Open Collective
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Papertree July 25th Update
Published on July 28, 2022 by Rudy Fraser

Hello Community 👋🏽,

Thank you so much for participating in Papertree. Whether you're a contributor or recipient, you have helped make Papertree possible and are helping to create an ecosystem of collective and community care.

As I mentioned in a LinkedIn post, I didn't expect Papertree to get as much support as it did. My best case projection was that it would take at least another month to get $1K contributions. With your help, we nearly hit that goal in a single week and then grew total contributions 67% the following week!
Because of all your support, Papertree made it onto Open Collective's July leaderboard for Top New Collectives by # of contributors.
It's still the early days for Papertree, but your support is already making an impact. See the following note from one of our neighbors about how Papertree was helpful for her:
* Special thanks to @Ryan John for letting me know about the Bed Stuy neighbors Facebook group! Please continue to spread the word about Papertree and let me know if you have ideas about how I can reach more people and let them know about this resource.

Because Papertree is not possible without you all, I've updated a section of the website to display a banner of the Papertree contributors:
So what's next for Papertree? Well, I had over 35 conversations last week with members of the community and identified 2 key problem areas that I plan to focus on in the coming weeks
  • Technical barrier to entry: Many of the community members I interact with aren't as familiar with navigating around various apps. To reduce friction on this point, I've started handling expenses very manually via chat, text, calls, and messages. That solves part of the problem but there's also friction around getting reimbursed. Community members aren't always familiar with tools like Cash App or Venmo. I'll be working to figure out an easier payment option or better documentation for this.
  • Upfront costs: For some users, even paying upfront and getting reimbursed later can be a painful process. I'm experimenting with alternative options like farmers market gift cards to find ways to get our neighbors fresh, healthy food with limited upfront costs.
Finally, at the invitation of Community CCI (a local neighborhood nonprofit) I'll be speaking with our neighbors this Thursday at a community event centered around food and essential goods distribution.

Thanks again for all your help and support. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out!

Best,