We built an app to make neighborhood association officer burnout visible

#flutter #firebase #productivity #ios

The problem

In Japan, neighborhood associations (自治会/町内会) are volunteer-run civic groups that handle bulletin distribution, disaster safety checks, dues collection, and annual community meetings. Rotating officer roles is how they survive. The problem: nobody tracks who actually did the work.

New officers inherit a cardboard box of notes and a vague verbal handover. There's no record of how many bulletin rounds happened, who handled which safety check, or how many hours dues collection took. That invisibility feeds a feedback loop: the role feels opaque and exhausting, so fewer people are willing to take it on.

What Musubiba does

Musubiba is a single app that covers the core officer workflows:

Bulletin circulation with read receipts
Dues collection with payment tracking
Safety checks for residents
In-app voting for annual meetings
Shared year-round schedule
A persistent handover notebook

The point isn't to automate these tasks away. It's to make the workload measurable. When you can see who did what across a year, the handover becomes a data transfer instead of a mystery.

Stack

Flutter for iOS and Android parity. Firebase handles real-time sync and auth. Billing runs through Stripe and IAP depending on platform. Members join via QR code, and accounting input works from a web view as well.

Pricing

Free up to 15 members. ¥1,500/month removes the member cap.

Honest limitation

Musubiba is optimized for Japan's 自治会/町内会 context — the terminology, workflows, and UI assumptions are all Japan-specific. It isn't a general HOA management tool and won't feel right for associations outside Japan.