• GIVE: Offer a freely-given gift that you’d like to share, loan, or give away. See the types of gifts below for some ideas of what you can give away.
• ASK: Request anything you'd like to receive for free, to borrow or keep. See the types of gifts below for ideas of what you can request.
• GRATITUDE: Share your gratitude for anything and everything you love about your Buy Nothing community. Gratitude fuels the magic.

A Gift of time refers to offering or asking for someone to spend time with you. Examples include: jogging/walking/workout buddies, invitations to join a book group, coffee/tea meet-ups, playdates for kids or pets, organizing an activity or adventure for the members of your Buy Nothing community.

A Gift of Community is a gift that brings people in your Buy Nothing community together. Examples include Buy Nothing, Share Everything events (everyone meets in a public place to give and receive a category of gifts such as books, clothing, board games & puzzles, etc.); Lending Libraries in which each person posts the items they're always willing to lend to Buy Nothing community members, each lender sets their own rules and manages their own collection of items available for load; Round Robins or Traveling Suitcases (themed collections of gifts that move around a community from person to person, with everyone adding/taking as they like); Buy Nothing community book groups, concerts, events and adventures that are created by and open to Buy Nothing community members, such as board game or puzzle nights, stargazing, singalongs, movie nights, etc.

A Gift of Stuff can come in many forms, including items of all kinds. For instance, Buy Nothing gifts being offered and received include: brand new items, used items, working items, broken items, pretty things, ugly things, food including leftovers, less tangible things such as recipes, reading suggestions, concert and event tickets, invitations to play cards or a board game or to join a book group. Gifts can be big: houses, boats, cars, airline and other travel tickets. Gifts can be small: a single nail, a roll of toilet paper, a marble. Gifts can be intangible, such as a poem or short story, directions to a beautiful local tree or walk, a photo you've taken of a beautiful local spot. Gifts can be things that some people might consider waste, such as dryer lint, aquarium water, chunks of concrete, piles of dandelions or twigs, etc.

• Don't offer or request anything illegal. Follow all national, regional, and local laws.
• The Buy Nothing Project also prohibits giving or asking for items that endorse or oppose any current political party, candidate, or ballot option.
• The Buy Nothing Project does allow neighbors to request, give, and receive items (example: signs, banners), and supplies to create these items, in support of social movements and events (example: Black Lives Matter, Pride parades, memorial vigils).

• Remember that every person participating in your group is a real life neighbor of yours. Each person here is of equal importance to this gift economy. Cruelty, harassment and hate speech will not be tolerated. All participants will abide by the Community Commitment.
• The Buy Nothing Project welcomes all people, regardless of race, ancestry, national origin, economic status, ability/disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, religion, philosophy, politics, beliefs or values. As such, the communities are diverse and allow us all to experience what it’s like to give, receive, and share with people who may not experience the world as we do.
• The Buy Nothing Project welcomes discussions about the impact of the actions and words within the app’s content. Each participant is fully responsible for their words, actions, and gifts and also for anything they delete. Each participant is empowered to make their own choices, being mindful that being a participant in their Buy Nothing community requires communication that doesn’t include such things as personal insults, slurs, or anything that qualifies as hate speech.

• If you have a complaint about another participant, you have several options: Ignore content that bothers you, knowing that everyone participates as they like and that no one is ever forced to request or offer a gift they’re uncomfortable with; use the Community Commitment as a guide to start a discussion with your neighbors, addressing whatever the issue is; approach the person via other means, away from the app, to suggest a discussion to resolve the issue, as you would for complaints about people in your life outside of your Buy Nothing sphere; or block the participant. Each of us can curate our own sharing community that enable us to feel safe and most comfortable. Each Buy Nothing participant is responsible for resolving their own conflicts. Buy Nothing communities are “brave spaces” where we allow the space for people to speak up if they feel they’ve been treated unjustly.
• We are an inclusive, equitable movement, not open to active haters. We encourage everyone to report accounts that are responsible for hate speech and hateful action directly to the platform they are using, so that the platform and the community are safer for all.

• Stealing is Prohibited: Do not take anything from your neighbors without specific permission. If you discover that something is missing from your porch/home/doorstep, if something you did not set out as a gift has been taken, please ask in your community to see if a mistake was made. If you suspect theft or any other crime, contact your local authorities as you would for any situation.
• Reselling: There is no rule against the reselling of Buy Nothing Project gifts outside of the app, but reselling must be done in ways that build trust. You simply need to share your intent to resell a gift when you request it. Givers are always free to give as they choose, and the disclosure of reselling respects each participant’s right to make informed and mindful choices about their giving. Many people are happy to give gifts that will be sold elsewhere to support organizations they respect, to help neighbors make a living by reselling, or to provide materials for artists and craftspeople who reuse gifted materials in their work. It is the responsibility of people who resell gifts to openly and clearly explain this when they ask for gifts they’d like to resell.
• Respect Other's Requests: Don't pile onto another person's Ask post to request gifts that are being offered to them. Post your own Ask instead if you'd like to request a gift from your community.
• Private Communications: Please help us keep the sharing where everyone can see it and benefit from it. It's nice to see who has replied to a post. It helps to build all sorts of connections. If you pressure others via private message, you are likely to be blocked by them. Gifting in the Buy Nothing Project is always at the discretion of the Giver.
• Recruiting: Do not use the BuyNothing app as a means for collecting personal information about your neighbors, or to recruit people to join your religion, political party/candidate/ballot option, business or other organization. Buy Nothing communities are inclusive and equitable at their core. All participants should be respected as equals, just as they are.
• Integrity, honesty and trust are required for your gift economy to flourish and for human-centered connections to develop.
• No spam, scams, trolling or other actions that violate trust.

