StartSomeGood partners with The Sharing Engine to support collaborative consumption
Collaborative consumption is a movement sweeping the world, inspiring entrepreneurs to re-imagine how we access resources and build community, earn a living and find a helping hand.
Collaborative consumption initiatives often have a strong social dimension, either by reducing our consumption towards more sustainable levels via sharing resources or by creating social and education capital by sharing meals or knowledge. This has become an important part of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem, a model for creating change in any community.
We have seen this trend both on our fundraising site and at our events. Our Pitch Some Good event at SXSW this year was dominated by collaboration consumption initiatives, and won by collaborating learning platform HourSchool.
On StartSomeGood we have seen a number of successful initiatives in this space, from food-sharing through Real Good Food, redistributing children’s clothes to families in need through the Dandelion Support Network and sharing space and collaboratively funding young social entrepreneurs through Vibewire.
Today we are pleased to announce a partnership with The Sharing Engine to further support social entrepreneurs working in this space. The Sharing Engine provides technical infrastructure for peer-to-peer sharing networks, making it easier to implement a proven system and focus on where the real magic happens, in building a trusting community.
Ventures who raise funds on StartSomeGood will now be able to access The Sharing Engine’s platform at a significant discount, making the pathway to impact a little shorter and easier for ambitious social entrepreneurs.
As always, if you have a project you are looking to raise funds to launch or scale, please get in touch!
Photo by Jason Tester made available on a creative commons license.
Celebrating Some Wins
Real Good Food is a trading, sales, and organizational platform for cooks at home and local food artisans to discover and celebrate the good food in their own local economies. Thanks to your support, it raised $8,409 to develop a platform for any user to post and search for local food, join/create groups, and host/participate in local food events. When people can purchase foods from local artisans that they know and trust, there is full transparency in the origin of the food and, hence, the system will encourage healthier people and healthier local economies.
Reagan High in Austin, Texas is a success story—an example of a struggling high school where, after the threat of closure, students rallied against tough odds to raise test scores enough to save the school. The Brick family is determined to turn Reagan High into an inspiring example of success to rally students in struggling schools across the country. During their book release party for Saving the School: A Principal, a Teacher, a Coach, a Bunch of Kids and a Year in the Crosshairs of Education Reform, they will present a scholarship fund for promising students at the school. The funds that have been raised so far will help pay for the entire book release party and the total funding goal will go towards a new scholarship fund.
Vibewire ensures that young people are included in conversations that matter. It captures conversations that matter to young people and showcases them online so that people can engage in conversations based on what issues are most important to them. It also provides young people with a space and resources to take action on the issues that matter to them and launch their ventures. The Vibewire Hub is a co-working space that supports younger social innovators on their missions to create change. Normally, users must pay to access the Hub, but, thanks to 47 generous backers, Vibewire raised $3,270 to support three projects in the Vibewire Hub for three months.
The Center for a New American Dream promotes Americans shifting their consumption to improve quality of life and protect the environment. The Center works with organizations, governments, and individuals to help them conserve resources and support community engagement. The Center’s newest project is The Guide to Going Local—a free guide in the Community Action Kit that provides steps people can take to strengthen their local economy. The Center kept things exciting over at StartSomeGood last week, rallying in the last few days of its campaign to raise over $3,000, not only bringing the campaign over its tipping point, but also surpassing it by $720. Ultimately, the Center for a New American Dream raised a total of $8,720 that will be used to develop its Guide to Going Local.
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Social entrepreneurs, have these successful campaigns inspired you to start your own good? Do you have a social enterprise, a non-profit, or an amazing idea that needs some momentum to take off? Visit our site to find out how to start your own campaign today. Still have questions? We have answers—check out our FAQ section. What good do you want to create?
Real Good Food is an online exchange platform with a new vision: helping you and your neighbors exchange and share food.
Currently located in Durham, North Carolina and Ann Arbor, Michigan, community members can post food items, baked products, and homegrown fruits and vegetables to the Real Good Food site, and then trade and share with their neighbors.
