Frequently asked questions

FIMBY is currently live in the V6A postal code area of Vancouver: Strathcona, parts of Chinatown, and the Downtown Eastside. We’re growing neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

Anyone 19 or older (BC age of majority) who lives in an active FIMBY neighbourhood. You don’t need to be part of any organization or community group. FIMBY is open to everyone; sign-up requires you to attest that you are 19 or older and able to agree to the Terms.

Go to sign up and enter your postal code. If your neighbourhood is active, you’ll be guided through a short onboarding that includes setting your name, photo, and care preferences. A local volunteer moderator then confirms you’re connected to the neighbourhood and activates your account. If we’re not in your area yet, we’ll add you to the waitlist and ask if you’d like to help bring FIMBY to your area.

Both. FIMBY works in any browser at our.fimby.com and as a free app for iPhone and Android: same account, same neighbourhood. Whatever you do in one shows up in the other.

Yes, free to you. There are no ads, no premium tiers, no fees, and we don’t sell your data. FIMBY does cost money to run; as a non-profit endeavour, those costs are covered by donations, grants, and community contributions, never by charging neighbours to take part.

Right now FIMBY’s own text is in English. If English is not your first language, you can log into FIMBY through a web browser at our.fimby.com instead of the phone app, and let your browser’s built-in translation render the app in many languages. It is not perfect, but for a neighbourhood as multilingual as ours, it helps. Supporting more languages directly is something we care about as FIMBY grows.

You are welcome here. FIMBY never mails anything, so you do not need a mailbox. What matters is choosing a postal code inside the neighbourhood you want to belong to, that might be a shelter, a community centre, or another local spot you are connected to. An email address is helpful so we can send your daily digest of what is happening nearby. And because FIMBY works in any web browser, you can take part from a shared or public computer, like the one at your local library, without needing your own phone or internet. Housing can be uncertain; belonging to a neighbourhood should not have to be.

FIMBY is designed for brief check-ins, not constant scrolling. A typical week might look like seeing a couple of asks or offers from neighbours, browsing the lending library, or noticing an event you want to attend. Some weeks you might not open it at all. That’s fine. FIMBY is meant to be there when you need it, not to demand your attention.

A few ways. FIMBY is scoped to your immediate neighbourhood, not a city or region, so you keep seeing the same faces instead of thousands of strangers. There is no algorithm, no ads, and nothing sold about you; it is a non-profit endeavour funded by donations and grants. And it is built around lending, not just giving or selling, so when a borrowed drill comes back, the relationship keeps going. Buy Nothing and Marketplace end the moment an item changes hands. For the fuller story, see Our Approach.

You can post asks (things you need), offers (things you can give), events (gatherings, open events, community events), bulk buys (shared purchases), stories, prayers, and thank yous. See How it works for a visual walkthrough.

Yes. FIMBY has a support person feature: someone you trust can use the app on your behalf, posting, responding, and messaging as you. Learn more about this on Our Approach.

The Library holds items and skills. List tools, books, kitchen gear, or standing help neighbours can ask for. Browse by Items or Skills, request to borrow items, or tap Ask for Help on a skill to open a message thread. Loans are tracked with return dates; you manage everything from your profile.

Lending and borrowing always carry a little risk. Trusting people does, and we don’t pretend otherwise. What FIMBY does is make sure the trust isn’t blind. Before anyone can borrow an item, a neighbour who already knows them vouches for them: a simple “I know this person, they’re a good egg.” So you’re not gambling on a stranger; you’re trusting a neighbour’s judgement, and giving someone the same chance you’d hope for yourself. You risk trusting them, they trust you back. That back-and-forth is how neighbours become something more like family.

Here’s how that works in practice. When you first join FIMBY, you can use most of the platform right away: you can post asks and offers, share stories, RSVP to events, and even list items or skills. The one place we pause is borrowing items.

Before you borrow an item from a neighbour, we ask someone who already knows you, a peer or a community group rep in your neighbourhood, to vouch for you. This is just a small “I know this person.” It is not a credit check, an interview, or a background investigation. It is the kind of introduction neighbours have always made for each other.

While you are “Settling in”, the library shows you a warm banner with a “Request a vouch” button. You provide the name and email of someone you know in your neighbourhood (or a community group), they get a message asking them to vouch, and once they do, the library opens up for you.

If you do not know anyone yet, your neighbourhood moderator can introduce you to someone or vouch for you directly.

If someone you vouched for has their library access revoked for a serious reason, we let you know privately. There is no public scoring: nobody else sees who you have vouched for or what happened. Your profile shows a small private history strip that only you can see.

If two of the people you have vouched for in the past year are revoked for serious reasons, your ability to vouch for new people is quietly paused while a moderator reviews. You can always reach out if you have questions.

The goal is care, not punishment. Vouching matters because it carries quiet weight; the weight is what makes it meaningful.

