Your private Buy Nothing group on Facebook connects you with people from your local community. Using the BN app connects you with other Buy Nothing-ers from neighborhoods around the world through Global Posts.

Each person can adjust their Community Settings in the BN app to connect with people who are varying distances away from them. You can choose a radius from .5 mile, 1 mile, 3 miles, 6 miles, and 20 miles. You can cross-post items that haven't found a home in your BN group on FB to a larger radius in the app, allowing more people to see your gift, and you can do the same thing for requests that haven't been met. You'll also be able to include people who don't use Facebook for a variety of reasons, making Buy Nothing in your community that much more inclusive. 

You only need to enter your address and any pick-up directions (such as "check the box by my front door and only come during daylight hours") once in the app, and this information will be saved privately (and you can update it anytime). Then you can use the app's private messaging to quickly share this information with people from your Buy Nothing group - your address will open in Google Maps and they'll receive any directions you've written, with a simple click from you. 

You can update your BuyNothing Community Location anytime you travel, making it fast and easy to connect with fellow Buy Nothing-ers around the world without having to leave your Buy Nothing group on Facebook. 

We welcome you and your group members in the app however you'd like to use it to enhance your Buy Nothing experience. If you and your group members post your Gives, Asks, and Gratitude to the app as well as your FB group, you'll be able to use the BuyNothing features that only exist on the app: 

You'll each have a record there of all of your own personal activity in a shareable form that easy to scroll through. This sort of personal Buy Nothing archive is useful in many ways. 

You'll be able to toggle between Scroll View (which looks more like Facebook) and Grid View (which is heavy on photos and light on text for quick visual scrolling). 

You'll be able to toggle between Active Posts (only those gifts that are still available and those requests that haven't been met) and All Posts (everything that's ever been posted in your area). 

If you and other people in your group cross-post your Gives, Asks, and Gratitude to the app, you'll be able to see your shared impact in the Community Metrics on the Community page in the app. We've learned that seeing your impact tends to motivate more Giving, Asking, and Gratitude, so this part of the app can inspire Buy Nothing action in your Facebook group.