People make great use of their local Front Porch Forum every day. Check out this recent posting from a mother on the Wallingford Forum:
And another from a neighbor in the Wimington forum:
Here’s to more real in-person connections in our increasingly online lives!
Summer begins, and, along with it, YARD SALES! People are filling up FPF‘s local Forums and Community Calendars with sale announcements. Not only do members write in to advertise the details of their yard sales, they also use FPF to ask neighbors advice on how to have a better yard sale!
In response, people posted great tips — make signs, start early, use bins and tables to separate items by price, have a free pile, wash items before selling — and… “Advertise on Front Porch Forum“
Thanks to thousands of Front Porch Forum members… We made it! So many folks generously chipped in to reach FPF’s spring Supporting Member Campaign goal. These dollars will help fund FPF operations in the months ahead.
If you meant to donate to FPF and haven’t yet had a chance, there’s still time. Please give today!
FPF is a Vermont Public Benefit Corporation and not a nonprofit. Contributions are not tax deductible.
Is FPF useful to you? To your community? According to a recent survey, more than 90% of Front Porch Forum members say YES! That’s why so many people sign up, read, and post every day.
If you’re among them, please help us continue to provide our essential civic service to every town in the state.
We need to raise $175,000 statewide from our members by this Wednesday, May 10, 2023, to meet our spring goal. Please donate today.
If you are in the position to donate, please do. We’re eager to keep FPF going strong. We need your help to get there.
Please give today and help the spring flowers bloom! https://frontporchforum.com/supporting-members
Thanks from FPF’s 26 employees
FPF is a Vermont Public Benefit Corporation and not a nonprofit. Contributions are not tax deductible. Ad sales to local businesses cover most of our expenses, and your Supporting Member contribution helps close the gap.
While we prefer online donations by credit card or PayPal, we gratefully accept payment by check too.
This posting from a member in Hardwick just came in and warmed our hearts.
“I am so grateful for FPF for the sense of community and support; any time I post, I am overwhelmed with responses that leave me feeling cared for and with a sense of belonging.” – Lisa, Hardwick
Leslie Stebbins was quoted in a recent Salon article, “Our digital public spaces aren’t so healthy… Can we fix that?” (read full article here) that…
“Tech companies maintain that they cannot moderate online communities because that would jeopardize our right to free speech and because there is simply too much content flying across these networks to track. Both these issues are false flags. We now know that the core infrastructure of these platforms is intentionally designed to amplify vitriol and misinformation because this increases engagement, keeps us online longer, and provides tech companies with billions of dollars from ad revenue. It doesn’t have to be this way.“
Further, Stebbins adds, “We should focus on creating new spaces that have explicit civic goals and are designed for equity and social cohesion. Real-world communities need to be involved in intentionally designing their own local digital public spaces rather than leaving this work to global tech companies.”
Front Porch Forum gets a nice spotlight in the article…
“Front Porch Forum […] focuses on real world community building. It is the antithesis of Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter. Rather than try to keep users online, it strives to get people offline and more connected to their local Vermont neighbors. Most people spend five or ten minutes a day online to get news that their neighbors have posted: lost dogs, bake sales and announcements of upcoming school board meetings. It is funded by donations and local ads based on where someone lives, but it does not track user behavior and advertising does not drive platform design.“
“Independent research on Front Porch [Forum] shows that it builds social cohesion and is improving the resilience of local Vermont communities. Building stronger community cohesion produces many intangible benefits such as high civic engagement, more instances of neighbors helping neighbors, and lower crime rates.“
Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more