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The Sharing Depot

Canada's First Library of Things

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The Sharing Depot

The Sharing Depot

The Sharing Depot

The Sharing Depot

The Sharing Depot

Canada's First Library of Things

Canada's First Library of Things

Canada's First Library of Things

Canada's First Library of Things

Institute for a Resource-Based Economy
Institute for a Resource-Based Economy
Institute for a Resource-Based Economy
Institute for a Resource-Based Economy
2 Campaigns |
Toronto, Canada
$23,249 USD $23,249 USD by 330 backers
$22,857 USD by 321 backers on Mar 24, 2016
Highlights
Mountain Filled 2 Projects Mountain Filled 2 Projects

            

Located in Toronto, The Sharing Depot will be a community hub where members have access to a wide range of things without owning or storing them. The Sharing Depot will be the first of its kind in Canada and the largest of its kind in the world.

To start, The Sharing Depot will loan camping equipment, board games and sports equipment, house party supplies and even kids toys so that you can experience life without the price tag or the clutter. Rather than dropping hundreds of dollars at the shopping mall, you can now save your wallets and closets from buying and storing the things you use just a few times a year.

           

The Sharing Depot is our most ambitious project yet  and we need your help to make it a reality. 

BACKGROUND: At the Institute for a Resource-Based Economy (IRBE), the non-profit organization behind the Toronto Tool Library, we know what it takes to have a successful sharing project. In just 3 years we have opened 4 Tool Library locations in Toronto, we have thousands of members and we've loaned over 25,000 tools. We’ve been recognized at the Greenest Group in Toronto and our programs and events have received extensive media coverage.

THE SHARING DEPOT - INVENTORY: We’ve surveyed our members and done lots of research about what works in communities in Toronto and abroad to come up with a list of items we think will work best for a sharing project of this scale.

With the success of this campaign, we'll be ready to share the following items:

Camping Equipment: Includes tents, sleeping bags, dry bags, tarps, backpacks, coolers, flashlights/headlamps, camping stoves, cookware and more!

Sports Equipment:  Includes footballs, soccer balls, baseball equipment, frisbees, racquets, snowshoes, sleds and more!

House Party Supplies: Includes Karaoke machines, portable record players and speakers, fondue kits, bartending kits, lighting, punch bowls, a community music and DVD collection and more!

Gaming: Includes a wide range of board games, poker chips, video games & outdoor games. Think of your favorite games and their expansion packs in one spot!

Children’s Library: Includes toys, children’s games and portable equipment for 0-12 year olds. As they grow up, so can their toys with out clutter or waste!

The Sharing Depot will also be a hub for swapping events in the community. In December 2015 we held Toronto’s largest Gift Swap Event where over 3,000 gifts were exchanged in just 3 days.

The Sharing Depot will build on this success and offer a monthly swapping event for those wanting an alternative to consuming new products. The Depot will be your destination for discovering hidden gems without leaving your community. Swapping events will be themed each month and cover subjects like seasonal clothes, books and music, art, jewellery, games and more.

MORE TO COME...With your support, we can not only start sharing on a large scale, but also generate the kind of data needed to help others launch similar projects everywhere. Since opening the Tool Library in 2013, we have helped dozens of Tool Libraries get started in cities across Canada, U.S. and Europe. With the Sharing Depot we also hope to spread this knowledge far and wide.

         

By helping launch ‘The Sharing Depot’ you are helping start a Sharing Revolution that we hope will spread around the world. As a thank you, we’ve got some great prizes for you – check out the right hand side of this page for specific reward categories and find out more details below!

1) SAVVY SWAPPER, $25: Receive a 'Swapping Membership,' which includes free access to monthly swapping events for a year. Swapping events will be themed each month including swaps for clothing, art, toys, gifts, games and much more. 

2) COOLEST COLLABORATOR, $50: Receive a 'Casual Sharing" membership, which includes 3-4 day loans on all Sharing Depot items, plus additional fees for high maintenance items (approx $5-10). Valid for 1 year.

