It’s where ioby Leaders post about and raise money for their projects, where volunteers and donors find the projects they want to support, and where we sing out everyone’s successes as much as we can.
We’re always working on ways to improve—especially ways to make it easier for our community to create, share, and search for projects. To this end, our product team just rolled out a suite of upgrades to our campaign pages that we’re hoping you’ll love.
We’re excited enough about them that instead of a regulation show-and-tell, we’d like to turn this fun unveiling into a game:
Check out the Biggs Hillside Garden campaign page. Take a niiiiiice looooong look. Ok, got it? Good.
Now check out what it used to look like:
So? Did you notice…?
The Countdown Clock showing “x days left”—a more urgent call-to-arms for your donor network
A Photo Gallery that allows you to upload up to five photos and one video into a dedicated gallery instead of directly on to your campaign page. You can now embed a video (file or URL) to make it the featured image, display additional photos or videos as thumbnails, choose the order in which images appear, and add captions to all of them.
A Giving Levels rewards/incentives chart where you can create up to five reward levels, incentives, or suggested donation amounts for specific project needs (totally optional!)
These are just a few of the many changes we have in the works that will let you better customize your campaigns and promote your projects on ioby. (We think they’re just plain good-looking, too. Win-win!)
We’d love to know what you think. Please comment below, or drop us a line at hello@ioby.org.
We’re happy to be working with our amazing friends and collaborators Grassroots Grantmakers, on an On the Ground convening of grantmakers and changemakers this fall.
We think a lot about how small actions and small amounts of money can aggregate to make a huge impact – that’s crowdfunding in a nutshell, after all. Grassroots Grantmakers is also deeply rooted in this idea, supporting ” place-based grantmaking approach that focuses on strengthening and connecting resident-led organizations and their leaders in urban neighborhoods and rural communities.”
In October, along with Grassroots Grantmakers, we’ll be convening funders, leaders, and practitioners from around the country for 2015’s On The Ground gathering here in Brooklyn, NY. We’ll speak with ioby project leaders and others in the “Deep Roots” to talk about how grantmakers can support their important work. We want to start and continue meaningful conversations to explore:
How small-scale projects can spur real democracy and build power in low-income communities and communities of color
How online fundraising can build equity and resilience
How small-scale movement-building can strengthen communities on the local, regional and national scales
What the citizen-led, citizen-funded project model means for the future of philanthropy and grantmaking
Stay tuned for more details on this exciting convening, and please visit Grassroots Grantmakers to learn more about their work.
This spring has brought huge and exciting changes for us here at ioby. First, we brought on five awesome new staff members at our home base in Brooklyn, and seriously ramped up work in Memphis. And now we’re thrilled to announce that (thanks to funding from the Kresge Foundation) we’re laying the groundwork for a brand-new set of partnerships to support neighbor-led projects in Detroit!
But we’re not just rushing in headlong with our New York model, or even our Memphis model; Detroit’s unique set of challenges and opportunities mean that a one-size-fits-all approach would be a big mistake. It’s ioby policy to make sure we’re adding to, not duplicating, the work that’s already being done and that means we spend a lot of time in the getting-to-know-you phase.
“It’s always better to come in informed,” says David Weinberger, our brand new, first-ever City Partnerships Director. “In Memphis, we learned a great deal about the city during our research phase, and we’ve been wildly successful there. It’s really important that we fully understand the civic landscape in Detroit before we try to provide anything of value to any leader in that city. We take a contextual approach to working intentionally inside a city. We don’t want to be an organization that jumps in and jumps out.”
To that end, David’s work as he explores Detroit (and all partner cities to follow) will rest on three important pillars:
Extensive research on the existing civic landscape, we call this “phase zero” research
Careful synthesizing of the data and network knowledge collected, and only then:
Creation of a Detroit-tailored ioby model.
And what does all this phase zero research look like? Let’s just say that David has a semi-permanent hands-free headset-shaped dent in the top of his hair from talking on the phone so much. So far, he’s managed to interview more than 70 Detroit-based community leaders in the two short months since he took on his new role. He’s talking to folks in community-development organizations, churches, business improvement districts, small start-up grassroots organizations, government, philanthropy, you name it.
