ioby works every day with all types of community groups and leaders. These range from loosely-affiliated groups of neighbors working together for the first time on a specific and discrete project, to established 501c3 nonprofit organizations with paid program staff and multiple sources of operating revenue. (Here’s how crowdfunding can help established nonprofits.)
Continue reading Are the benefits of a 501(c)3 worth it? When, and when not, to incorporate
ioby is always looking for the next city where we can support more projects and St. Louis is at the top of this year’s list. St. Louisans have a lot of pride about their grassroots work being done to propel their city into an equitable future.
Reverend Leah Lewis, J.D., grew up in one of the first African American families on her block in pre-white-flight Cleveland Heights, Ohio — but lived her first decade blissfully unaware of the racism that had shaped and was shaping her country. Her family welcomed in friends from all over the world, and her neighbors, a lovely elderly couple of European decent, adored her.
Pedestrian safety and walkability are pressing issues in Boyle Heights, which is surrounded by six freeways and serves as a gateway into downtown Los Angeles. In the Boyle Heights’ Pico Aliso Neighborhood, the community group Proyecto Pastoral’s Comunidad en Movimiento (CEM) aims to improve walkability and street safety, especially for children, youth, seniors, and those who rely on public transit.
Lots of people have pretty fixed ideas about the video gaming world. Violent games, sexist games. Isolated young men who aren’t engaged with real life. You know the story.
We suspect a very small number of people are reading this right now. If you are, you probably live in a city where ioby has an on-the-ground staff person or you are likely one of ioby’s peer organizations who have over the years asked if we would release all our “Phase 0” reports publicly. So, we went back to all the people who we interviewed to produce these reports, and asked their permission to include their quotes in these now publicly available documents.
ioby has worked with over 1,200 civic groups to raise more than $3.6 million dollars in citizen philanthropy for positive community projects. We enable and lift up leaders who are working to make their neighborhoods stronger and more sustainable. ioby leaders fund and create public art, gardens, small business cooperatives, bike infrastructure, public health campaigns, new classroom materials, and more. Often, a local government agency will assist members of the community as they set out to take on projects that align with a long-term plan related to sustainability, public health, or resilience.
Continue reading Civic Crowdfunding for Trust and Resilience
Have you ever tried slacklining? You know – tying a rope between two trees (or over a canyon) and using your arms to balance you as you walk across? It’s great exercise, great for fine-tuning all those little muscles in your body whose names no one knows, great for promoting mind-body balance, great for calming and focusing the mind, and great for bringing adventurous folks together in communities. In other words, it’s super fun.
Continue reading AWESOME PROJECT: Building a park for legal slacklining in Boulder, CO
Three-time ioby Leader Robyn Mace raised the money, buy-in, and helping hands needed to convert a neglected lot adjacent to her family’s Memphis home into the stormwater-thirsty Evergreen Rain Garden.
Continue reading 5 green infrastructure questions for veteran ioby leader Robyn Mace
We never get tired of hearing from campaign leaders who appreciate not just the personal crowdsourcing training, tactical support, and signature ioby love we provide, but also the legal backing that we, a fiscal sponsorship service, bring to the table. It can be really challenging and limiting for smaller groups that aren’t 501c3s themselves – gardening clubs, say, or educator collectives, or simply handfuls of neighbors coming together with a vision – to navigate the choppy fundraising seas alone. We’re proud to facilitate that process, so that they can focus on doing what they do: knowing better than anyone else what their own communities need, building that educational beehive, starting that edible community garden, creating that pop-up bike lane, etc.
Continue reading AWESOME PROJECT: Walk Austin makes it official, 501c3 style