3) SUPER SHARER, $75: Receive a "Frequent Sharing" membership, which includes 7-day loans on all Sharing Depot items, plus additional fees for high maintenance items (approx $5-10). Valid for 1 year.

4) BRAVEST BORROWER, $100: Receive a "High-Five Sharing" membership, which includes 7-day loans on all items. NO ADDITIONAL FEES! Valid for 1 year.

REWARD: "MAKER FOR A DAY" $250: Build your own project, get a 1-to-1 session with one of our expert Makers. Your choice of woodworking, laser-cutting, 3D printing, upcycling or jewelry design. Get 4 hours mentoring & most of the materials you need to take your project home same-day (depending on item). PLUS receive a 'Frequent' membership from The Sharing Depot (total value of package $350).

REWARD: "PIRATE OF THE CARING BEING," $350: Choose from one of the following rewards:  1) One day sailing adventure for you and a guest in Toronto Harbour with our founders, 2) Get a live speech by our Executive Director or President, 3) Social Media Consultation Session with our digital team, PLUS MORE.


REWARD: 'LENDING LEGEND,' $1,000 and up - Get a lifetime membership to the Sharing Depot PLUS a High-Five Toronto Tool Library Membership (see below), PLUS your name on our Founder's Plaque, 6-month Makerspace Membership and Savvy Swapper Rewards.

BONUS: Tool Library Memberships - Some of the rewards offer membership to the Toronto Tool Library. Details for this membership are outlined above. Current members of the Tool Library will have additional years added to the end of the current membership plans.

BONUS: Makerspace Memberships - Some of our rewards offer membership to our Makerspace at 1803 Danforth Avenue. These memberships are valued at $100/month and offer 24/7 access to our Woodshop, Laser Cutter and 3D Printers as well as free certification workshops on these tools and a High-Five Tool Library membership. For more information please visit here.

Have more questions about our perks? Check out the FAQ at the bottom of this page or contact us at contact@sharingdepot.org

This campaign is all-or-nothing. That means if we don't reach our goal, we cannot launch the Sharing Depot. By making a contribution today, we can open our doors in Spring 2016 with a healthy stock of items you can borrow with a membership. Here’s a chart showing the breakdown of the funds we need:

                  Screen Shot 2016-02-09 at 12.14.08 PM.png

While we strongly believe projects like this are necessary for a sustainable future, we don’t have the funds or the desire to take this on without your support. If you believe in this concept, this is your opportunity to vote "yes" to sharing, vote "yes" to sustainable communities and vote "yes" to an abundant and accessible future for all. Any donations you make will help make the Sharing Depot happen, so grab a membership today and please help spread the word via email and social media.

We have an core team of 8 dedicated individuals who have helped create the success of the Toronto Tool Library and now want to expand with the Sharing Depot. We are a team of innovators, activists, journalists, social media strategists and  skilled-trades people – all motivated to make a difference in the city.

Plus, we have an incredible community with the Toronto Tool Library - with dozens of volunteers, over 2,000+ members and nearly 10,000  fans online. Whether you are already apart of this community or you are new, we can create a new era of sharing together with the next phase of The Sharing Depot. Thank you!

We are looking for "Sharing Ambassadors" to help us launch the Sharing Depot. Will you accept the Sharing Challenge?

Sharing Ambassadors: We're looking for people who can volunteer their time, not their money (thought it's always appreciated)! We need volunteers to help our team fundraise and reach the campaign goal of $30,000 in the next 30 days. By reaching out to your personal networks and contacts, helping us flyer at locations and talking to members at the Tool Library during your volunteer hours - you can help us expand the Tool Library into a new era of Sharing. We'll supply you with the resources and tools to fundraise and as a special thanks, we've got rewards to give you for your time helping us. Interested? Email Contact@IRBE.org with subject line "Sharing Ambassador"


              

The Sharing Economy that we hear about in the media is almost always focused on Uber, Airbnb or some other company that connects people to stuff through an app. While the Internet and apps are an indispensable part of the present and future of sharing, time and again P2P (peer-to-peer) apps have struggled to connect people to stuff with a value under $500. Furthermore, physical spaces offer a chance for people to connect with like-minded members of their community. That’s why we think the future of sharing will be a mix of physical spaces and online P2P connections.

