Sideways News

Sam Stephens, co-founder of lending website Streetbank, believes community will end poverty

Sam Stephens, co-founder of community lending website StreetBank, believes community will end poverty. StreetBank is the people’s bank - a way in which Brits can unite, lend to each other, share things and become richer for it. It’s also, as Stephens describes, "a shared attic, a shared fancy dress box and a giant DVD library - shared and in one place".

Stephens studied geography at Edinburgh University, worked as a head-hunter for six years (while doing a part-time MBA) and set up StreetBank (with co-founder Ryan Davies) shortly after borrowing a pint of milk from his neighbour.

SN: Do you feel that you were brought up believing in the importance of community?  
SS: My parents are real village people: they’re community players willing to meet everyone, muck in and help out. I saw the richness of their lives because of it.

SN: What motivated you to set up StreetBank?
SS: Just before I started StreetBank, I became good friends with my downstairs neighbour - through lending. It started with a pint of milk and then graduated to some chairs and then I borrowed his laptop. After that we took down the dividing walls of the garden and shared it. Then I saw someone in the street cutting hedges. We don’t have any hedge-cutters so we had always done it manually. I just thought: "What if there was a website for lending?"

Later we were to realise it wasn’t just lending, it was giving away all of that stuff we have lurking about it our house that we don’t really need. So in some ways StreetBank is a shared attic, a shared fancy dress box, a giant DVD library - it’s all of these things completely shared and in one place.

SN: What would you like StreetBank to achieve?
SS: I’d like to achieve happy neighbourhoods. I would hope it will become so dense with members that people (through the site) can communicate with others on their street and know the names of their neighbours.

SN: Where do you think our current attitude to community has come from?
SS: I don't think that community is dead. Some people get it - say 40% of the population. But then there’s 60% that don’t - and that percentage is growing.

I think it’s partly to do with money, people are richer and more independent. Because they are independent, they don’t need to rely on anyone else and then they don’t trust their neighbours - it’s a vicious circle. You close in on yourself. A virtuous circle would be one where the more you meet people and get to know them, the more you realise that for all their quirks and complications - they’re ok. Then you can share and cooperate.

SN: What do you want to see change in community?
SS: I’d love to see people taking social risks. I think that we’ve become risk-averse. Not just in a physical sense in our obsession with safety, but risk-averse in terms of not saying "hello" to people because we think they might be rapists. It’s complete nonsense.

I’d like to see people taking more social risks and actually knowing where risks lie. Yes, there are some people that you do need to be careful of, that you wouldn’t ask into your home, but 99% of the population are completely trustworthy. We’re in a society that doesn’t know where those risks are so we take no risks at all.

SN: How do we relearn that?
SS: By getting to know each other! It’s by taking slightly more risks – inviting someone into your home when you’re on your own is a big risk but inviting someone into your home when your partner is there, or when your housemates are around, is a substantially smaller risk. It’s that distinction that people forget. So they don’t do it all.

SN: How, as individuals, can we change the current attitude to community?
SS: We can join StreetBank! We can smile at people in the street, we can get involved in local community events, we can knock on our neighbours' doors. I think most neighbourhood disputes could be sorted out if we said "hi" before we complain to them about the hedge. Just be friendly to your neighbours.

If you ask a small favour of someone, they often become your friend. Strangely, people like it when we make requests of them – it also gives them permission to ask something of you. That builds community.

SN: How can community impact society?
SS: I think it can achieve the end of poverty. Nothing less than that. Come on! I genuinely believe that - we can have access to all material things if we’re willing to cooperate with each other. If we act independently, we only have what we own and what our bank balance allows. When we cooperate, the sky’s the limit!