Short Answer: Download the app! See links at the bottom of this page and on our Join Buy Nothing page.

Or if you prefer to join a Facebook BN Group, visit our Join Buy Nothing page or go to Facebook and search your area for The Buy Nothing Project and follow directions there. And have we mentioned that you can get started right away, no searching required, when you download our free BuyNothing app? It's true. There are links at the bottom of this page and also on our Join Buy Nothing page.

You can fill out this form to let us know about a Buy Nothing group that isn't running in ways that line up with our best practices, guidance, values, ethics, etc.

Short Answer: Download the app! See links at the bottom of this page and on our Join Buy Nothing page.

Long Answer: We're sorry that it's taking so long for your volunteer local admins to add you to the Buy Nothing group. Please know that we are not in the Facebook groups and they are locally managed. Do try to reach out to the admins of the group directly. But also, you can join and help grow your local gift economy through our BuyNothing app! This free app is custom designed specifically for Buy Nothing gift economies and sharing wherever you are. Just spread the word with your local neighbors and you’ll have an instant sharing community around you. To download the app, see the links at the bottom of this page. You can also fill out this form to report the issues you're having.

Short Answer: Download the app! See links at the bottom of this page and on our Join Buy Nothing page.

Long Answer: We're sorry that your volunteer local admin removed you from your Buy Nothing group. We are not in the Buy Nothing Facebook groups, as they are locally managed. This is one of the reasons we have developed the new BuyNothing app, to take pressure off of admins and allow anyone to join their local gift economy. To download the app, see the links at the bottom of this page or visit our Join Buy Nothing page. You can also fill out this form to report the issues you're having.

Short Answer: Download the app! See links at the bottom of this page and on our Join Buy Nothing page.

Long Answer: Many of the Buy Nothing Facebook groups have a defined boundary for the sharing that goes on within the group and it’s up to the volunteer admins of that group to decide how rigorously they want to hold to those parameters. But please know that you can join and grow your local gift economy right now through our new BuyNothing app which anyone can join. To download the app, see the links at the bottom of this page.

Short Answer: Download the app! See links at the bottom of this page and on our Join Buy Nothing page.

Long Answer: Many thanks for reaching out to us. We are not in the Buy Nothing Facebook groups themselves as they are all locally run. We have lots of resources with regards to building an equitable local gift economy and the Community Agreement, written by the Buy Nothing Project Equity Team, is one that all Facebook participants, including admins, should be adhering to. We recommend reaching out to this admin, educating your community with the resources we provide below, and finding allies within your community who may speak up about these issues, too. Buy Nothing Facebook groups are for the whole community and each admin's role is to serve their community.

We have developed the BuyNothing app to empower us each to build the kind of local gift economy we'd like to see. Please know that all community members can join and grow an equitable local gift economy through the app which anyone can join.

We also encourage all gift economy participants to take our free Buy Nothing Academy online to learn how to bring Buy Nothing to life in your community. Anyone can build a gift economy, and our website provides free tools anyone can use to do this. Here are some resources specifically written for dealing with conflicts in Buy Nothing Facebook groups. You can also fill out this form to report the issues you're having.

Short Answer: Complete our Build Buy Nothing form and we'll help you get set up! The first step is to set up your BuyNothing profile in the app, so you can connect with people there too! If you're only on Facebook, you're missing out on a lot of Buy Nothing-ers. See links at the bottom of this page and on our Join Buy Nothing page.

Long Answer: If you're trying to start a Facebook Buy Nothing group, come visit our Build Buy Nothing page! It has everything you need to get started, including our free online course called there, the Buy Nothing Academy that provides you with all the resources needed to steward a local gift economy. Once you're ready to get started, fill out this form and we'll work with you to get your private group set up! This process starts with getting your profile set up on our BuyNothing app, so you can connect with and include even more of your neighbors. Our app is custom built specifically for local sharing, with features designed especially for Gives, Asks, Gratitude, and easy private sharing of pick-up directions, community impact metrics and more. To download the app, see the links below.

Short Answer: Download the app! See links at the bottom of this page and on our Join Buy Nothing page.

Shorter Answer: This is exactly what our free and independent app is for - see the download links at the bottom of this page and on our Join Buy Nothing page. You can also read our book, The Buy Nothing, Get Everything Plan, for even more information about building a Buy Nothing life offline. 

We're sorry to hear your group disappeared! This can happen for a lot of reasons on Facebook and other social media platforms, and is often a permanent action. Private groups are removed by platforms such as Facebook for various Terms of Service violations; it could have been deleted through mistaken or intentional deletion by a group admin; it could be invisible because it's turned into a "hidden" group by an admin; or it could be offline due to any number of technical glitches and bugs.

We recommend waiting a few hours in case a technical glitch or bug is preventing your access. If it's been over 24 hours and your group is still gone, it's most likely not a glitch or bug; at this point, it's more likely that the group really has been removed. Once a group has been deleted on or by a platform, it's generally impossible to get it back. That's the sad news.

The good news is that we've got everything you need to rebuild your community quickly. The fastest solution is to download the BuyNothing app, where you'll be able to connect with your community within minutes. If you want to rebuild your community on Facebook, we're here to help with that too. Click here to fill out our Build Buy Nothing form and we'll be in touch to get a new group set up for you and your community.

