Want to start your own project but need some inspiration? Our Learn from a Leader blog series is profiling past ioby Leaders who succeeded in bringing more fresh food, active transport, green spaces, and other healthy improvements to their neighborhoods. Read on, and imagine what you could do on your block!

about the project

Economic and geographic access to prenatal group fitness activities in New York City is far from equitable. For the past six years, the NYC Prenatal Fitness Initiative has been working to establish a model for community-based prenatal fitness programs for low-income women all around the city.

Co-founder Andrea Mata has been teaching water exercise for over a decade. “I love sharing the joy of water with people who aren’t necessarily Olympic swimmers,” she says. When she became pregnant with her first child, Andrea found out about prenatal water exercise and took a training class in it. “That’s when I started to notice how expensive prenatal fitness is here, and how few geographic regions it’s offered in,” she says. While she still teaches water exercise to non-pregnant people, Andrea’s also become committed to helping more women access myriad forms of prenatal fitness—like walking groups, yoga, and belly dance.

The steps:

1. Verify the need. As a fitness instructor, I saw firsthand what was available for pregnant women in different areas—and what wasn’t. I would overhear my students at Riverbank State Park in Harlem talk about how they really wanted more of the kinds of classes I was teaching in our area, but there were so few to choose from. So I knew for sure we had a need.
2. Start connecting. Identify and contact people and entities in your area who are likely to be thinking in a community way already: parks and other public spaces, city pools, yoga studios, community centers… I met a midwife who was eager to see more prenatal fitness options, too, and we started working together right away. Connect with as many of these “natural allies” as you can at the beginning, then sort out who can help you teach, promote, sponsor, fundraise, or otherwise take part.
3. Success in numbers. Getting together the energy of even two or three excited people is powerful, and can help you win more support. For example, doctors and clinics have historically had some trepidation about recommending exercise like yoga to pregnant women out of concern for their safety. While that situation is changing, it can still work to your advantage to connect with a like-minded nurse or medical aid who can help promote your offering among their peers.
4. Try, err, and try again. We experimented a lot with finding the right spaces, going into new neighborhoods, figuring out how to schedule a class, how to do outreach… Every change we made required consideration of new factors, like language access (hint: it’s great to have a bilingual person on your team if you can!). Just jump in, see what works, what’s sustainable, and keep refining your idea as you go.
5. Stay flexible & persevere. Be prepared to shift your expectations when you need to. It’s almost a given that you’ll run into delays, low attendance, and fundraising snags at some point. Just push through, and figure out ways to keep the energy going until things shift and the right time comes. Don’t be afraid! You might be very surprised at whose attention you’ll get and who’ll offer to help—how all the pieces somehow come together. If you believe in your project and know it has value, persevere.

Time/timing:

This depends on how large in scope you’re trying to go: just one yoga studio? Three locations in your neighborhood? borough-wide? One important thing to keep in mind is that donors usually want to support things they think will last, so you should aim to secure dedicated spaces that can host classes year-round. But also remember that your team is working on this in their spare time—it took us about two years to get off the ground (though another group might only need six months). At all stages of the game, just try to be realistic about how long it will take you to get individual tasks done—especially promotion. It’s never too early to start advertising a class!

Budget:

We’ve always been very creative with our administrative costs: we send things out electronically instead of printing them, we work with spaces that don’t charge a rental fee… All the money we’ve raised has gone to support the instructors we hire: they all have tremendous gifts to share, but also need to pay their bills. We raise enough to pay them $50 per class.

Additional resources:

• Shape Up NYC: This free drop-in fitness program offers aerobics, yoga, Pilates, Zumba, and more, and has locations across the five boroughs.
• Healthy Start Brooklyn is a city-led program that provides education about pregnancy, childbirth, parenting, breastfeeding, and healthy living for families. They coordinate both prenatal and postpartum fitness classes.
• The NYC Prenatal Fitness Initiative Facebook page. (It hasn’t been updated in a while, but shows a lot of what we’ve done.)

about the author:

Andrea Mata is a mother of two, a proud resident of Harlem/Washington Heights, and a dedicated community fitness enthusiast. She has been teaching prenatal water exercise for 13 years and co-founded the NYC Prenatal Fitness Initiative in 2010.

Feeling inspired? Want to take action in YOUR neighborhood? If you have awesome ideas about how to make your town greener, safer, and more fun, let us help! Tell us your awesome idea right here. We’d love to help you get started today.

Many factors contribute to our health, including genetic predispositions, access to quality medical treatment, and even the amount of sleep we get.

But have you ever thought about how your neighborhood affects your health?

