The Buy Nothing Project is a global initiative that brings neighbors together to gift amongst their micro communities. The purpose is to get to know your neighbors, cut the middle man in donations and reduce unnecessary spending and waste. The Buy Nothing Mission statement is, “We offer people a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude through a worldwide network of hyper-local gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people who are real-life neighbors.” Buy Nothing always makes sure that the groups do not get too large, usually splitting up into smaller micro-communities once a thousand members have been reached. 

Interested in joining your local “buy nothing” group? Here’s how it works. 

• You can only be involved in one buy nothing group at a time. This is to stop people from only using “buy nothing” to leech from neighbors instead of contributing to the community. Groups are intentionally kept small (less than a thousand) so there may be multiple buy nothing groups in your neighborhood. 
• “Buy Nothing” literally means buy nothing. Selling items or asking to purchase items is not allowed. This also means no reselling gifts that you received on buy nothing.
• Only give gifts to your neighbors from your own resources and abundance. Sharing of community links, businesses, etc is prohibited.
• To ask for a gift simply post in the group “Wish: I’m looking for ________. Thank you so much!” 
• To gift a gift simply post in the group “Gifting: _____________”
• The gifter gets to decide who they gift to, when and how, but it’s encouraged to allow time on posts for everyone to have a chance to ask for it. Many groups refer to this as “simmering”.