If the group that disappeared was a support group for Buy Nothing group admins/leaders/community builders, we hope you'll connect with us in the BN app, where we have a profile called "Buy Nothing Community" that provides shareable tips and other resources to support BN admins/leaders/community builders whose groups are on all platforms.

We've got you (and we're never gonna give you up or desert you)! Visit our Check Your Group's Documents page for all the info you need to make sure you're up to date.

And remember - if you're using the BuyNothing app to build your community, you never have to worry about outdated documents or resources - Everything you need is always right there, instantly accessible. 

If your Buy Nothing private group has documents that are out-of-date, we've got what you need to make sure all of your links work and you and your community are being supported by the most current documents and resources. Visit our Update Your Group page for everything you need. 

Our Become a Local Variation page has all the info you need for this!

If you'd like a Buy Nothing group for your neighborhood, just fill out this form and we'll build one with you! You can also fill out this form to let us know about this change so we can update our list of BUy Nothing groups.

Short Answer: No. We have not and will not close a single Buy Nothing group. 

Longer Answer: No, we're not. We're currently setting up around 30 new Buy Nothing groups each week, not closing any down. Sometimes people choose to close their local Buy Nothing groups for various reasons, but that's a choice made by each community and its volunteer Community Builder/admin team. Some groups are also transitioning to use our BuyNothing app instead of using Facebook, but again, that's at the discretion of each Community Builder/admin team and their community. 

No. We set up private groups for people every day as a freely-given gift of our labor and resources. We do ask people to consider a voluntary tax-deductible contribution, to keep our resources and platform operational and free for everyone. All told, it takes hours to set up each new group and get it running, and we currently do this work as volunteers. 

Short answer: No. You can continue using older documents if you'd like.

Longer answer to add onto that: If you'd like to use older documents that we provided via our Creative Commons noncommercial use license, you're welcome to keep doing that. Here are a few things to consider:

• If you're using an older copy of our document called All About the Buy Nothing Project, there's a good chance your version has some broken links. These broken links mean your community won't be able to access resources such as the Fine Print, which is going to make your work as Community Builder/admin much more difficult. Our new system links everyone via a "permalink" to foundational resources on our website. When you update to use these links, you'll never have to worry about updating text or links again - your group will always link to the same version of the Buy Nothing resources used by your fellow Buy Nothing-ers around the world.
• If you're using Buy Nothing documents that were offered to you with a Creative Commons license, you need to be sure you've licensed them properly. None of our Buy Nothing documents, either the original or any later derivative works, are available for commercial use. So if, for example, your documents were distributed to you by another network or entity that's building a reputation for itself by offering the same service we do and posing as an affiliate or separate version of Buy Nothing, that's a commercial use that's not allowed. All you'd need to do to fix this is retain your Buy Nothing name and documents, and make sure your documents link people back to the original source (www.buynothingproject.org) without also linking to any other website or online page/group.
• If you're using Buy Nothing documents that were offered with a Creative Commons license, you need to be sure they still have their full attribution section, including the following information and link along with the specifics included in the original that are specific to each document (license type and number, document name, etc). Here's a page with more info about licensing older versions of Buy Nothing documents.

Short answer: No. We're happy to see all sorts of Buy Nothing Local Variation groups.

Generally speaking, if you're using our name (Buy Nothing) and our documents, you're part of Buy Nothing. And we're here to support your use of our name and materials. If you have any questions about any of this, please reach out to us.

Longer answer: There are a lot of different Local Variation rules set by local group Community Builders/admins to better serve their communities. Some of these include (but aren't limited to): having defined hyperlocal geographic boundaries; having very large and undefined geographic boundaries; having a "you can only join this group if it's your only gift economy group" rule; having a "no pets or livestock can be rehomed here" rule; having a group that's dedicated to local knitters, or parents and caregivers with young kids; etc.

To be part of the Buy Nothing Project, there's a much shorter list of things your group cannot do. These include: buy, sell, trade, break the law, foment hate speech or violence, use our name or documents for any commercial purpose, and violate the terms of service of the platform hosting your group.

Generally speaking, if you're using our name (Buy Nothing) and our documents, you're part of Buy Nothing. And we're here to support your use of our name and materials. If you have any questions about any of this, please reach out to us.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of our death are greatly exaggerated. Buy Nothing is alive and well, and we're happy to say that we're still doing what we've been doing since day 1: building local gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections that forms between neighbors.

Between January 1st and February 27th of 2023 alone, we've helped local volunteer Community Builders set up over 200 new Buy Nothing private groups on Facebook, joining the 7,000+ Buy Nothing groups with 7 million+ participants. We welcomed another 119,000 people to our independent app, building a BuyNothing community of 762,000 people on that platform, in 195,328 self-defined neighborhoods around the world. In a nutshell: Buy Nothing continues to grow, thanks to each person who joins in to Give, Ask, and share without limit.

Buy Nothing will turn 10 years old this July, and we're looking forward to our second decade of building a better world. We'd love to have you join us! Visit Build Buy Nothing to get a new group started today or visit Join Buy Nothing to connect with the existing Buy Nothing community.