• You must use your personal account, and not a business account.
• You may share or request goods or services from or for your business, school, charity or other organization, as long as those offers or requests are not presented as a way of marketing, advertising, recruiting, promoting or otherwise “spreading the word” about your business or organization. We are a Person-to-Person network, therefore we ask that you not direct people to drop off items at the charity's address. If you are collecting for a charity or cause, make that clear, so long as you are the one picking up or providing your location as a person-to-person drop off or shipping location.
• You may request and offer gifts in your community on behalf of your family, friends, organizations, etc. provided you do the pickups and drop offs. If you know someone who wants to participate in a Buy Nothing community and is able to do so, please help them download the app. If you know someone who can participate with assistance, that is a welcome gift of self to offer. You can help them participate in any way that makes their Buy Nothing experience accessible to them. We ask all participants to expand their understanding of what accessibility and inclusion looks like to allow for shared accounts, people who offer and request on behalf of others, and people whose abilities and circumstances impact their participation in ways that may be new to you. Gift economies are especially strong when individuals are empowered to participate directly, as themselves, and there is a beautiful diversity in how this manifests.

• This is not the place to refer people to ways to meet their needs or desires through the market economy. This means the following things are not allowed here: marketing or advertising; offers or requests for paid employment; offers of items for sale, trade or rent; requests for money, GoFundMe or Kickstarter campaigns and the like, requests for items you’d like to buy or rent; items you wish to barter, trade or exchange; real estate for sale or rent; encouraging people to buy, sell, or trade items or services elsewhere.
• This is the perfect place to offer free gifts of all legal kinds, including free gifts of self in the form of services, skills, assistance, items of all kinds and in all conditions, etc. You may request or offer anything you might otherwise want or need to buy; since this is the Buy Nothing Project, you just may find what you want and need here without buying it.
• This is not a community bulletin board, political campaign space, platform for proselytizing or prayer, or a crime watch app. Suspicions you have about your neighbors, promotion of your personal religious, ideological, or political agenda, political swag for current candidates or ballot options, and info about community events belong elsewhere.

• We encourage you to experiment with your giving, receiving, and sharing. Find ways to include as many people as possible, and to offer and receive. There are so many creative ways of giving and asking. If you need or want something, wow your neighbors with a photo to draw their attention to your words, tell a story about why you might need or want something, or include a joke or philosophical observation with your request. On the giving side, consider offering a service that is easy for you, like tailoring clothes (this could help someone with an upcoming job interview,) organizing a garage, fixing a toaster, or even offering their gifts on their behalf if they're downsizing, or moving, and don't have the time.
• Other ways to give creatively are through community lending libraries, clothing share events, free holiday boutiques, round robins, junk in the trunk, books and beverages events, community gleaning, neighborhood potlucks, free bike programs, and other get-togethers that involve sharing. Some communities even set up Buy Nothing booths at their local farmers markets to extend the giving and receiving further to their communities.

• We all participate in this project at our own risk. Please be honest when you describe an item you’re offering - it’s fine to offer items in any condition, but your fellow participants need to know if something needs to be fixed, cleaned, picked up with a large vehicle, etc. If a gift has special sentimental value, we’d like to hear that too - stories about gifts are hugely popular and help build community.
• A giver is not required to take back an item if it does not meet a recipient’s expectations. Nor are recipients required to accept an item if, upon seeing it in person and before taking it home, they realize it won’t work for them. If you find that a gift won’t work for you, just be honest and let the giver know. It’s perfectly wonderful to re-gift Buy Nothing gifts if you find yourself with something that doesn’t work for you.

• Ask questions
• Listen & think
• Experiment with empathy
• Find ways to say yes
• Trust in abundance
• Use the Community Commitment

• You must meet the Apple and Google age rules to download the app

• Violations of the Community Commitment

• Spam, scams, advertising/marketing, fundraising, offering items or services for rent, sale, barter, or trade

• Repeated posting of content that is legitimately reported. This includes repeated posting of identical content that floods the feed, in other words, content that has the impact of spam.

• Joining the app with a fraudulent account(s) or with the purpose to defraud others

• Hate speech, cruelty, or threats towards or between participants

• Dishonesty or obtaining items under false pretenses in order to sell said items without disclosing that intention

• Repeated instances of disregard for the rules or principles

• Repeated complaints about your gifting community or rules

• Statements that make it clear to the community that you do not intend to build trust or participate in line with the mission and rules, including statements that you intend to leave the app, and then never do, a.k.a. a hair flip. We will help you find the door.

• Using the app as a platform for promoting any personal agenda that doesn't meet the mission or rules of the Buy Nothing Project.