“It’s a city that’s in constant transition,” says David of Detroit. “It’s an incredibly dynamic place, which makes it harder to get your bearings. So what I’m really interested in doing is learning more about the networks of civic leaders and organizations that exist before we start to stake out our place in the city’s civic landscape.”
We think all the up-front time David’s investing in getting to know Detroit is a bit of a unique approach. “I’d say that our holistic approach to understanding a city and where can add value to citizen leaders is novel on its own,” says David, “but also the way we support citizen leaders is novel. It’s why I wanted to work with ioby, and something I’m excited to see stay consistent, even as we grow.”
Creating a new model for each new city sounds like quite a challenge, right? Naturally, we looked far and wide to find the best person to lead our City Partnerships – and it turned out that he was right under our nose. Formerly ioby’s Leader Success Strategist and Partnership Manager, David has a background in transportation policy and a major thing for cities (his current obsession is Pittsburgh). He grew up in a suburb of New York, and didn’t realize until he moved to the city for college how much he’d wanted a stronger sense of place. “When I moved to New York, I immediately found comfort in my neighbors,” he says, “and I found power in contributing to civic life in my neighborhood. I want to give that to everybody. I love the idea of lowering barriers to getting involved.”
Interested to learn more? Stay tuned – up next in city partnerships news are Pittsburgh, Atlanta, DC, Cleveland, LA, and then – who knows? Oh, the places we’ll go.
When we announced the $50,000 for Memphis match campaign in February, we were anticipating being able to fund about 20 projects across Memphis that aim to make the city greener, safer, more livable, and more fun. 20 projects – that’s a lot of citizen-led, neighbor-funded awesomeness!
But we had no idea that we would be completely overwhelmed with great ideas from Memphians. As the amazing project proposals kept rolling in, far exceeding our expectations in number and quality, we knew it was going to be impossible to choose: we had to grow the pie.
[The Mobile Porch in action! via The Mobile Porch Flickr]
So we’re thrilled to announce that we were able to up the match to $85,000, supporting 78 great projects across 40 Memphis neighborhoods! (Match funding comes thanks in part to the Hyde Foundation in Memphis, which supports education, arts and culture, and livable communities.)
And it’s quite a range. When these projects launch on March 30 on ioby.org, look for community gardens, collaborative art projects, block parties, and more. Then on April 11, project leaders will be at MEMFix: Pinch, rallying support from their friends and neighbors to kick off the public match period. All public donations raised between April 11 and April 15 will be doubled thanks to the match funding.
As if that weren’t enough, a number of the projects were awarded free use of the Mobile Porch, a traveling interactive citizen engagement experience – literally a front porch on wheels – designed to get neighbors talking about important issues. The Porch, created by Livable Memphis and Memphis Tomorrow, an association of business and community leaders, will travel to different neighborhoods and help project leaders bring their neighbors together.
Here are a few projects to look out for in Memphis over the next few months:
Train art and trees for Jacob’s Ladder: Neighbors led by Rev. William Marler will decorate the front of Jacob’s Ladder, a community resource center in the Beltline with railroad-themed metal artwork, and will plant 25 new decorative trees to provide shade near the center.
Bus stop seats: In partnership with the Memphis Area Transit Authority, neighbors led by Emily Trenholm will purchase and install 24 sturdy and colorful seats at bus stops in high visibility locations citywide.
Bat houses in East Buntyn: Neighbors led by Shannon Langellier will build bat and chimney swift houses in the East Buntyn neighborhood. Bats eat West Nile-carrying mosquitos and also provide entertainment and education.
We can’t wait for these 78 awesome projects to get funded and get underway. One thing’s for certain, there’s going to be a lot of great stuff growing in Memphis this spring!
That’s right: Our 2014 Giving Report is now out! (We promise you, it was worth the wait.)
In it, you’ll find: • Stories from our 2014 ioby Heroes, awesome ioby Leaders who worked to improve their neighborhoods from Denver to Livonia, GA; • A look at 2014 by the numbers (Wondering how many new projects were launched? How many BBQ restaurants our staff tried in Memphis?); • Why we’re excited to look beyond the grassroots to the “Deep Roots”; • A one-stop shop for ioby resources, with how-to guides covering everything from Green Infrastructure to Throwing Killer Galas! …And much more!
