Organization Rules of the Road:

1. No selling.

   This platform is designed to move FREE goods and services to people who need them as confidentially, quickly and efficiently as possible. We do not allow companies of any kind access to the administrative backend (e.g., the databases, mass emailing). Goods and services offered to residents in need will be free. On a case-by-case basis discounts from local businesses might be shared if not otherwise available for free, at the discretion of a local volunteer community organizer, without possibility of compensation to that organizer.

2. No exclusion or discrimination.

   All organizations that sign up to use the platform must not discriminate against anyone regardless of their race, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, age, health or immigration status. Obviously, organizations that only distribute eyeglasses can join our platform and only serve those who need eyeglasses. Childcare centers can serve children only. Fantastic! That’s what we want in a collaborative platform where organizations bring their expertise and strengths. But an organization of faith A can’t only serve members of faith A, or refuse to serve members of faith B, etc. Use common sense and compassion!

3. No bosses.

   This platform is horizontal with very few exceptions. All vetted community organizations are equal to all others in data and feature access. Organization C cannot stop Organization D from participating, and cannot delete D’s posts to the front page. This prevents organizations from bottlenecking progress.

4. No spam.

   Our site allows organizers to email everyone who signed up in a community at one time with one button. That’s powerful! Don’t abuse it. Best practice is to send a once-daily email out to all [volunteers; or donors; or requesters] with a digest of helpful information for the day, including links and references to active local organizations. Exceptions to this guideline should be employed under urgent circumstances only. In order to send out an effective daily digest, an organizer can email all other organizers (only) and ask for what to include in the day’s email.

These guides below are out-of-date, because we have recently entirely re-built our platform. All of the community organizing advice is still valid, but the details of the platform need to be updated. We hope to have fresh guides up in Spring 2024.