“Social determinants of health” is the term for every external condition in which we are born, grow, work, and age. These include our relationships with family and friends, our employment opportunities and experiences, our socioeconomic status, and—of particular interest to ioby—our neighborhood amenities, like public transit, affordable fresh food, exercise options, and nutrition education. People who live in zip codes that have these things are likely to enjoy good health; in areas without them, residents are likely to struggle with with chronic illnesses like obesity and diabetes.

The good news about these social determinants of health is that we have the power to change them! Every day, citizen leaders are taking small steps toward big change by making their neighborhoods healthier, one block at a time. And this summer, ioby is partnering with the New York State Health Foundation to help local leaders in nine areas throughout the state get their ideas for healthy change off the ground by providing fundraising training and dollar-for-dollar matching funds! Read more about the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge and how to apply.

Want to get involved but need some inspiration? Our Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge Learn from a Leader blog series is profiling past ioby Leaders whose projects exemplify what we’re looking for from applicants: projects that focus on healthy food, active transport, green spaces, fighting disease, or some combination. Read on, and imagine how your neighborhood could benefit!

About the project:

Residents of neighborhoods that lack fresh produce develop diet-related diseases more frequently than people who have access to fresh food. For some families, the most convenient—and affordable—meals come from fast food restaurants and bodegas, making alternatives seem out of reach. But teaching young people how to source and cook healthy food early in life can set them on a path to break that mold.

“Our health is in our own hands. We have the knowledge,” says Stacey Murphy, Director of BK Farmyards and leader of the project Cooking the New $1 Menu: Straight from the Farm, which brought nutrition education and healthy cooking classes to high school students in Brooklyn. “Our approach was ‘health and nutrition for bodies, community, and planet,’ ” she says. “We wanted to get the kids tasting and trying new things to get them invested. Once people embody something, they start living it.”

The steps:

1. Take stock & team up. It’s a big process to bring cooking into a classroom that hasn’t done it before. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or neighborhood volunteer, assess your school’s resources and generate a team—that includes students. Think through the logistics: What can you prep, cook, eat, and clean up in an hour? Is there a student with a free period who can help you before or after the class? Where can you store your kitchen equipment when you’re not using it? Plan a routine, and revise it as you go.
2. Crowdsource your curriculum goals. Engage students in asking what kind of health lessons they want to learn, then devise your recipes from there. Are they saying: “I’ve never used a knife” or “I’ve never measured anything”? Do they want to know if there’s any such thing as “healthy chocolate”? Are they asking what people mean by “Fair Trade”? Spend your first class determining what they want to know, then design a realistic, age-appropriate curriculum that aims to address their questions.
3. The right tools for the job. If you bring knives into a high school, the very first thing you have to do is teach students how to use them—and explain that any unsafe use will mean no participation. Make the lessons more useful by trying to replicate what students are likely to have at home: keep it simple. And use recipes that provide something for everyone to do: one person can measure, another can chop, another can stir, all at the same time. This will illustrate that many pieces have to come together to make a meal, and keep everyone engaged.
4. Start small. Don’t make a whole meal your first time; start with something simple, like salsa. No cooking required, and it’s easy to put together and taste immediately, but students can learn how to use a knife properly (and how the term “season to taste” can create a variety of outcomes from the same recipe). Learning basic techniques at the start, like cutting, will free up time later to make more complex foods.
5. Make good habits. It’s important that students have time to taste the food, talk about why they like or don’t like it, and clean up in each class—those are all healthy habits for life! So make it a point to clean up before eating, emphasize food-related vocabulary, and show students how they can (and must) work as a team to make their meals a success.

Time/timing:

Every school is different, but you’ll always need time to take inventory of its cooking spaces and equipment; to learn students’ comfort levels around things like knives and measuring; for permission slips to be sent home and come back; to find out about any allergies and avoid those ingredients; etc. It will take a good couple of months at least to get everyone on the same page.

Budget:

This varies so widely! To get an idea…

– Set your curriculum first, so you know what equipment you’ll need. We went with metal utensils and ceramic plates, but paper and plastic might be a better choice for you.

– You probably won’t need a knife and cutting board for each student; maybe one per four or five.

– Some schools will go all out to provide you with materials; others can’t or won’t. Consider bringing in your own tools from home, or borrowing them, to save costs.

– Remember to think about keeping all students engaged during the lesson—a shortage of tools is boredom in the making.

Additional resources:

– The Food Project Toolbox’s books, manuals, and activities are a great place to start—especially their French Fries and the Food System: A Year Round Curriculum Connecting Youth with Farming and Food.

– The Youth Farm, one of NYC’s largest urban farm sites, provides training opportunities to youth and adults, and increases local options for fresh, affordable produce.

– The Nourish Curriculum Guide offers a rich set of resources to open a meaningful conversation about food and sustainability.

