By Lares Feliciano for Shareable
(re-posted here with consent)

Shareable has been telling stories from the frontlines of the sharing movement since 2009. Stories of tool lending libraries, timebanks, community clothing swaps, and visions of a worldwide sharing economy. Over time, the visions have turned into realities, the seedlings into sprouting truths. It’s undeniable: the sharing movement is growing every day.

Answering the call from communities to turn words into action, we have stepped up our game since early 2013 and have fostered the growth of sharing cities by coordinating: The Sharing Cities Network, Map Jams, ShareFests, Seed Grants, Sharing Cities Fellowship and Sharing Cities Community Pages.

A big thanks from the bottom of our hearts to all the organizers and donors that contributed time and money - without you there would be no network and no sharing cities. To share a window into this work, we put together a video that tells the powerful story of our collective efforts and what we can achieve when we work together. Watch it, share it, and feel proud of the role all of you have played in making all this happen. Then scroll down to learn more about the Sharing Cities Network and how to get involved.

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We're excited to announce that the Arroyo Sustainable Economies Community Organization recently received a $700 Shareable Seed Grant to launch workshop programming for the Local Economy Incubator!

Covering topics related to sustainable economies, human scale economics and practical skill sharing amongst ASNTB members, these workshops will feature ASNTB facilitators and be available to all for time dollars. 

Over the next month we'll be working on coordinating our workshop teams and developing the curriculum. Stay tuned for more details coming soon!

Read about this round of Shareable's grant recipients and their amazing sharing economy projects HERE!

By Cat Johnson for Shareable
Published March 11th, 2014
(Re-posted here with consent)

When Sarah McGowan Dear made a career shift from doing social work to working for herself, she learned some valuable lessons.  Among them were that she would never qualify for a small business loan, and that developing relationships within her community was the best way to build her business. So, she kept building community.

“I continued to connect people” she explains, “[to] build sharing networks among civic groups, and work to bring people together to leverage social capital rather than give in to the antiquated paradigm of market competition and distrustful secrecy.”

One of the ways she connected people was through the Arroyo Seco Network of Time Banks (ASNTB) in Los Angeles. Through this work she saw how many small businesses were emerging as a result of skillshares and exchanges within the network. As project developer, McGowan Dear researched ways of “matching untapped resources with unmet community needs.” Part of this research involved a trip to the New Economy Institute in Massachusetts. It was on this trip, she says, that “the collective light bulb went off” for herself and ASNTB co-founders Janine Christiano and Autumn Rooney, and the idea for a loan fund for the time bank was born.