Thank you for reaching out to the founding team of the Buy Nothing Project. We’d love to respond to every email, but it’s not always possible because of the volume of email we get. We hope this page is helpful. Please read through the list below, where we hope you’ll find an answer.
THE BUY NOTHING PROJECT is an international network of local Buy Nothing gift economy groups. This movement is supported by many Freesources, including a free BuyNothing app, a freely-offered Buy Nothing Academy, volunteer librarians, and a library of public copyright resources available to everyone around the world. Our website and email address connect you to the Buy Nothing Project founding team, but not to individual local Buy Nothing community leaders.
ISSUES WITH YOUR GROUP? If you’ve written to us regarding issues in a local group, please understand why we cannot reply: The Buy Nothing Project acts as an international resource for people who want to set up their own gift economies. All Buy Nothing Project groups are locally created and managed. Local group leaders are solely responsible for what happens in their groups. If you have an issue with your local admin or a member, please reach out to fellow group members and work on your local concerns as a community. We have Member Resources for you, if you need further assistance. And, if you have questions about our rules and mission, you can also check out our Fine Print document that is an explainer for the Project rules and mission.
LOOKING FOR YOUR BUY NOTHING COMMUNITY? If you’ve written to us asking for help to find your local Buy Nothing Community, to give away an item, or to ask for an item, please visit Join Buy Nothing. We have a list of Buy Nothing communities around the world, with links to each community’s portal.
TROUBLE JOINING YOUR BUY NOTHING COMMUNITY? If you’ve written to us because you’re waiting to be admitted to your local Buy Nothing Project group, please understand that only the local admins of each group have access to their Facebook group membership queue. It can take local admins several days to add prospective members. Check your Facebook Private Messages, including your “hidden” message requests and spam or filtered message folders. If there’s no message waiting for you from an admin, send a message to each person listed as an admin on the group’s public Facebook page. If you have a friend in the group, ask them to tag the group’s admins in a post to the group asking for help. You can also join the BuyNothing App community and you have the option to start your own group if the leaders of your community group are unresponsive.
EQUITY: If you’ve written to us regarding issues of equity, inclusion, and justice within your local group, please see our statement. Please also check out the Equity Team’s Community Agreement, which is available to each group to support this critically important work. If your local group is resistant, we encourage you to bring our public statements and resources to your group. We encourage you to ask your community and fellow Buy Nothingers to step up and engage in this human rights work. You also always have the option of starting your own equitable and inclusive Buy Nothing group for your community.
OUR BOOK: If you’ve written to us with questions about our mission, philosophy, and history, we encourage you to read the book we’ve written to empower everyone to nourish a gift economy and Buy Nothing philosophy in their daily lives. We are available for speaking engagements and for book group discussions. We love to connect with readers of our book, so if your book group or Buy Nothing community is getting together via Zoom to discuss our action plan, we’d love to join you if our schedules allow.
ARE YOU GIVING SOMETHING AWAY OR ASKING FOR SOMETHING? Join the Buy Nothing community in our free app! We’re in beta testing now, rolling out to more communities all the time. Learn more here.
BUY NOTHING COMMUNITY LINK DOESN’T WORK? There are a variety of reasons a link on our Join Buy Nothing may no longer work. You can complete our List Your Gift Economy form to send us updated information if the URL for your Buy Nothing community needs to be corrected. If you’re hoping to join a Buy Nothing community listed on our Join Buy Nothing page and find a broken link, you can access your local Buy Nothing community in our free BuyNothing app. Join our waitlist now and we’ll let you know as soon as it’s available.
BUILD YOUR OWN BUY NOTHING COMMUNITY: If your neighborhood doesn’t have a Buy Nothing Project community yet, if you’d like to start your own local variation of a Buy Nothing Project group, or if you have an issue with an existing group that can’t be resolved, we encourage you to set up a new group of your own or join the BuyNothing app. The worldwide network of Buy Nothing gift economies includes many that overlap with each other geographically, as well as Local Variations that serve specific populations or communities. We welcome this growing diversity and complexity.
ARE YOU A BUY NOTHING COMMUNITY LEADER WITH QUESTIONS? Please review our Freesources on the website and feel free to contact a Buy Nothing Librarian.
COVID-19: If you’ve written to us regarding issues around COVID-19, please know that the co-founders of the Buy Nothing Project share your concerns about COVID-19 and how we can legally and safely help each other during this pandemic. You can read our full public statement about COVID-19.
Thanks for writing to us. We hope you’ve found something helpful in this reply.
Yours in Buying Nothing,
Liesl & Rebecca,
co-founders of the Buy Nothing Project