– Instead of fishing for a complete curriculum, try searching for individual recipes and create your own program. Also think about age-appropriateness: there might be good lessons for teens in a recipe written for kindergarteners. You can adapt it!

About the author:

Stacey Murphy has taught hundreds of teens and adults how to grow, harvest, and prepare fresh foods. She is a recovering engineer and architect turned garden geek and farm nerd. Stacey founded BK Farmyards, a cooperative of urban farmers in Brooklyn dedicated to social justice through urban agriculture, and helped create over an acre of new farmyards in Brooklyn. She’s been featured on Martha Stewart Radio, PBS online, and once appeared on the David Letterman show with a giant radish. She envisions a world where everyone is nourished by the magic of fresh, affordable, and culturally-exciting food… extra points if it’s homegrown. Sign up for online classes and events at FarmyardBootcamp.com.

Feeling fired up about cooking in the classroom, or another project that could make your neighborhood healthier? Learn more about the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge and apply for fundraising training and matching dollars now!

Here’s something we hear all the time: we need to raise money on a big scale to make big change.  In community work,  it’s easy to get intimidated by the size of  the problems we want to solve. Because of this, attaching a huge number to that solution can make us lose momentum and decide not to try after all.

Well, the great news is that you don’t need to raise a lot money to make a tremendous positive impact on your community. In fact, some of our very favorite ioby projects are small fundraising projects, with budgets right around $500—or less!

(Bonus: if your ioby project raises less than $1,000, we waive our $35 platform fee. More info on fees is here.)

Here are ten ways to make a big impact on your neighborhood with small fundraising. Which ones would work in your community?

1. Safer street crossing, now in full color

Category: Safer streets, Tactical urbanism

Example: Crosswalk Flags, Memphis, TN

Small fundraising budget: $543

Here’s an easy thing to raise money for: Safer streets! Grab a brightly-colored flag from the bucket and look both ways. Then, hold it high to increase your visibility to drivers, then leave it in the bucket on the other side. Because of this project, not only did this Memphis street crossing become immediately safer, the project also drew the City’s attention to a place where a permanent crosswalk would be very welcome.

2. No more wondering, “When’s the next bus?”

Category: Safer streets, Tactical urbanism

Example: TimelyTrip, Atlanta, GA

Small fundraising budget: $534

Binh Dam raised money for bus stops in Atlanta to provide provide basic information for riders: routes, destinations, and timetables! Because these were missing, the project set out to identify the city’s most highly foot-trafficked bus stops. Then Binh attached printed timetables in weatherproof cases to the sign posts. Taking the bus just got a whole lot saner!

3. Little Free Libraries

Category: Placemaking, Sharing, Tactical urbanism

Example: Summer Meadows Little Free Library, Memphis, TN

Small fundraising budget: $362

Raise money for more books in more places, especially in neighborhoods without easy access to a public library. “Little free libraries” offer passersby of all ages the chance to pick up a great read, donate their favorite already-read books, and create a sense of community openness and sharing.

[Via Carnes Gardens Facebook page]

4. Securing the tools to keep community gardens green

Category: Environment, Neighbors working together

Example: We want to buy James a Lawnmower, Memphis, TN

Small fundraising budget: $559

James Alsobrook lives next door to Carnes Garden, a new community and teaching garden created in a former vacant lot. He quickly became one of its most devoted and beloved caretakers. And so when James lost access to the lawnmower he had been borrowing to cut the garden’s grass, his neighbors decided to raise money on ioby to buy him a new (and better) one. Because of this campaign, James has the tools he needs to keep Carnes Garden a welcoming and safe space for all residents of the community.

5. A better home for urban birds

Category: Environment, Food

Example: Chicken Yard, Brooklyn, NY

Small fundraising budget: $273

How about raising money for the birds? A 100-member community garden in Brooklyn relies on their flock of five hens to educate visitors about caring for animals and growing food ethically and sustainably. And so, this small fundraiser provided the materials to expand the birds’ yard, giving them and their visitors a larger and cleaner space to eat, play, and socialize in.

6. Pop-up neighborhood lawn games

Category: Placemaking, Tactical urbanism

Example: Barksdale-Auburndale Mobile Bocce Club, Memphis, TN

Small fundraising budget: $618

Just want to raise money to bring the fun? Try something like this easy set-up/easy tear-down mobile bocce ball court! It creates an informal, inviting game and play space for all ages, wherever it goes: parkside events, block parties, even long driveways.

7. Getting-to-know-you community cookout

Category: Placemaking, Food

Example: Poplar Park Neighborhood Cookout, Memphis, TN

Small fundraising budget: $528

Raise money for a simple community cookout that can inexpensively set the stage to get your neighbors chatting and relating. Nothing brings people together like the combination of food, drinks, music, games, and space! As these project leaders said, a neighborhood cookout can encourage “strangers to meet and become acquaintances, and acquaintances to take steps towards becoming friends.”

