One year on from launch and the progress we’ve made is quite incredible. What’s next for team neighbourly?
One year ago we officially launched neighbourly.com at a small gathering in Bristol. Our Founding Partners were most generous in their support – Marks and Spencer calling us “a perfect way to elevate community support” and Starbucks adding that “the neighbourly platform is really powerful for us”. The Bristol Post, Bloomberg and Forbes Magazine proceeded to write lovely things and whilst you were all enjoying your summer hols, we furrowed our brows with regional pilots and feature-scoping.
I’m delighted to say that we’ve ticked off most of the wish-list. Starbucks’ #neighbourlynoise Christmas campaign proved our platform could deliver a community engagement programme at scale. We’ve launched ‘Group’ functionality, helping companies collaborate on issues of common interest. Two months ago we switched on Phase 1 of our Food functionality, designed to help companies re-distribute surplus food alongside offers of funding and employee volunteering. And this week we’re launching all-new project pages and a fully responsive site.
Our ambition has always been simple. We know that responsible companies will do even more for society if we make it easier for them. We know they’re ambitious to inspire their customers and employees to get involved and are ready to use their skills, expertise and resources to drive meaningful change. We know they want to collaborate because it’s now commonly understood that business can do more if it acts as one. And because of all this we know that a single, social platform can be an incredible catalyst for social change.
With almost £2m of funds and 6,657 days pledged for community projects so far, we've some really exciting new companies to announce in the coming weeks that will grow the pot still further, attracting the next wave of community projects. And we’re delighted to have secured new funding in order to grow the team, spread the word, grow our impact, go faster!
I'm hugely proud of what we've achieved already. But neighbourly has never been about us. It’s about you – your platform for ACTION on important local initiatives. I don’t mind what you do next: join a local project, start your own, get your company on board...But I’d be delighted if you felt inspired to DO something today that makes a difference where you live!
- Nick Davies, founder of neighbourly.com
