from Facebook to the BuyNothing App
Acknowledge there will be bumps in the road. Change can be hard and sometimes brings up lots of different feelings.
Transitioning from one platform to another, smoothly, can take a little time, and we recommend it. The more mindful you are with your community, available to answer questions and to point them to FAQs, the more excited they'll be to join the new independent custom app that's being built just for them. We suggest you post in your Facebook (or whatever platform you're on) group the posts, below, in their order of their appearance, one each week, for a couple months, to give people time to move over to the new platform. And, the first week, be sure to post both the Introductory Post and the Ask post, so you can have all App questions in one space in your group. That makes it easy for everyone to find the discussion about moving to the app.
How long for the transition? Many admins are taking up to 6 months to fully transition their group over to the app, partly because they want to wait until the web app is built, so everyone will be able to join, even those participants who may not have a smart phone. But if your group is not active, you can transition much faster, posting the Inactive Group post (see below) in your group and then update your group description, group banner, and set your group settings to only admins posting in the group. This will enable all of your members to see your posted invite to the app and outside neighbors to see the banner inviting them to join you in the app. Read through the Final Steps, below, and we're willing to help you do the final archiving of your group.
These are our suggested posts that you can copy, edit, and pin, over time, in your FB Group, as part of your transition to the BuyNothing app. Choose the ones that will work best for your community over time, or use them all! To save the image, right click and 'Save As'.
We now have a new option for sharing -- The BuyNothing app! You're welcome to download the app right now at https://buynothingproject.org/ The app has been custom built by the Buy Nothing Project for all of us to use and it will continue to have new sharing and community-building features added over time! This is not an either-or situation. You're welcome to stay in this group and also try out the app, to help make it even better for us all, and over time we may find that moving to the app will be a one-stop gift economy space that meets all our needs, so we can share purposefully. In the upcoming months, the app will have a web interface so you can use it on your computer and your smartphone wherever you are in the world! Please join us in the free BuyNothing app by downloading it from the App Store or Google Play. We're looking forward to seeing you there and building community on our new independent platform! Photo Description: Two young girls share their toys together. Photo Credit: Cottonbro at Pexels
We’ll be posting periodically about the BuyNothing app in this group, to keep everyone on top of the latest news regarding the app, and how the founders can better build the unique sharing platform. We’re sure you have lots of questions, so we thought we’d create this one thread here where you can post your questions and we’ll do our best to get them answered. Please know there may be lag time as we’ll relay some of them back to the BuyNothing app founders if we don’t know the answers ourselves. Also, please know that we won’t be answering questions about the functionality of the app itself as the hope is that you’ll be coming into it with no expectations - just try it out as a new sharing platform! The Buy Nothing Project website also has a Help Center and we hope you'll look up your questions there, first, as there are many FAQs there for you to check out right now: http://help.buynothingproject.org/
In the meantime, if you have other questions or thoughts to share, please feel free to do so here.
Image description - One brown masculine hand, open palm facing the camera, with the text OK? written on the hand against a white background. Photo Credit: Cottonbro at Pexels
We're all incredibly excited to share the news with you that the free BuyNothing app is now ready for you to download to start sharing immediately with your neighbors! Since this group is no longer active, we're making the app available to you now, before our global launch, as we want to be sure you have options to participate in the Buy Nothing Project directly. To learn all about it and download the app from the App Store or Google play, please 1) visit our website, 2) get into the app, 3) share the news with your community members, and 4) start Giving/Asking/Sharing your gratitude immediately! This is how we build community. Hoping to see you all in the app: https://buynothingproject.org/
Group Description:
We’ve built a new home for the Buy Nothing Project at the BuyNothing app! Please join your neighbors there by downloading the app at www.buynothingproject.org. We are no longer accepting new neighbors because we are all building community in our new app! If you’d like to join the Buy Nothing Project worldwide movement immediately, you can download the free app and start sharing with your immediate neighbors right away. If you don't see neighbors in the app yet, please spread the word and you'll have an instant gift economy!
The Buy Nothing Project launched from a single Facebook group on Bainbridge Island, WA, USA in 2013 and the movement has grown to nearly 5 million participants. We’ve come to realize we have now outgrown the technical limitations of Facebook Groups and have formed a team to build our own platform, just for you, with special sharing features that are unique to the gift economy mindset.
At Buy Nothing, we offer members a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude through a worldwide network of local gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people who are real-life neighbors. Post anything you'd like to give away, lend, or share. Ask for anything you'd like to receive for free or borrow. Keep it legal. Abide by the Community Commitment: www.buynothingproject.org/commitment
At this time, this Buy Nothing Facebook group is permanently closed and has transitioned over to the BuyNothing app. If you live here, we’d love to have you join us there so more people in our community can join the Buy Nothing movement and give where they live - This is what builds community.
Learn more about the Buy Nothing Project at http://buynothingproject.org/
This work was created by Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller and Katylin on behalf of the Buy Nothing Project. This work, www.buynothingproject.org/build/fb is licensed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.en
Q1: We've made an app for Buying Nothing! We've moved to the free BuyNothing app, available in the App Store or Google Play. Please download the app and start your local sharing there!
The last step is to fill out this form to let us know your group has sprouted to the app!