newsletters, surveys, recruitment efforts, etc. or;
Raise money immediately
by requiring some level of membership to participate in auction
Gathering contact information including email to inexpensively send newsletters, surveys, recruitment efforts, etc.
Simply be content to gather contact information including email to inexpensively send newsletters, surveys, recruitment efforts, etc.
This will require some software and this will take some money. The idea is for the software to be open source and configurable so that other neighborhood associations and community groups could set it up for their needs. It should be some sort of module that can be easily integrated into whatever sort of web presence(s) that the neighborhood association is using (ie standard website, Wordpress site, Facebook, Google+, etc. By using this approach funding could come from:
Grants for community projects from sources outside of this community as it could be used in the grantee's community as well
Would be a good fit with crowdfunding, which may require less administration and red tapes as through the grant process. The funding could come from donations outside of this community for the same reason as above and could come from both businesses that see they might benefit as well as individuals, both ordinary and philanthropic and even other neighborhood associations.
This could further help increase membership and donations by combining it with a mobile app.
Fliers for various neighborhood events could be posted at local businesses and in the newsletter, which would have a Qr code with more information on both the events and to install an app to participate in the auction process (as either a buyer or seller) that will require a valid email to activate:
Be content just having contact information and simply allow them to use app or,
Require some level of membership to use
Some potential issues:
Goods and services for auction should probably require some oversight to insure that:
If service etc. requires any sort of licensing, certification, etc. that the person/business/group has it
Ensure that goods/service is widely considered acceptable and legal
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