Title
Brief description
The purpose of Nappi Naapur is to increase real encounters between people who live close to each other. It is intended for neighborly help, getting to know each other, gig work and promoting the sharing economy. Everyone is welcome to become a user! However, children under the age of 13 need to be accompanied by a guardian who monitors that the use is safe.
In Nifty Neighbor you can meet people near you - people you would not otherwise know. You can ask help for taking your dog out, find friends for your children, borrow tools, offer fishing company, help your neighbor, and find someone to appreciate receiving the leftover of their family dinner.
Nifty Neighbor is a map and location based social web service. In Nifty, everyone has their own location, home, on the map. It is close to other homes, and everyone can send messages on the map, and answer to other people's messages. People can meet each other, with their needs and resources. Communication is positive. People ask and get help, they employ each other, get to meet each other, and create projects together. Neighborhoods become generally nicer places.
Keywords
Wellbeing; Sharing economy; social innovation
City/Country
Time period
From 2015
- Ongoing initiative (continuous service)
- Recurring initiative (was or is still being repeated)
Lever(s)
Methodologies
World Region
Scale(s) of the case analysed
Target audience and dimension
Domain(s) of application
Context addressed
Solution applied
Challenge addressed/ Problem-led
Barriers addressed
Main Practices
Impact
Co benefits
Engagement Journey
Impact to climate neutrality
Nifty Neighbor does not have a direct organized relation to climate neutrality. The users are free to use the service as they see most useful and interesting. However, sharing economy (e.g. lending utensils to neighbours), avoiding food waste and ride sharing are among the topics seen in the service.
Nifty Neighbor could contribute to behaviour change, climate communication and new forms of collaboration and ways to organize activities.[1] This is because it is a way of meet new people and also find out what types of activities they have going on. This could lead to a conversation about energy saving equipment at home or car-pooling.
Context & Public policy of reference
Innovative approach(es) addressed
- Co-creation & prototyping new approaches
- Funding new approaches
Initiator
A non-profit association Yhteismaa, specialized in urban culture and communality, has ideated the service, initiated the crowdfunding campaign, implemented the service and applied financial support for continuity. The same association has initiated other urban events (Cleaning Day and Dinner Under the Sky).
Stakeholder networks and organisational model
Stakeholder | No. of people | Role [accountable, consulted, informed] |
Yhteismaa ry | 3 | Initiator; Developer of the service |
Citizens (neighbours) | 2500 in 2019 | All content in the service and ways to use the service comes from the users, i.e. citizens |
Companies | About 700 people and organizations participated in financing the completion of the first version of Napi. | Companies may promote local events and services on the platform for a fee |
Financing organisations | Financing further development of the service and potentially some operational costs |
Democratic Purpose
Participant Recruitment
Interaction between participants
Resources
Key enablers
Economic: Initial financing from crowdfunding, awards and project funding, non-profit running the service
Social: Mission of the non-profit to promote participatory society; Interest of citizens for communal activities and sharing economy
Technical: Digital capabilities of the initiator; Location-based service; Easy UI
Key inhibiting factors
Economic: Continuous funding may be required for maintenance and further development of the service, but also for boosting communality and thus use of the service
Social: Lack of interest from citizens, competing solutions (other social media groups)
Technical: A separate solution from other daily social media use
Drawbacks/pros/cons of the solutions (after implementation)
- During the first months after the launch of the service, there were technical problems for users in signing in.
+ During the COVID-19 crisis a special Corona Help category was established, and thousands of people joined the platform and offered their help to those neighbours in vulnerable positions.
Scalability
Basically the service can already be used anywhere by anyone. However, a critical mass of users living in the same area/neigbourhood is necessary to create active communication and sufficient scale so that offers and requests on the platform would reach interested users.
Key lessons
Main positive lessons/opportunities identified
- Successful crowdfunding for implementation
- Easy to use and low threshold to join, open to all
- Builds completely on voluntariness and spontaneity, flexible, non-binding
- Thousands of people joined the platform and offered their help to those neighbors in vulnerable positions in a special Corona Help category that was established in 2020 (https://futures-project.org/project/nappi-naapuri/)
Main failures/barriers identified
- Having too few users in a neighborhood hampers the potential benefits of the service. Difficult to reach sufficient number of active users. May be necessary to engage an existing community or to launch a pilot to gain active use, also to ‘recruit’ someone to organise occasional events and campaigns.
- Reliability and privacy may be of concern (e.g. how to ensure it’s safe for an elderly to meet a person offering to help)
(Sources - theses for universities of applied sciences:
Indicators
No information publicly available, but the number of users and messages on the platform are assumed to be monitored.
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