Let the numbers do the talking?
We’ve been busy gathering stories over the past four years – like the one about Bob from Tonbridge who through Streebank struck a firm friendship with his elderly neighbour, Jill after sorting her garden and setting up her laptop or Richard from Oxfordshire who has used Streetbank to build his confidence and tackle his mental health issues.
But sometimes we find that people are dismissive of stories. They want numbers.
Fortunately, Streetbank doesn’t just produce heart-warming stories. It also produces numbers… and we’ve got an infographic to prove it…
It shows:
1. The environmental value of Streetbank. A massive 184 tons have been saved from landfill so far this year, thanks to the generosity of neighbours.
2. The social value. Streetbank breaks down social barriers and encourages neighbours to give and seek support. 1,500 people are meeting every month to do just that.
3. The economic value. Members save an average £30 for every share on Streetbank. That’s £22,000 that Streetbank are saving members every month. And our research shows that the value of everything added on the site to date adds up to an impressive £1.5m. That’s a LOT of stuff offered for free.
We’ve got one more numeric way of presenting the value Streetbank can generate.
The help that neighbours provide each other should be appreciated as a form of ‘informal volunteering’ and according to calculations recently released by the Office for National Statistics, informal volunteers provide anywhere between 1.7 and 2.1 billion hours of extra help each year.
Still, although these numbers may sound impressive, they don’t quite paint the full picture.
Numbers are often fine. Sometimes numbers are great. At other times, however, numbers might not do as good a job of revealing or measuring some really important outcomes, such as how much impact Streetbank has had on Bob, Jill and Richard’s health and wellbeing.
Sometimes words simply do a better job of capturing personal and social value, we never forget that and we always want to hear your stories.
Got a Streetbank story to tell? However small we’d love to hear it so feel free to share it below...
Comments
on November 10 2014 Lee Ewart said:
Interesting and encouraging figures, perhaps this could one day appear as a running ticker on the site?
A recent SB engagement of mine was to recommend our cleaner to someone new to the neighbourhood. Understandably this woman wanted to know anyone who could recommend someone to clean her place, Unless you know someone who uses a cleaner in the area that would be quite difficult. I saw her request and was able to help.
Aside from helping the woman asking, it feels good to be able to secure new work for our cleaner whom we are very happy with. I’ve become aware that cleaners like ours find much of their trade through word of mouth or recommendation, which – I think, reinforces trust and I’m sure both the recommendation and the work were gratefully received!
:)
on November 10 2014 Karim Eldomyati said:
Amazing work, thank you so much streetbank :)
on November 7 2014 John Boyle said:
Really interesting to see the savings people can make as well as the social and community benefits. Household budgets are really stretched and traditional sharing communities will become increasingly important. Shocking Oxfam report that 85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world. John
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