Toronto Tool Library: Since opening in 2013, the Toronto Tool Library has opened 4 locations and loaned over 25,000 tools to our members. The Tool Library works like a regular library and loans a wide range of hand, power and gardening tools so members don't have to own and store these items themselves. In 2015, we opened the first Tool Library housed within a public library in Canada so books and tools could be borrowed under the same roof.

To learn more, watch our videos:

Community Nights: Beyond sharing tools, we also share a community workshop with woodworking tools, laser-cutting and 3D printing all available on site. Members pay a monthly fee to access the space 24/7 and we offer free weekly community nights for the public to take on projects and repairs with our experienced supervisors available to help out.


Inventory: Our inventory consists of over 5,000 hand, power and gardening tools, 99% of which were donated by Torontonians who no longer needed them. These tools have been used for building projects, renovations and gardening, improving people’s homes and lives in Toronto. By sharing instead of buying, we have saved our members over $1 million and reduced our collective environmental impact as fewer tools were needed to be manufactured, shipped, packaged and landfilled.

The Sharing Depot is the next stage in the evolution of 21st century sharing.

A membership will not only give access to these items, but will allow your home to be free of clutter, a leading cause of stress.

While this first project will largely be a real-life experiment, if our memberships meet our targets we anticipate opening more locations across the city and helping others start their own projects abroad. Ultimately we envision Sharing Depots will fill large warehouses (picture Costco) with thousands of items from musical instruments to audio/video equipment for short-term loans at a price that is accessible to all. These larger stores would have their own repair teams that will focus on extending the life of all of our items. Eventually we hope to make partnerships with quality manufacturers who design products specifically for sharing with durability and repair features designed into their products. 


  

The Sharing Depot is a vision for how the future of city living can be. That being said, sharing items is a challenge to both the way our culture has manufactured items and consumed them for the past century. With respect to consumption, the 20th century was largely about mining, manufacturing and waste with almost no thought given to the finite nature of our planet’s resources or where products ended up after their useful life ended.

In the 21st century we must change that. Rather than mining virgin raw materials, we must mine the enormous assets that we have lying around our own homes and cities. Rather than manufacturing, we must focus on re-manufacturing, taking the best of these resources and repurposing them into durable and more efficient products that are built to last. In the 21st century, we want waste to no longer be something that we have to deal with - it should be designed out of the system altogether.

This transition can’t happen without you and that’s why we need your support. Big problems don’t just require big players like governments and multi-national corporations. They also require grassroots organizations and community groups that are on the ground, changing the culture of consumption and access and providing alternatives. These grassroots projects are only as successful as the communities that support them and that’s why crowdfunding campaigns like this one are a necessary part of this transition.





   

This project sounds amazing, where will you be located?

We will have our first Sharing Depot near one of our current locations in Toronto. Depending on how much money we raise, we will open the Sharing Depot either near our East York location or our Parkdale location.


What happens if you don’t raise the $30,000?

This campaign is an all-or-nothing campaign so if we don’t raise at least $30,000, we won’t open the Sharing Depot. The reason we chose to have this kind of campaign is because as a non-profit organization, we can’t afford to launch this new venture without this minimum amount of money. Rent, inventory and managing this kind of operation simply isn’t possible for our team without at least this minimal fundraising goal.


The second reason is we don’t even want to open the Sharing Depot without the support of people who will actually use the service. We have learned that good ideas are one thing, but good ideas that people actually choose to invest in are often something different. With this campaign, we hope you will choose to purchase a membership, use the service and spread the word so the Sharing Depot can help shift our culture of consumerism away from ownership and waste.


What happens if you raise more than $30,000?

Every dollar over $30,000 can make a huge difference in terms of the quality and location of the Sharing Depot. The more we raise, the bigger and better our space can be as a significant portion of these funds will go towards paying rent in Toronto. With your support, we will rent the best place we can possibly afford that allows for accessibility and population density to ensure we have the largest impact we can.


