Monthly Archives: June 2020

The Choice for Vermont Candidates: Facebook or Buy Local?

Posted on Tuesday, June 30, 2020 by 1 comment

Does your favorite candidate for the legislature or statewide office support Vermont businesses?  How about racial justice?  If both answers are yes, then consider asking them if they are spending their ad budgets with Vermont media — or with Facebook.

Why does this matter?  Because sending Vermont dollars to Facebook is not “buying local” and runs counter to racial justice.  Facebook gives a voice to the highest bidder, even if that voice is sharing inflammatory hate speech.

Here in Vermont and around the nation, people are rallying to lift their communities by supporting the local economy and standing up against racism.

One example is Buy LocalThis is a collection of efforts to encourage people to use the dollars they spend on everyday necessities with local businesses, building community wealth along the way.  In fact, Vermont’s own state government is funding dozens of Buy Local initiatives this summer across the state.

Another case is #stophateforprofit.  This fast-growing global campaign asks “all businesses to stand in solidarity with our most deeply held American values of freedom, equality and justice and not advertise on Facebook’s services in July.”  Click on the link above to see how Facebook is on the wrong side of history, putting corporate profit ahead of American’s core values.

Corporations of all sizes are taking the pledge.  Among many others, Verizon, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Honda, Patagonia, Levi’s, and Ben & Jerry’s, have pledged to stop advertising with Facebook for the month of July.

In this context, Front Porch Forum joins Seven Days and other Vermont media in calling on candidates for statewide office or the legislature to take a stand too. It’s time to stop sending Vermont money to Silicon Valley billionaires who have repeatedly failed to use their power to curb hate. It’s time to ask Vermont candidates to put their money where their values are – with local media that put Vermont values first.

Many of the dozens of small locally owned media businesses in Vermont are struggling financially.  Now is the time to step up, for those who can, and Buy Local with their advertising dollars.  Where do your candidates stand on this choice?

Pay It Forward: The Game of Goodwill Continues

Posted on Monday, June 29, 2020 by No comments yet

A Montpelier neighbor on Front Porch Forum started a new game to inspire neighbors. Now, it’s spreading to towns all around Vermont! See some of the newest Pay It Forward postings from this game of goodwill, plus how to play, below!

“Free Invasives removal crew! Me and my team of muscley school age kiddos are trying to do daily invasive species removal (and get snacks for the cute and hungry goats!). 

If you see any invasive species on your property or the roadside, let us help get it out before it goes to seed! 

If you’ve already removed some and don’t know where to put it, come say hi and drop it off with the friendly goats! They will vocalize their delight at additional snacks, and it might sound like this: BAAAAAAAH! MAAAAAHHH!!   Just PAY IT FORWARD!” • Debbie in Richmond, Vt.

“My family made a couple of banana cream pies yesterday. I would love to share ONE with a member of our community. I’d happily and safely drop off the pie at your curb (in Stowe) if you’d enjoy having a sweet treat. With the idea that you accept my offering and pay it forward with your own offering 🙂

We’re playing a game to highlight and spread our community’s generosity and goodwill! Have a skill or item you’d like to brighten someone’s day with? Say, you could bake someone a dozen cookies, gift a bag of veggies from your garden, some pesto you made, a sketch or print, or offer a free lawn mow, an hour of weeding, or log splittingwe all have so many ways to contribute, and random acts of kindness make people happy. So let’s play!
” • Kim in Stowe, Vt.

“Last week I received a lovely kombucha SCOBY through this fun game, and now it’s fermenting away in my kombucha pot, so it’s my turn to pay it forward!

During the CoVid shutdown I have been rather compulsively knitting baby hats, mostly newborn size. I know it’s not exactly the season for these, but summer won’t last forever. (Sadly…summer is so lovely in Vermont!) I’ve got four or five to offer, so let me know if you can use one. I’ve made 13 total but some will be going to knitting4peace when they are once again accepting donations.” • Sarah in Montpelier, Vt.

“I have MIXED SUNFLOWER SEEDS, or MIXED MARIGOLD SEEDS that I have gleaned last year. A generous quantity…In small white business envelopes. Pickup/Dropoff in Richmond.
FREE, just PAY IT FORWARD!” • Laurie in Richmond, Vt.

How to play:
–We’re playing a game to highlight and spread our community’s generosity and goodwill! Have a skill or item you’d like to brighten someone’s day with? Say, you could bake someone a dozen cookies, gift a bag of veggies from your garden, some pesto you made, a sketch or print, or offer a free lawn mow, an hour of weeding, or log splitting…we all have so many ways to contribute, and random acts of kindness make people happy. So let’s play!

