Here's to 2013!

Jan 14, 2013 1 min read

This time last year, several media outlets pronounced 2012 as the Year of Sharing. And over the course of the last 12 months, we have witnessed countless amazing developments and advancements from our peers in the sharing economy.

Our team spent the year, hard at work, working to improve the Getaround product with the hopes of making car sharing a possibility for people everywhere. In 2012, we launched Getaround communities in Portland, Austin and Chicago. We introduced Getaway – a new way for people to share cars, and worked hard to update and improve our product.

But as 2012 came to a close, we asked ourselves how we should leave our stamp on the year. And what better way to wrap up the Year of Sharing than working with our fellow sharers to pay it forward.

We started on Thanksgiving, when we partnered with the team at Exec to deliver a turkey for every Getaround car rented that weekend and an SUV full of donated food to GLIDE – a long-standing San Francisco charity located only a few blocks from Getaround HQ.

After the success of Operation Turkey Drop – we were excited, and knew we could go even bigger. So we partnered with Twice and ZeroCater to launch the TechGivesBack campaign across The Bay Area. Our goal, to collect goods and rally volunteers for local charities, including Goodwill of San Francisco and the San Francisco Food Bank.

With a clothing drive sponsored by Twice, food drive sponsored by ZeroCater and transportation provided by Getaround we were able to enroll 30+ startups to participate and in just 2 weeks raised over $45,000 in goods and services for charity:

  • 3,487 lbs of food worth $20,000 to the SF & Marin Food Banks
  • 1,125 lbs of clothing worth more than $19,000 to Goodwill, Dress for Success, Boys & Girls Club and Raphael House
  • More than $6,000 worth of transportation, volunteer time, and services

Thank you to the Getaround community and all of our Collaborative Consumption peers for making 2012 a huge year for sharing. Here’s to 2013!