Neighborhood placemaking initiative powered by a VRBS grant

So based on Jonā€™s and Savannahā€™s post in the Discord, I applied for and received a VRBS grant of $107/month for the proposed project that has already evolved a bunch of times.

Original proposal: Neighborhood marketplace of improvements, with some neighbors posting things in the neighborhood that need fixing or could be done for better placemaking (fix a light, paint a bench, plant a tree, etc.), an app deciding how much to pay for it, and some other locals doing the thing and getting paid.

Issues: After talking with some friends (locally and at Cabin), I accepted some very good points, main one being that monetary motivation from the get go creates a not-so-great incentives structure by making it all about the money and negating intrinsic motivations. For example, several friends told me that they want to thank me for the dinners and community building by improving the space I open up to them (my apartment) and creating art there.

Evolution: Based on the feedback, I scheduled a Buidl Day for next Saturday (and probably another one during the week for those who canā€™t make it) at my place. I made a few suggestions of things I could use help with. Of course, Iā€™ll have some cool food for them. And will use the grant money to buy supplies. Iā€™m also going to post a request for supplies in a neighborhood local group and am trying to get a dedicated space in a community center to serve as a tools and supplies closet for the neighborhood.

Documentation and Coordination: Weā€™ll make sure to take plenty of pics and videos of Buidl Day. Iā€™m creating a WhatsApp community with various channels to coordinate this (crowdsourcing the name among my friends). The Results channel will also be duplicated in IG. The goal is to start with a few friends and use the results to bring more and more people into it until it snowballs.

Smart rewards: My current thought is to eventually reward some contributions and ideas with money, NFTs, and other prizes. But to do so in a decentralized manner by awarding everyone who makes a contribution some reputation points so that they can vote on distributing the prizes. Iā€™m also thinking of letting people create art to reward each other with. In short, I want to use this as onboarding into DAOs and NFTs. The example of CABIN as a non-sellable token meant to be gifted to others as appreciation of their contribution is very inspiring, so thinking about something like that. Longer-term, would love a local currency for the neighborhood, pending legality checks.

Tech stack: WhatsApp and IG for now, but a friend has developed a neighborhood app (kinda like next door but also for bringing attention to what needs fixing). Itā€™s not ready for what Iā€™m doing yet, but I envision moving to it later on.

Moonshot goal: To develop a local cooperation model + app that can be used by other Cabin neighborhoods as both a social backbone of the Network City and a lead gen/marketing tool for Cabin.

So thatā€™s it in a nutshell. And itā€™s bound to go through many iterations. So letā€™s start right now: What would you add to this? Change? Any feedback is welcomed.

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I also got the vrbs grant! My goal is to make my park more hangout-friendly. First step is to put in some picnic tables, and if that goes well I might try for a roof/shade structure over them.

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Love this! Itā€™s awesome to se the grant starting to impact how you think about neighborhood building. This will be a good experiment to see if we should figure out a more formal / expanded grant program in the future.

Excited that youā€™re starting with a buidl day, let us know how it goes!

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What progress have you made?

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@Dahveed so much has happened since we talked last about this! Youā€™re fucking crushing it, my guy! Wooohooo!

I need the playful videos and pics of this situation. Canā€™t wait to see them.

So many gorgeous possibilities in your vision. I feel really honored to be a part of the same network as you as youā€™re building this. Itā€™s so freaking cool and could make a serious difference.

I love that your people are gonna start with your home i.e. the current third place for your community, the makeshift community center. I love that by each of them helping theyā€™ll likely feel a greater sense of ownership over the space.

I could see you use this gathering as an opportunity to offer your space up to the group as a venue for community gatherings. LIke let the home improvement projects be a function of the third place you all envision. You can ask them: What sort of events and gatherings would be fun in the space? What projects could facilitate that? What does Haifa need? How could we make this space facilitate our communitiesā€™ intentions better?" Weaving these conversations in when it feels right and is in the groupā€™s flow + you being like ā€œoh hell yeah letā€™s do that right nowā€ can really get things moving. I reached out to Zu who runs the third space at Fractal (Merlinā€™s Place - I visited a few weeks ago) to have a call with you to support.

Waiting with bated breath for your update about next Saturday. Stoked for you and excited to hear what you learn.

Very questionable progress tbh. Scheduled BUIDL day for two days to accommodate people (this coming Saturday and Sunday - so soon!) but getting no input on needed materials and few confirmations of people coming.

So Iā€™m very nervous and frustrated. Will individually reach out today to try to get more clarity because I need to get the materials and it feels too late already.

On the bright side, the tools library already exists in my neighborhood in exactly the place we were thinking of hosting it ā€” local community center close to me. My friend who works at one of these community centers will talk to the person in charge of this local one today about it.

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Yes to ALL of this! Thank you - and excited to talk to Zu too.

Btw, forgot to mention, but one friend who just got an apartment in my neighborhood with a big rooftop and garden is set on making a CSA there (her background is in agriculture and such).

So that idea is coming up from a back burner to a front burner.

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@grin What progress have you made on this?