Folk.Share: Building a Sharing Network for Salt Spring Island

For years, I’ve wanted to build something for my community here on Salt Spring Island.

I’ve always loved the idea of people sharing what they already have with each other. Skills, tools, knowledge, time, a ride into town, or simply help around the house.

More recently, as I’ve started developing websites and building more complicated online systems through Folklore Creative, I realized I finally had the skills to actually make the thing I’d been imagining.

That became Folk.Share.

Folk.Share is a community sharing network I’m building specifically for Salt Spring Island. It’s a way for neighbours to share what they know, what they have that they’re willing to lend or rent, where they’re already going, what they might need help with, and the ways they’re willing to support other people around them.

For me, it feels like a natural extension of what I’ve already been doing and a chance to support the place that has supported me.

What people choose to offer

One of the things that has surprised and moved me most so far is seeing what people choose to offer.

I expected practical skills, tools and services, and those are absolutely there. What I didn’t expect was how quickly people started offering things that had no financial payoff at all.

People offering to be an ear for someone who needs to talk. People willing to spend an afternoon helping around the house. People sharing knowledge, time and experience simply because they want to help someone else in their community.

That generosity feels like the heart of Folk.Share.

Salt Spring feels like the perfect place for something like this. We have this incredibly diverse mix of creative, skilled and community-minded people on a relatively small island. So much knowledge, experience and useful stuff already exists here. Folk.Share is really about making all of that easier to see and easier to connect with.

How Folk.Share works

People can create a profile and list the things they’re able to offer.

That might be a professional service they normally charge for, something they’re happy to offer for free, a skill they’re willing to trade, or a tool or piece of equipment they’re willing to lend or rent.

If someone charges for a service, they can list their price.

They can also say what they’d be interested in receiving as a trade.

The system is being designed to help surface those overlaps automatically.

For example, someone who offers carpentry might also say they’d be interested in trading for photography. If there’s a photographer in the community who needs carpentry work and is open to a trade, Folk.Share can help those two people find each other.

You don’t need to have something to offer in order to use the platform either.

If you need something, you can post a request and Folk.Share can help surface people, tools, services or potential trades that might be a fit.

There will also be ways to share rides and errands, find community projects, message people directly through the platform, and learn a little more about the people you’re connecting with through their profiles.

A community resource, not a marketplace

I want the system to make finding each other easier without turning the community into a popularity contest.

There won’t be public star ratings or popularity scores.

Folk.Share also won’t take a commission from exchanges between members. Joining is free, and if money is involved in an exchange, that arrangement happens directly between the people involved.

I don’t want this to feel like another marketplace.

I want it to feel like a community resource.

The first 100 founding members

Right now, I’m inviting the first 100 founding members to help populate the platform before it opens more widely.

As part of that, I’m also offering free portrait sessions for founding members, ideally in the places where they actually do the things they love or offer to the community.

Part of what excites me about this project is getting to see the incredible range of people, skills and stories that already exist here.

The response from the first group of people has already made me even more excited about where this could go.

A longer-term dream for other small communities

There is a longer-term dream quietly sitting in the background too.

If Folk.Share becomes genuinely useful here, I’d love to eventually see this same foundation used as a tool by other communities.

That isn’t the focus right now.

Right now, my focus is Salt Spring.

I want to spend the next few months learning from the people using it, seeing what works, adjusting what doesn’t, and finding out what happens when more of the skills, tools, knowledge and generosity already present in this community become easier to discover.

If Folk.Share sounds like something you’d like to be part of, I’d love to hear from you.

I’m currently welcoming people who are interested in becoming founding members, and I’m really excited to see where this project goes over the next few months.

Share what you have. Find what you need.