Real Good Food’s founder, Devin McIntire, is no stranger to food-related ventures, and was inspired to start Real Good Food to promote neighborhood food communication. Below describes how his initial idea grew into what it is today:
“With inspiration from the beautiful smells wafting from his apartment neighbors’ doors, Devin realized that no matter how well he cooked, he could never make the diversity of food he enjoyed nor could he cook as often as his neighborhood combined.
Starting in 2011 with a simple email group, Devin launched Real Good Food. As word-of-mouth helped the email list grow to 130 people and all sorts of exciting food was traded, Devin realized it was time to take this vision to the next level.”
Now that Real Good Food is increasing in popularity, the team hopes to expand their services to other cities across the United States. They are hoping to raise the funds necessary to create an even better functioning website that is accessible to all community members, and supports even more trades and food meetings.
Real Good Food needs your help in reaching the tipping point of $8,000, all of which will be put into a new website design. So far, Real Good Food has raised $2,890 with just over two weeks left in the campaign and is well on its way to the $8,000 goal. Take the time to view the current website at blog.realgoodfood.org and visualize how a new and improved website will increase connections and promote food sharing in communities all over the country!
Callie Hammond
I am currently an MPA student at the University of Pennsylvania, with a focus on Nonprofit Administration. My experiences as a social worker and a teacher in the Philadelphia School District have not only made education reform my passion, but have also led me to create a start-up nonprofit organization, Library Build, which is dedicated to revitalizing and restocking public school libraries with books, technologies, and librarians. You can follow on my blog, The Start Up.
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Has this campaign inspired you to start your own good? Visit our site to learn about how to start your own campaign.
StartSomeGood’s Newest Campaigns
Uncharted Play produces products that utilize the power of play to solve important global issues including energy access, health, and climate change. The SOCCKET is Uncharted Play’s first product, a soccer ball that acts as an eco-friendly portable generator. Send the SOCCKET soccer ball to Brazil has a $2,960 tipping point that will cover the costs associated with production of the balls and implementing a play program for children in Brazil.
MOMTraders is a platform where mothers can go to trade their unused items for things they need. The goal is to have a local MOMTrader network for each county in the United States where MOMs can support and provide for each other by trading their unwanted items. The campaign’s tipping point will cover the costs of programming a basic beta site with over 3,000 functioning local trader networks.
Kinyei has two socially responsible businesses that promote social entrepreneurship—a bike tour and a training cafe, both of which work together empower the youth of Cambodia to work together to improve themselves and their communities. The bike tour stimulates the local Cambodian economy while also providing insight for tourists into what life is like in rural Cambodia. The cafe provides a space where community members and travelers can come to share ideas, news, and culture. The campaign, Coffee Cycling and Community, is raising funds to train Kinyei staff to manage these two businesses so they become locally driven and run. Kinyei needs $12,000 to implement an 18-month management training program for four high potential Cambodians.
The North Korean Human Rights Film Festival (NKHRFF) has a goal to share the stories of human oppression that are occurring in North Korea through the medium of film. The only way to ignite action is through awareness. The film festival will help raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in North Korea. Help Launch the North Korean Human Rights Film Festival. This campaign’s tipping point will help launch the film festival, covering the costs that go into securing a venue and rights for film distribution.
Real Good Food is a trading, sales, and organizational platform for cooks at home and local food artisans to discover and celebrate the good food in their own local economies. It is developing a user interface for users to post and search for local food, join/create groups, and host/participate in local food events. When people can purchase foods from local artisans that they know and trust, there is full transparency in the origin of the food and, hence, the system will encourage healthier people and healthier local economies. The campaign will help Real Good Food build a working platform for anyone’s use.
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Social entrepreneurs, have these new campaigns inspired you to start your own good? Do you have a social enterprise, a non-profit, or an amazing idea that needs some momentum to take off? Visit our site to find out how to start your own campaign today. Still have questions? We have answers—check out our FAQ section.