8. Shed some solar-powered light

Category: Schools, Environment

Example: Solar Lights for MSSA, Memphis, TN

Small fundraising budget: $515

A first-year school with a STEAM curriculum raised money to brighten up the front of their building—both for increased safety and nicer aesthetics. So solar-powered flood lights were an inexpensive and green option. Parents and students volunteered to install them on an already-scheduled school clean-up day. Bright idea, right?

9. Green energy R&D in school

Category: Schools, Environment, Citizen science

Example: Wind Energy Power!, San Francisco, CA

Small fundraising budget: $500

Students in this high school’s “Green Academy” program were already learning about wind energy in class. So this project took it to the next level by raising money to provide them with supplies to make and test their own windmills. Their designs will be studied by future classes, help to prepare them for careers in engineering, and maybe even lead to the development of a wind energy system on campus.

10. Environmental advocacy for students, by students

Category: Schools, Environment

Example: Banish the Bead!, Muskegon, MI

Small fundraising budget: $572

A group of junior high schoolers raised money to write and self-publish a children’s book about the negative impacts of microbead pollution in the Great Lakes. It’s called Billy the Bluegill and the Microbead Mishap, and they’re distributing it free to all 81 third grade classrooms in their county. The students believe that if they educate kids about how their consumer choices make a difference for the environment, parents will also get the message.

See? It’s amazing what you can do for a small fundraising budget of around $500—or less! If reading about these projects gave you a great idea to raise money for improving your neighborhood, tell us about it at ioby.org/idea. So, whether your project will cost $500 or a lot more, ioby is here to help you raise the resources you need to make it happen.

At ioby, we are  lucky to be surrounded by experts from across the country. Our ioby Leaders  can do some amazing things;  They can  build bat houses, make beeswax candles, teach  kids how to tell stories through dance!  And best of all, they’re not stingy with their knowledge.  That’s why we like to  feature some of our favorite Leaders in our Learn from a Leader series. We hope you enjoy!

About the Author:  Clarence Eckerson, Jr. of Streetfilms is frequently referred to as “the hardest working man in transportation show biz” for his dedication to making wonky concepts more accessible and entertaining to the public. He’s been documenting transportation advocacy for over ten years with no formal background in video or urban planning. Clarence attributes much of his knowledge to never holding a driver’s license—99% of his footage is shot by bike, foot, train, or bus.

What the heck is a sneckdown?

Sneckdowns (a contraction of “snowy neckdowns” popularized by  Clarence  and Streetsblog founding editor Aaron Naparstek) are leftover snow piles on city streets that can show us spaces where cars don’t drive—spaces that can easily be reclaimed, by sidewalk extensions or other improvements, for pedestrian use.

1. Gather some info

A few weeks before the first snowfalls hit your area, research and make a list of places that are “overbuilt” for cars: wide expanses of asphalt where it’s dangerous to cross, long straightaways that encourage speeding, or locations where pedestrian fatalities have occurred. This will familiarize you with the kinds of areas that make for good sneckdowns.

2. Secure pals!

Though this project can be easily be done solo, it will be more fun if you identify a few other people interested in safe streets and get them excited about documenting sneckdowns with you.

3. Tune in

Monitor the weather, and when a snow storm approaches, be ready to go into action. Although wet/light snow works okay, what you’re really hoping for is a heaping helping— at least three or four inches.

4. Get snapping

Once there’s snow on the ground, go out and take photos of streets where areas of snow remain largely untouched. Ground-level photos are great, but a second- or third-story perspective can show more (an outdoor subway platform, the window of a department store, etc). Visiting the places on your list in Step 1 is ideal, but be open to improv! Just while you’re going about your day, you’ll see how little room cars use in many intersections.

5. Spread the word

Tweet your photos with a #sneckdown hashtag. Email them to stakeholders: relevant nonprofits, elected officials, the department of transportation. Get local news attention by writing to “breaking news” email addresses and linking to other coverage of the phenomenon. Keep track of your photos on your own blog or Instagram, and post everything on related Facebook accounts (your own, advocacy groups, Streetfilms, etc).

Time/timing: All winter long!

Budget: Close to zero. Just your cell phone or a camera.

Supplies: A cell phone, or a digital camera, and a Twitter account is all you’ll need. Instagram, a blog, or a website is a bonus.

Additional resources:

Original Streetfilms video

The sneckdown origin story

Sweet successes

Beyond sneckdowns:

Other street conditions you can document

ioby’s Guide to Doing Good in the Cold and Snow  [PDF]