Funding

Welcome!

Outlined here is an opportunity to fund the scaling of Streetbank, a proven initiative, set up as a registered charity (charity no. 1159505) that is already making a difference to thousands of lives and hundreds of communities.

Quick Summary

Streetbank is a pioneering website that helps to build community spirit in neighbourhoods around the world.

The idea is simple. Streetbank connects you with neighbours living within a mile of you to share things and skills. It enables neighbours to help each other – helping to release generosity that would otherwise be locked up. At the time of writing (September 2014) our membership is strongest in London, Bristol, Cairo and Melbourne and a handful of other cities around the world. 

Last year 6,000 neighbours met through Streetbank to carry out neighbourly acts of kindness. This year we are on track for more than 30,000 people to meet saving more than £500,000 in the process.

By the end of 2016 we expect 150,000 people to be meeting and saving £2.5m. This little video gives a picture of how it works… 

The Challenge

Streetbank started out and achieved proof of concept through contributions from its founders. Streetbank is building a base of regular donors from its membership which will cover £4,000 per month of core costs but needs a further £6,000 per month to reach a scale at which its members can fund the project in its entirety.

Why does Streetbank matter?

Through Streetbank people share all kinds of things from giving away sofas, to lending ladders, to helping out with dog-walking. These small acts of neighbourly kindness have all kinds of positive effects:

·         They save people money -  the average saving per meeting is £33. Many of our members are in real need. In fact, 40.1% of requests sent on Streetbank come from 30% most deprived households. 

·         They are good for the environment – the sorts of things that are shared on Streetbank tend to be high carbon items like furniture and garden or kitchen equipment. This reduces our members’ consumption and keeps things out of landfill.

·         They create happier, friendlier more connected communities – in some areas there are more than 800 households sharing with their square mile.

Streetbank also matters because of the way it changes our relationship with the things we own. Giving enables us to hold on to what we have less tightly. Streetbank also changes the way we see our neighbours.  We believe that neighbourhood sharing changes the nation’s perception of neighbours – each act of kindness moves our thinking of neighbours as people who are noisy or a nuisance to people who are “surprisingly good”. 

History and Credibility

Track record: Ranked by The Times as one of 50 websites you can’t live without, we are now the largest hyper-local neighbourhood sharing website with a membership of 55,000 members (Sept 14) and we are growing by 8% a month. 

Monitoring: We have a sophisticated monitoring system so we know precisely how our efforts are working and can closely monitor the level of neighbourhood sharing through the site and in particular geographies. This allows us to take an action, observe its impact and learn.

Team: The team is led by Sam Stephens, who is also the founder of Macaulay Search a charity headhunting business and Kate Groves who was previously Marketing and Communications Manager at The Big Lunch, the highly successful initiative to encourage people to hold street parties. The team is overseen by a board that includes Mark Campbell, Commercial Director of Higgidy, a £15m food manufacturer and Nicole Vanderbilt, European MD, Etsy.

How will the funding be used?

We will use the funding in three ways.

Project 1 - web development: To develop the website that will make Streetbank easier to use especially on mobile phones, more useful and more viral by integrating with social media (£40,000)

Project 2 - champions and targeted regional campaigns: We will galvanise our most active members who are keen to grow and activate their neighbourhoods by training and equipping them. (£25,000)

Project 3 - social media and PR campaign: We will work to inspire the media by identifying and developing events and stories that change the nation’s perception of neighbours – to move our thinking of neighbours as people who are noisy or a nuisance to people who are “surprisingly good”. (£15,000)

Our key metric is the number of neighbours who meet through Streetbank. Together, the projects listed above will raise the growth rate from 3% to 10% and enable the number of people meeting to grow from 1,500 per month to more than 4,000 per month. At this level Streetbank members will be saving more than £65,000 every month. 

How can I be involved?

For more details or to meet Sam to talk more please write to sam@streetbank.com

Our vision is for neighbourhoods that look and feel like this...