Social Tinkering: A Human Connection Project

Who can you depend on? Where do you go to hang out, meet those people, and build community? What about that place makes you feel welcome and included?

Now what if you didn't have the budget to go socialize, a car to get you there, or you dealt with discrimination and bias on a regular basis, preventing you from feeling safe and welcome? What if you experience anxiety and depression, or have a physical health issue that makes it overwhelming to get out of the house and connect with others? You are not alone! Many people are feeling persistently isolated and lonely. Recent surveys across the United States showed more than half of our population is experiencing loneliness.

Our Founder and team members have felt this too and that is why we created Social Tinkering. We are not alone and we can build connection together to help ourselves, each other, and our communities to thrive. We have personally experienced loneliness at different times in our lives and that doesn't have to be our normal. When we do find people who see and value us exactly as we are, the magic of connection can change everything! Our mission is to heal and reduce social isolation and loneliness by intentionally growing meaningful social connection and compassionate belonging. We envision a world where everyone has the opportunity to feel seen and valued.

At Social Tinkering we think that HOW we are in relationship with each other is where we need to start. How we treat each other and support each other matters. We are on a mission to challenge communities to improve our social cultures so that even though we live in a very diverse world, we can still feel seen and valued and have a sense of belonging with each other.

Our team starts by looking at what things are preventing us from meaningfully connecting with others. We then work collaboratively in our community to reduce those barriers so that more people have access to building a connected community for themselves.

How do we do this?? We host welcoming and inclusive social meetups for people of all ages to gather and spend time socializing - to practice talking to each other again! Socializing takes practice just like riding a bike and overcoming the pain of falling off the bike - or being embarassed or dismissed - can be a big challenge. So let's be human together and practice until we feel more meaningfully connected! Join our Gather Together weekly socials all over Rutland County to meet others, relax, have interesting and random conversations, and to simply enjoy being in the company of other people. Taking this time and space in our lives boosts our confidence, reduces fear and stigma, and helps us grow friendships that can last a lifetime.

In addition to our social meetups we facilitate the Rutland Belonging Collective in Rutland County and the Vermont Thriving Communities Coalition for the state of Vermont - one of the first statewide social connection coalitions in the nation!! These collaboratives bring together people with life experiences of the impacts of isolation and loneliness, organizations working on individual impacts, and businesses who want to grow more connected workplace cultures. Together we are launching an innovative data project to measure levels of social connection across an entire county. With this information in hand in early 2026, we will prioritize our first projects together, share resources and coordinate on funding needs. This data project could be adapted across every region of Vermont making us one of the first states to measure social connection, isolation, and loneliness by asking residents themselves how they feel, strongly focusing all our connection work on the underlying causes people are actually experiencing. Across the state, we are pulling partners together who work statewide to coordinate advocacy efforts, raise awareness of the impacts of isolation and loneliness, and cooperatively raise funding to then send down to the grassroots initiatives in our communities.

Our Impact So Far

In 2022 we launched the All Are Welcome Here LGBTQIA2S+ Visibility Campaign. This included banners in downtown Rutland that are still up today! Hundreds of yard signs were distributed across the county and thousands of stickers. This campaign has brought together neighbors who were nervous to meet, helped families know they were welcome as they went to music lessons, encouraged people to move to the area, and created incredible conversations between people as they grew compassion and empathy in our communities.

In 2022-23 we subgranted over $180,000 out to eight health equity projects in the Rutland Region. This helped the Rutland County Pride Center open their doors and launch their first Pride Festival, built an indoor skatepark and mural for youth, supported a BIPOC braiding salon; and uplifted the operations of ARC Rutland Area organization whose mission is to advocate for the rights of individuals with developmental disabilities and their families; and more! This project helped us to launch the Rutland Belonging Collective, hosting a partners working group, advocacy training and network, and workplace connection coordination.

From 2022-2025 we have held our Gather Together monthly socials hosting social space for over 500 people. Each month we have around 25 people attend now and 80% of those folks are repeat socializers with 20% attending for the first time! Our Women's Circle has met monthly since July 2024 and hosts 6-12 people each month discussing how we can use the power of connection to help us and our communities thrive from the perspective of women.

In 2023-24 we did strategic planning of a statewide coalition and in January 2025 we launched the coalition's facilitation team. We are currently working on developing the membership model for the VT Thriving Communities Coalition and outreaching to invite partners and advocates to participate.

Next Steps

This Fall:

• We are launching our Workplace Connection program, working with area employers to dive into any lack of connection that may be preventing employees from being successful at work and employers from retaining and attracting long-term employees.
• We'll host our first VT Thriving Communities Coalition meeting!

In 2026:

• We are working to transition our weekly social meetups into a fully fledged Community Living Room in the Rutland area. This will be a colorful and vibrant physical location where people of all ages can come to hang out and socialize, meet other people, and attend events that grow connection.
• We'll release our Social Connection in Rutland County report and begin work on our first projects.
• Training on how to host a Gather Together social to spread them all over the state and build a network of hosts to support each other.

Testimonials

“Just wanted to say, Thank you for last nights' group!! I opened up to pure strangers and it finally felt like it was "Normal"! And, more important, is that I felt safe and understood!! Thank you again!”

“The first Gather Together that I went to I felt scared and thought about going home. I challenged myself to try talking to just one person, the next time I checked the time it had been an hour; we even talked for another 20 minutes after that! Thank you for providing safe spaces for safe, happy, and interesting conversations with new people!“ 

“This event helped us build community after moving here and having our daughter! We look forward to it every month and love to connect with other attendees and watch the other kids interact with our baby! We love you! ❤️”

"You know, I think I've been feeling a lot better since coming to these events. Did you know I've quit smoking?"

Your Investment in Connection

Your donation will go a long way to help us continue to offer our social spaces and grow more across the region. You'll help others to grow their social connection and that ripples outward to many more people. With your help we can continue working with advocates and partners to reduce the barriers that are preventing people from connecting and thriving.

Ultimately, we are answering the question - how can we intentionally grow meaningfully connected communities? Everything we do at Social Tinkering is working towards building a model for community connection that could be reapplied in other communities across the nation. We need your help today!