Is the Sharing Depot and the Tool Library the same thing?

No. The Toronto Tool Library has four locations and has a separate membership model than the Sharing Depot will have. To start, we will have both enterprises in the same new location however memberships will be sold separately or a discount of 10% will apply to a combined membership.


I have lots of items to donate - how can I do this?

Amazing! We rely on donations to help us make more items available to our members. To donate lightly used or new items that you think will fit with our Sharing Depot please email us at contact@irbe.org or simply stop by one of our Tool Library locations during our opening hours to drop them off.


I want to volunteer with this project, what opportunities are available?

Currently we are looking for librarians who will help with checkins/checkouts, inventorying items  and enjoy interacting with our members. We are also looking for help with website development, marketing and outreach, app development and sponsorships. If you would like to help out with these or any other areas you think would benefit our projects please email Ryan at ryan@irbe.org.







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Choose your Perk

Savvy Swapper

Currency Conversion $20 USD
$28 CAD
Get an annual Swapping membership PLUS a shout out on social media and an invite to the official Sharing Depot Launch Party. We will host monthly themed swaps at the Sharing Depot. Price includes HST.
1 claimed

Coolest Collaborator

Currency Conversion $39 USD
$56 CAD
1 year Casual Membership to the Sharing Depot (see description for details). Price includes HST.
1 claimed

Super Sharer

Currency Conversion $60 USD
$85 CAD
1 year Frequent Membership to the Sharing Depot (see description for details) PLUS Savvy Swapper reward. Price includes HST.
0 claimed

Bravest Borrower

Currency Conversion $79 USD
$113 CAD
1 year High Five Membership to the Sharing Depot (see description for details) PLUS Savvy Swapper award. Price includes HST.
0 claimed

Share In Your City

Currency Conversion $176 USD
$250 CAD
Get up to 5 hours of Skype type with the founders of the Toronto Tool Library and Sharing Depot so you can start your own Sharing Project in your city! We'll share budgets, grant applications and more to get you all set for success!
Estimated Shipping
April 2016
2 claimed

Pirate of the Caring Being

Currency Conversion $246 USD
$350 CAD
Chose from the following perks and specify in your Thank You message: 1) One day sailing adventure for you and a guest in Toronto Harbour with our ED! (just 5 left!) 2) Get a live speech by our ED or President (travel expenses not included) 3) Social Media Consultation Session with our social media team PLUS a High Five Sharing Depot Membership PLUS Savvy Swapper Rewards
Estimated Shipping
July 2016
7 claimed
Ships worldwide.

Clutter Crusher

Currency Conversion $351 USD
$500 CAD
Get your name on our Founders Plaque PLUS 3-month membership to our Makerspace, PLUS High-Five Sharing Depot and Tool Library Membership, PLUS Savvy Swapper Rewards
Estimated Shipping
May 2016
6 claimed

Lending Legend

Currency Conversion $702 USD
$1,000 CAD
Lifetime Membership to the Sharing Depot PLUS a High-Five Toronto Tool Library Membership PLUS your name on our Founder's Plaque, 6-month Makerspace Membership and Savvy Swapper Rewards
Estimated Shipping
May 2016
6 claimed
Ships worldwide.

Global Thinker

Currency Conversion $1,756 USD
$2,500 CAD
Lending Legend Rewards PLUS Pirate of the Caring Being Reward PLUS a Lifetime Membership to the Tool Library, dinner with the Sharing Depot team and an upgrade to a 1-year membership to the Makerspace.
Estimated Shipping
May 2016
0 claimed

Future Economy Leader

Currency Conversion $3,512 USD
$5,000 CAD
Global Thinker Rewards PLUS a 2nd Pirate of the Caring Being Reward PLUS a Lifetime Membership to the Makerspace PLUS dinner with the Sharing Depot team. Want even more? Your wish is our command! Just email us at contact@sharingdepot.org for any special requests and we'll see what we can do.
Estimated Shipping
May 2016
0 claimed

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