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
This campaign is closed
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
Canada's First Library of Things
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:
Sports Equipment: Includes footballs, soccer balls, baseball equipment, frisbees, racquets, snowshoes, sleds and more!
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.