–Post “Pay it forward” in your subject line here on FPF, and copy and paste this “How to play” blurb at the end of your post, so that new folks can catch on. Offer an item or task up to the Montpelier FPF community at no charge.

–Note that you will take all recommended precautions in handling your pay it forward item or task to limit the spread of the corona virus, so folks feel comfortable accepting the goodness.

–When folks respond, deliver your item or task to them in a socially distant manner.

–Rejoice!” • Lauren in Montpelier, Vt.

Start playing in your neighborhood; post on FPF!

Local businesses find success on FPF

Posted on Monday, June 22, 2020 by No comments yet

Front Porch Forum is the best advertising dollars I have spent in a long time. And the money goes to a great organization! Just imagine how many cats are home safe and sound because of FPF.”  • Greg at Teacher’s Tree Service

Our advertising on FPF worked so well that we had to stop accepting new members! Thank you for the help and for helping to give us a platform to advertise our business. We appreciate all that you and the FPF team have done to help us and other businesses during this time!  Matt at Reap and Sow Farm

“Geez, I have 18 estimates and 6 confirmed jobs. Great results, thank you!”  • Duffy at Duffy Gardner Masonry

Have a small business?  Put FPF to work for you!

World Localization Day

Posted on Wednesday, June 17, 2020 by No comments yet

June 21 is World Localization Day! This day is all about thinking globally but acting locally. Getting most of our food from local farmers, recirculating our money into the local economy as we spend on our day-to-day needs, and helping to grow meaningful employment opportunities.

It’s clear that there’s no “back to normal” So what comes next?

A new human story founded on the principles of connection and diversity is emerging. It’s called Localization.

Be part of this progressive, inspirational and life-affirming movement for change! Register to join this world-changing program of inspirational talks, interviews, films, humor and music.

Grow and Give

Posted on Friday, June 12, 2020 by No comments yet

Front Porch Forum members are organizing gardeners to share their extra produce this summer with neighbors who are in need.

If you have a veggie garden, and as you find yourself with more produce than you can use in the coming months, I’m hoping you might donate it. Local food pantries welcome produce from home gardeners.  My plan is to harvest extra produce as I have it and take it to one of them. It doesn’t need to be a lot every fresh little bit helps. Just grow and give.”  • Karen in East Montpelier

“We just put out a Little Free Greenhouse & Seed Library in front of our house.  If you have extra veggie starts or seeds to exchange, please consider contributing them to the greenhouse and library for others to take. There will also be free wildflower bouquets for the taking from time to time. There are some lettuce starts in the greenhouse at the moment as well. Please take whatever you need and contribute what you can.”  • Allegra in Burlington

Ready to start something similar in your town? Post on FPF!

“The Internet’s Missing Link in the Age of COVID-19”

Posted on Wednesday, June 10, 2020 by 1 comment

COVID-19 is forcing everyone to adapt. An essential part of that adaptation is the use of technology to keep people connected without the face-to-face risk factors the coronavirus presents. Micah Sifry of Civic Hall observes the many challenges we all face as we navigate a global pandemic and the tech solutions that may help us move forward.

Sifry identifies Front Porch Forum as digital public infrastructure that can help communities thrive. See the excerpt below.

In all my years of reporting on how we use tech in civic life, one platform has stood out for how it has successfully fostered healthy community engagement while reaching significant scale: Vermont’s Front Porch Forum. Seventy percent of the state’s 260,000 households have an account on one of FPF’s local town or neighborhood forums, which are in every part of the rural state. Two years ago, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released an in-depth study of FPF’s users, finding that their daily use of the site led to increased trust in their neighbors, increased interest in civic life, greater participation in local government, and increased optimism about the future. ‘Witnessing everyday acts of neighborliness is a powerful driver of both online and offline community engagement,’ the study concluded.

Last week, I checked in with its founder Michael Wood-Lewis and his chief innovation officer, Jason Van Driesche, to find out how they are weathering the current storm. After a brief dip in the site’s fortunes when the state went into lockdown in March, they were happy to report that even though no one was posting yard sales or local events, the type of information that has always been FPF’s bread-and-butter, user engagement was up. The number of net new signups per day doubled during the first weeks of the crisis, and posting is up considerably over the seasonable average, along with open rates.

