Product · Ask Your Village
One place for a community to ask for help, and get it.
Ask Your Village is a coordination platform for neighborhoods, PTAs, families, and teams. I designed, built, and run it, on the web, iOS, and Android.
- Platforms
- Web, iOS, Android
- Role
- Founder, architect, and developer
- Launched
- 2026
- Stack
- ASP.NET Core, PostgreSQL, React and TypeScript, Expo, Stripe Connect
Why I built it
Groups that look out for each other end up juggling a sign-up tool, a meal train site, a fundraising page, and a group chat. Ask Your Village puts those in one place, built on a single idea: every post is an ask. There are no ads and no algorithm deciding what people see.
Architecture
One ASP.NET Core API on PostgreSQL serves both the React web app and the native iOS and Android apps, which are built with Expo. Fundraiser payments run through Stripe, and organizers withdraw to their own bank accounts through Stripe Connect. Everything is hosted on Railway, with separate staging and production services.
Decisions worth explaining
Every post is an ask
The data model has no free-form post type, on purpose. That constraint keeps the product from drifting into a general social feed, and it simplifies everything downstream, from notifications to moderation.
One API, three clients
Web, iOS, and Android share the same backend and the same rules, so a feature ships everywhere at once and behaves the same way.
Permissions across groups
One person can be an organizer in one village and a member of another, and what they can see and do has to follow them correctly everywhere: on the web, in the apps, and in every notification. Getting that model right was the hardest part of the build.
Running it
Every change goes through a feature branch into staging, and only then to production. Automated checks on the API, the web app, and code formatting must pass before anything merges. A standing group of early users gives feedback on what ships.
Where it stands
Ask Your Village launched publicly in September 2026 on the web, the App Store, and Google Play. An early fundraiser raised nearly $20,000 through organic sharing, much of it from people outside the organizer's own circle. Next up are an auction module for school and nonprofit fundraising events, and a module for teams and dance studios.