ChangeEverything.ca is a new community site based on the area around Vancouver. It's essentially a large community site focused on ideas about making the area a better place (although as a confirmed Vancouver-phile I find this concept perplexing). In some ways the site is similar to A year of living generously but it's not a not-for-profit project.
The reason I'm talking about it here is that, as much as it has a not-for-profit feel to it, the site is in fact funded by local bank Vancity. To quote from their part of the site (sorry, it's a bit long):
So maybe you’re wondering... why is Vancity creating an online community? Why would a bank care about anything other than its products and sales?
First of all, and this is important, this site is NOT a place where Vancity will sell you mortgages, term deposits and accounts. (To everyone who was just aching to find a place where we’d bombard you with annuities come-ons: sorry if we yanked your chain.)
Second, and more fundamentally, Vancity isn't a bank. We’re a community-based financial institution that is as interested in making our community work as it is in making money. And these days, community is more and more about what happens online, which is why we’re so interested in the Web’s potential for supporting community development in the Lower Mainland and Victoria.
We have a triple bottom line, which means that we don’t gauge our success merely on our profitability, but also on how we are helping the communities and improving the environment where we do business.
As an exercise in creating relationships with customers, I really like the site. It has a deftness of touch and confidence you don't see often. The writing is good too.
It'll be interesting to see how well ChangeEverything works in terms of community participation. It will live or die on how many people take up the idea and get involved. At the moment it has a relatively limited number of active participants but to be fair, it is new.
Personally, I wish it well.
Source: TechCrunch