Bulk buys let you coordinate large purchases with neighbours. The organizer posts what they’re buying and how many shares are available. Neighbours reserve their share, and FIMBY tracks allocations. Payment is arranged directly between participants.

FIMBY has three event types: Gatherings (small hosted events with RSVP and capacity), Open Events (larger events where neighbours can tap “I’m Going”), and Community Events (events someone else is hosting that you want neighbours to know about).

Yes. Local organizations, community centres, shelters, churches, and other groups can have a presence in their neighbourhood through FIMBY’s Community Groups feature. They can post events, share meal times and program schedules, and connect with the people around them. It is one of the ways FIMBY helps informal neighbourly care and formal community supports sit closer together.

Only people in your neighbourhood can see your posts and profile. Contact information is never shared automatically. You choose exactly what to share, with whom, and can revoke access at any time.

Yes. Blocking is bidirectional: neither person can see the other’s posts, send messages, or interact in any way. Blocks are private and can be undone at any time.

When you sign up, you choose a postal code inside the neighbourhood, and a local volunteer moderator activates your account, confirming you’re connected to the area. Because that’s a person who knows the neighbourhood rather than a database lookup, someone living in an SRO, a shelter, or without a fixed address can belong here too.

Borrowing adds one more step. Before anyone borrows an item, a neighbour who already knows them vouches for them, so the person lending isn’t relying on a postal code alone.

You can delete your account at any time from Settings → Delete my account. Your login is revoked right away, and there is a 30-day grace window during which you can restore your account via a link we email you. After 30 days, your posts, messages, and profile are permanently removed. The confirm screen also has an opt-in checkbox to skip the grace and delete immediately if you need to. Full details at /delete-account.

FIMBY leans toward repair, not punishment, and the soft touch always comes first. Even the words reflect it: a report is a check-in, an escalation is asking for help. When something goes sideways, the first move is a gentle check-in, not a penalty, and for bulk buys a follow-up focused on making things right. Most everyday friction, like a borrowed item coming back late, is meant to be worked out neighbour to neighbour, and you can block anyone at any time, which is always mutual and private. If those gentler steps do not work, or something is serious, there is an escalation path: a neighbourhood moderator can step in and, when needed, take firmer action, up to pausing or removing someone’s access to keep the neighbourhood safe. That is always the last resort, never the starting point. There are no strikes or public ratings for ordinary mistakes; the aim is to help neighbours stay in relationship, and to protect people when that is not possible.

No. FIMBY grew out of a church community, but it is for neighbours of all backgrounds. Some people share prayer requests or God stories because that is part of their life. You are never expected to join in, agree, or participate in religious content to belong here. All that is asked is that neighbours treat one another with dignity.

Stephen Rathjen has called Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside home since 2009, and started volunteering here two years before that. Over those years he kept noticing the same thing: neighbours, and even the churches and charities doing good work side by side, could live close together and still barely know one another.

Then, walking home from Stanley Park one day, he had what he calls “a bit of a vision”: the city floating above the city, a picture of what it could look like if neighbours actually worked together. He decided to combine his skills with his faith and his values, and FIMBY was born.

Those skills came from an unusual mix of places. Stephen put down early roots at Jacob’s Well, then spent eight years as program director of Saint James Music Academy, a non-profit offering free music lessons to low-income families, before moving into technology. Today he works as a Solution Architect at Salesforce, where he has spent eight years helping hundreds of non-profits use technology well. Since 2014 he has served on the board of Strathcona Vineyard, where he is now Board Chair.

He took FIMBY for a test drive in early 2023, “strong-arming” a couple dozen neighbourhood friends into trying it. Remarkably, people who had lived side by side for years stepped into each other’s homes for the first time. Stephen also learned the tool was only half of it: “To be a neighbour, you have to actually make room.” Making that space in his own life was, he says, painful, and completely transformational.

FIMBY grew out of the kind of neighbouring that was already happening: shared meals, lending, prayer, checking in on one another, long before it was an app. Strathcona Vineyard, the church community Stephen is part of, provides the support and infrastructure that makes FIMBY possible.

No. FIMBY is not a replacement for shelters, detox, health care, crisis lines, or other essential services. It is a way for neighbours and local community groups to share everyday life, practical help, and local information more easily. In neighbourhoods like V6A, those relationships can sit alongside formal care, not replace it.

FIMBY is a non-profit endeavour, operated under the charitable status of Strathcona Vineyard Church. There are no ads, no data sales, and no venture capital. The aim is to cover the cost of running FIMBY, not to generate profit or sell your attention. Those costs are met by major donations, grants, and contributions from individuals and community groups. If you’d like to help cover them, you can support FIMBY through Strathcona Vineyard Church’s donation page.

FIMBY grows neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Sign up with your postal code. If we’re not in your area yet, we’ll add you to the waitlist and ask if you’d like to help launch FIMBY there.