Nebenan.de is a social enterprise consisting of Good Hood GmbH (For-Profit) and the non-profit nebenan.de Foundation (Non-Profit). This combination enables sustainable business practices and societal impact, promotes engagement and community, combats loneliness and social division, and organizes initiatives such as the German Neighborhood Award and Neighborhood Day.
We see ourselves as a social enterprise, which means: With our neighborhood platform, we aim to create a positive societal impact while operating sustainably (more on this in our impact report).
Nebenan.de is a hybrid of Good Hood GmbH (For-Profit) and its 100% subsidiary “nebenan.de Stiftung gemeinnützige GmbH” (Non-Profit).
With this setup, we want to combine the best of both worlds.
As a pure social enterprise without profit motives and without a sustainable long-term business model, we would be permanently dependent on the goodwill of third parties and constantly reliant on donations. We could only grow slowly, and the benefits of our digital neighborhood platform would be denied to many neighbors in Germany.
As a purely for-profit company without a non-profit foundation, we would lack an effective tool to promote our non-profit vision – the vision of a society where every person feels at home in their local environment and can actively contribute their potential to the local community.
Moreover, it would be difficult for us to attract cooperation partners from civil society, academia, and politics.
Therefore, we decided not to choose but simply to do both:
Good Hood GmbH operates the nebenan.de platform and develops a sustainable long-term business model for it (more information here).
The nebenan.de Foundation is the non-profit subsidiary of the Berlin-based social enterprise Good Hood GmbH, which operates the neighborhood platform nebenan.de.
The foundation promotes concrete, voluntary engagement in neighborhoods and society, thereby contributing to combating loneliness and social division – for a humane, solidaristic, and lively coexistence.
The foundation cooperates with a large network of partners throughout Germany and is a member of the Federal Association of German Foundations. In addition to the climate protection idea competition Klimaschutz nebenan, first initiated in 2022, the foundation annually organizes the German Neighborhood Award, Neighborhood Day, and the Neighborhood Heroes initiative.