Why the “New Barn” Foundation
A brief narrative about our story.
When the founders of The New Barn Foundation put together their original mission, they were greatly influenced by their own experiences as owners and senior managers at J N Phillips Auto Glass. In that realm, daily activities always revolve around helping people in need - fixing those broken car windshields or side windows that no one plans on, but always needs repair. Often this assistance occurs at the same time as an insurance claim, in which an automobile insurer and/or agent is also helping an individual deal with an unexpected problem. This led us to become students of how insurance has worked over the years, and, then, to the creation and mission of the New Barn Foundation.
Today's property insurance products have evolved from the earlier forms of property insurance that date back to the early days of the United States of America. The earliest forms of insurance were often in the form of volunteer fire departments and “mutual aid societies”, when neighbors gathered together to help a neighbor in need. Such as when a barn was destroyed by fire or other natural disaster. Townspeople contributed their own labor to help another in need, to keep the community going. Such as rebuilding the barn together.
This was a great gathering and interpersonal moment for the community. As time went on, though, other means of supporting the farmer in need arrived. Lending a hand was replaced by contributions of money. Insurance as we know it today became an easier and more efficient solution as communities grew and prospered.
For example, a farmer pays an Insurance premium each year, and if his barn burns down, the insurance company pays to rebuild it. In this way, a very straightforward transaction replaces a cumbersome method of gathering neighbors for a barn-raising, as rural U.S. communities used to do.
The benefit is a more efficient resolution. In terms of building barns with a minimal expenditure of resources, we all recognize property insurance as much more efficient, and in many ways easier and more practical, than gathering the community each time somebody’s barn burns down.
But there are social implications that we can all recognize also. In terms of maintaining the community, barn-raisings fostered mutual interdependence, social solidarity, and reciprocity amongst individuals. One relies on one’s neighbors economically, as well as in other ways, and they rely on you.
NBF understands and values the origins of this tradition, and its efforts are aimed at continuing to generate good old-fashioned neighborly cooperation and support. That is where the name "New Barn" Foundation originated, and how it helps to define our mission.
The New Barn Foundation is committed to building volunteer efforts and participation throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to help citizens in need. And the New Barn Foundation is committed to recognize the mutual interdependence, social solidarity, and reciprocity among individuals as it occurs throughout Massachusetts.