Wood-Lewis and Van Driesche are also gratified to report that people are using the forum’s daily email bulletins to organize help for neighbors, share vital public health information, and fight isolation. They’ve decided to have their paid community moderators screen out misinformation about COVID, which Wood-Lewis said is ‘usually people getting stuff off of Facebook and sharing it with good intentions.’ They’re working on an array of service improvements, and also thinking hard about how to support the 10,000 local businesses, thousands of local officials and hundreds of nonprofits that use the site. ‘On a daily basis, most of the people in our state are giving us five to ten minutes of their attention,’ Wood-Lewis noted. But he and his team are frustrated that so much of FPF’s core mission, which is to bring neighbors together face-to-face, is stymied by the pandemic. ‘We know we’re successful when those real in-person things happen,’ he adds, so his team is trying to highlight local initiatives like safe scavenger hunts for kids and community claps for frontline workers.

Front Porch Forum’s model works because it keeps its forums to human size and speed, and it has paid moderators perusing every post before they reach subscribers. A typical instance has 500 to 1,000 people on it, all from the same town or neighborhood, and all verified, using their real names. Everyone sees the same content at the same time, Van Driesche pointed out; there’s no microtargeting of content. So while people still are people, and they may post things that get on their neighbors’ nerves, the general tenor of the site is ‘let’s pull together instead of knocking each other down.‘”

Read the full article here.

It is a lovely day in Vermont

Posted on Monday, June 8, 2020 by No comments yet

We couldn’t agree more with one of our state representatives who shared words of hope on FPF:

Looking east over Missisquoi Bay, I see a panorama that includes Jay Peak, Camel’s Hump and Mt. Mansfield, big gray bumps in a blue horizon. To my left is Chapman Bay and a green strip of Canada. A northeasterly breeze creates a chop with occasional whitecaps on the water. In the distance a white-hulled fishing boat creates its own whitecaps with its spreading wake.

The thermometer reads 72º, but the breeze coming off the water feels cooler.

This morning I threw a line in the water and caught a fish on the second cast. Lucky.

The crabapple tree in the yard has flowered. All over the area flowering trees and bushes provide bright splashes of white, purple and pink against the spring-fresh green of new leaves.

Four pairs of Canada geese swim past, each couple with babies, 11 goslings in all.

It is a lovely day in Vermont.

It’s nice to be reminded that natural rhythms go on with little regard for the turmoil we create among ourselves. It’s also a reminder of a major reason why we choose to live here.

We need to take care of this state and its people.”  • Tommy, State Representative, Washington-3, Barre

“Ode” to Our FPF

Posted on Thursday, June 4, 2020 by 2 comments

“I can find a house, a boat,
I can sell a fridge, a goat,
I found my super Subaru
I searched each day, and so can you!

Children grown, grandchildren too
Too much stuff, so what to do?
I’ll sell the crib, lego and bike,
Then I can buy that dress I like!

You want to share news of a bear,
A barn sale, concert, country fair
Lear how to hunt a good mushroom
Find a painter for your room

You need to get a ride to Lansing
Or new partner for some dancing
You say you need a plumber SOON
Ask “The Forum” and he’s there by noon!

I think you get the picture now
You know the “why”, find out the “how”.
And don’t forget “There’s no free lunch”,
Donate to help the Front Porch bunch!” • Alison in Charlotte, Vt.

Spring refresh: FPF’s Email Forum redesign

Posted on Monday, June 1, 2020 by 1 comment

Change is afoot. Front Porch Forum is glad to present a new and improved Email Forum design today.

The daily FPF Email Forum has a new look.  At the same time, we’re keeping all the content and functionality that members have come to appreciate in place and easy to use.

This redesign is one step in a series of upgrades that FPF is making to deliver the highest quality service to our members. The new, simplified layout of the Email Forum is designed to make postings shine. We’ve also made it easier to compose postings, search the posting archive and more!

Other recent steps we’ve taken to improve our service:

  • Launched a mobile app, making FPF easier to read from a smartphone
  • Expanded our service to parts of upstate New York
  • Became a Vermont Public Benefit Corporation
  • Celebrated our 180,000th member (and counting!)
  • Continuing to grow our in-house team of software engineers
  • Serving as essential civic infrastructure during the COVID-19 crisis

Already we’ve seen how these milestones and changes have helped us to fulfill our mission across the state in Vermont and in growing upstate New York forums. As the weeks go on, we look forward to sharing news on the additional updates and new features we’ll be rolling out to better serve you and our communities.  Next up… redesign of our website, including the posting archive and Web Forum.

Stay tuned for details about these and other exciting new features and updates. We eager to share our progress!

For more information on FPF’s growth and community impact over recent years, check out the following pieces: