Overview
What it actually is
Most community groups I deal with (Lions clubs, P&C associations, neighbourhood watch groups, rural fire brigades) run their communication across three or four different platforms that don't talk to each other. Facebook for announcements, a separate spreadsheet for the directory, email chains for RSVPs, and WhatsApp for the daily chat that nobody outside can see.
I built LocalBuddy to consolidate those into a single platform that runs under the community's own branding. The council or group gets their own subdomain, their own colour scheme, and their own data. The underlying infrastructure is shared across tenants, which is where the (re)-usability of the platform keeps the cost down. They look independent even though they aren't running their own server.
The four modules cover the four things communities actually need: knowing what's on this weekend, finding a local tradie, selling a second hand lawnmower, and talking to each other without the feed algorithm deciding who sees what.
"Nextdoor exists. Facebook Groups exist. Neither is owned by the community, neither runs on Australian servers, and neither lets the group admin control what data is collected and where it goes. That is the gap."
