Sharing Communities Are Spreading Across the World Like Wildfire

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“We strongly believe that access will triumph over ownership in the long term,” says co-founder and CEO Juho Makkonen. “It was the way the world was organized before, and in many areas it will happen again. Building communities is at the very core of sharing, and also at the very core of Sharetribe,” he continues. “For most people, it's difficult to trust all the people in the world so communities help us create trust. Community is also a powerful motivator: people who identify themselves with a certain community usually want to contribute to it's common interests.”

Post-Growth Institute
With a tagline, “From bigger, towards better,” the Post-Growth Institute provides platforms for people to offer insights about sharing in an economic context. Advocates for reduction in consumption and minimizing one’s ecological footprint, the Australian-based institute supports and promotes sharing communities and prominent sharing advocates, organizes community and networking events including Free Money Day, and provides numerous articles and resources.

“By sharing more, we open up the ability for an equitable economic model to fully emerge,” says Post-Growth Institute founder, Donnie Maclurcan. “Sharing reminds us that there is enough to go around in this world, and that we don't need unhealthy competition in order for that distribution to take place. By sharing,” he continues, “dysfunctional status envy and the notion that private ownership is the epitome of a 'civilised' society can be nullified in a supportive way.”

He notes that sharing is nothing new, but we now have the benefit of technology to assist us. “The modern return to shared access models,” he says, “has the ability to place old wisdoms about custodianship into a modern context that has the new benefit of powerful digital platforms to facilitate effective sharing.”

Sharers of San Francisco
Formed to connect people interested in the new, sharing economy, Sharers of San Francisco facilitates events, dinners and Meetups where participants can meet other sharing enthusiasts, learn from each other and make connections in the sharing movement.

“What's unique about the Sharers of San Francisco,” says Chelsea Rustrum, founder of the group and author of the forthcoming book,  It’s a Shareable Life, “is that we get people together who enjoy sharing. These are the people that need to be talking: the P2P founders, Airbnb hosts, Couchsurfers, coworking mavens, car sharers and ride sharing advocates. We don't just get the peer-to-peer marketplace founders together for education chats,” she continues. “Instead, we invite users and founders to get together for largely unstructured events like Collaborative Happy Hours and Coworking Days...We get the right people talking and helping one another through conversations and potential collaborations.”

School of Commoning
The School of Commoning is a worldwide community of people participating in the local and global commons. It offers workshops, seminars and courses and has a thriving online presence to connect sharing advocates and facilitators.

“School of Commoning works to enhance individual and collective competences in the creation, protection, and governance of commons,” says George Por, co-founder of the school. “Commons are what we share in common not through ownership for private gain but through stewardship of resources needed for a good life. As we move towards a commons-based society,” he continues, “we see more and more examples of trust, reciprocity and relationships replacing the commodification of goods and services.”

He emphasizes that community-building is an essential element to creating a commons-based world.

“Building communities around sharing is a key building block of the world we want to live in,” he says. “It is the practical way to get there. Without such learning communities that don’t just talk about ideas but act as laboratories of learning and using new tools, we would just recreate the old structures that got us the mess in the first place.”