Did you know that 79% of Americans who use an online neighborhood forum talk with their neighbors in-person at least once/month, compared to 61% of all Americans (November 4, 2009 Report on Social Isolation and New Technology at
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/18–Social-Isolation-and-New-Technology/Overview/Findings.aspx )
Unfortunately, Facebook just doesn’t work that well to build a safe community website. If you make it public, you can’t be sure WHO is listening in. But if you make it private, then it’s extremely cumbersome to grow it and maintain it.
Enter Nextdoor.com. They take care of all the heavy lifting for you. Want to invite 100 neighbors via postcard, supplying them with a link to log on and a paragraph of text that you write personally to invite them? Bam. Done. All for free. Want to see a map of your subdivision to see who is missing in your neighborhood? Try that on Facebook. Nextdoor does it all for free (and a whole lot more), and they do it quickly and effectively WITH a really intuitive smartphone app too. Available today in the USA, but soon in other countries too, try…
http://www.nextdoor.com
(Thanks Caleb!)
This is an incredible site. They have a referral program going on right now where if you refer someone to the program and they get their site launched with 10 members, then both you and the referral both get $50 gift cards. I just got mine in the mail, and have LOVED using this program for my neighborhood.