The success formula behind the Quiet communities

More than 210,000 moments of happiness across the Netherlands

Quiet communities provide their members with free services, products, or treats without expecting anything in return. We call these moments of happiness. Members step out of their isolation through these moments, feel more confident, see their talents, and are motivated to develop themselves further. Such a moment of happiness can be anything: from a clothing package for children to tickets to the theater. The choice to accept a moment of happiness lies with the member, and they are free to decline offers. Thus, they decide for themselves whether or not they want to take advantage of what is offered to them. If they do not wish to accept, the offer moves on to another member. This way, the moments are distributed as fairly as possible throughout the entire community.

Currently, Quiet offers approximately 4000 to 6000 moments of happiness per month. Most active members thus have the chance to experience a moment of happiness about once a month. These moments come from (local) sponsors. These are entrepreneurs from the city of the community, supplemented by some national sponsors. It is up to the employees and volunteers of the communities to bring supply and demand together. That's where the Quiet sharing platform comes in.

The Quiet dashboard for employees and volunteers

Scalable success

To match supply and demand in a scalable way, the Quiet sharing platform was developed. It is, simply put, a marketplace without money. Sponsors offer their service or product via a Quiet Community, and members can accept or decline them. Most of the supply is automatically matched and assigned by an algorithm. Therefore, a lot of work is taken over by the platform, allowing the employees and volunteers of the communities to focus their attention on personal contact with the members.

Freshheads was involved in the inception of the platform. “There is good and open collaboration on both process-oriented and technical matters,” says Product Owner Jidde Koekoek about the partnership. Even in the further development, Freshheads has remained a partner of Quiet. One thing has always remained clear: what we are creating this sharing platform for. “All the historical knowledge of Quiet is here. People have left, but there is always someone who knows the story.”

And so, the long-term collaboration leads to a successful and stable platform that is central to the services of the Quiet communities. But how exactly does it work now?

The platform: how Quiet serves its target groups digitally

The Quiet sharing platform consists of two components: the desktop dashboard for employees and volunteers and the app for Quiet members. Via the dashboard, they can view their members in the communities, send messages, and distribute offers. They also see, for instance, when a member's birthday is, so they can give them an extra surprise. Meanwhile, the Quiet app is where members receive and can accept their moments of happiness (also possible via email). The offers are completely personal and discreet via the app; only the member receiving an offer knows about it.

Most members and volunteers join Quiet through word of mouth. They know someone who supports the initiative or are brought along by a member to an open session. For many members, such an open session is when they become part of the community. At Quiet, they do not have to prove that they are poor, Quiet works on trust; members are welcomed into the community and are onboarded by employees or volunteers.

The offering and sending of moments of happiness is largely automated. Members can specify what types of offers they would like when signing up by indicating which categories they want to receive offers in. Members can also indicate whether they have a partner and/or children. This way, they receive offers that truly fit their situation.

Business leader Tjerk from Quiet welcomes community employees at Freshheads

The activation: a high flyer in community building

To get a Quiet community off the ground, you need a solid plan. Quiet Netherlands supports initiators in starting and maintaining the community. There must be a solid plan and funding for the first three years. The startup process is largely laid out by Quiet Netherlands. However, each time a new community is started, a new person takes the helm. Each city/town offers new cultural and logistical challenges. Quiet assists in the startup process and ensures that the right people are in the right places.

Setting up a community is step one, but there must also be enough supply and demand in a potential community area. For both sides, word-of-mouth is extremely important, although finding members (unfortunately) is often not the problem.

On the supply side, we see Quiet employees and volunteers going out to ask local businesses and service providers to become sponsors. Sometimes companies spontaneously sign up, or it also works through word of mouth among sponsors. Often sponsors are also ambassadors of Quiet and proudly show that they contribute to alleviating poverty. To give sponsors insight into the impact of their contribution, (positive) feedback from members is often shared with the sponsor.

Easily scaling for more happiness

More than 85% of all offers for a moment of happiness are automated via the platform. That is a huge amount, which could never be achieved manually. Additionally, this ensures the fairest possible distribution of the moments of happiness. Because, no matter how different each community is, the platform remains objective. This way, Quiet can help alleviate poverty everywhere, in the same manner, as fairly as possible. Additionally, communities are given the opportunity to quickly and easily adopt the same working method repeatedly.

The need changes, the platform changes with it

As more Quiet communities emerged, the platform also grew organically. New features were developed, features were expanded, and the dashboard became larger. We are currently at the point where we are working on streamlining the dashboard to make it more intuitive and scalable. Regarding the app, a rebuild was done in 2024 to React Native. This made the operation for members more intuitive, and the terminology used throughout the app was standardized. For the coming years, keeping the dashboard and app stable, intuitive, and scalable are the main pillars.

The renewed Quiet App for members

Are you also thinking about starting a community platform? Then contact Sepp. He will be happy to tell you more!