Oh hey, people who want to bike safely to work, and people who hate traffic, and people who like clean air, and people who want our coastal cities not to be underwater in 100 years:
Would it surprise you to know that Copenhagen itself, that shining eco mecca of robust and teeming protected bike lanes – bike highways, really – was not always so? That up to the 1960’s, Copenhagen, too, according to People for Bikes, was just as jam-packed with smelly cars as the rest of the developed world is?
Well, yes. It was that late in the game that the bike-heaven of the world turned it around, creating vast networks of protected bike lanes and clearing public squares of cars. Think we can do it, too?
Signs point to yes. In fact, lots of the cool kids already are. New York is doing it, Chicago’s doing it, Minneapolis is doing it. Memphis, a city particularly dear to our hearts, is doing it. And here’s some very exciting news: up next to the plate is a city that for many of us probably still calls up images of SUV’s packed with outdoorsy gear, rather than of bicycles. Time to throw out your old ideas about the mile-high city; cyclists, meet the new Denver.
By this summer, two major protected bike lanes will have opened, with many more to follow.
The imminent changes are thanks in part to Aylene McCallum, Transportation & Research Manager at non-profit Downtown Denver Partnership, and her D.D.P. colleagues. About a year ago, McCallum and her boss approached the city of Denver to say that they planned to crowd-resource money to design some protected bike lanes for downtown. City officials immediately jumped in to partner on the project, and to greatly expand its scope.
“The city said, well, wait a second. Why don’t you let us do a protected bike lane plan. We’ll fund it,” says McCallum. “We’ll focus on downtown, but we’ll do it for the entire city. And how about you use the money that you raise to accelerate the implementation of one of the corridors that we identify in this bike lane plan? So we said ok, we’ll do that.”
In an incredibly streamlined and speedy fundraising push, McCallum personally approached local businesses that stood to benefit from the increased bike and foot traffic the protected lane would bring them. She approached, in other words, people who were already stakeholders in the project, but didn’t know it yet.
“You can’t just get a story on a blog or just get a story even in the newspaper or just get a story on TV,” says McCallum. “That’s not going to bring you to your goal. You have to set aside some time to send out personal emails and personal phone calls, and that’s really what makes the difference. We pulled lists of companies that were directly on the route, on Arapahoe Street and on the adjacent corridors, and did the majority of our outreach to those companies.”
The money was raised in no time, at which point a community meeting was held, and a straw poll taken to determine which major roads residents wanted to tackle first. McCallum says it was the most fun she’s ever had at a public meeting; the poll was a hit. Arapahoe Street won, and a summer 2015 opening is slated for the new protected lane, along with it’s sister lane, which will run on a parallel street, in the opposite direction.
McCallum is herself exactly the kind of Denver resident and hopeful cyclist that she wishes were out pedaling on the roads. She’s what she calls an “interested but concerned” cyclist. She’d like to bike to her work in downtown Denver, but with two young children and a husband at home, it simply isn’t worth the risk. The city still doesn’t quite feel safely broken in for cyclists.
“I’m a mom now, I have two kids,” says McCallum. “A lot of people that work in downtown have families and are really worried about their safety, but they want to ride bikes because they’re active people and they want to use active transportation more. They’re concerned about their safety in Downtown with the high volumes of traffic, and distracted drivers. You want a little bit more protection.”
Looks like McCallum and her many interested but concerned peers won’t have to wait long; maybe we’re not as far behind Copenhagen as it seems. For a map of the new protected lane site, and lots more info, check out the Arapahoe Street Protected Bike Lane ioby campaign page.
ioby is proud to announce $50,000 in matching funds for projects in Memphis. Watch Ellen Roberds from Livable Memphis on WREG Live at 9 explain the opportunity here.
Tactical urbanism projects serve the public good, from making it safer for families in Memphis to cross a busy street to giving bus riders in Lithonia a more enjoyable commute. In case you missed it, John Bela’s piece in Next City last week gave a fantastic look at how cities like San Francisco, New York, and Philadelphia are incorporating some of the tenets of tactical urbanism into their capital programs. Here at ioby, we’ve been following this trend with keen interest, and have been particularly inspired by local government support for inspiring citizen-led projects in the City of Memphis and Shelby County.
Tommy Pacello, Director of the Mayor’s Innovation Delivery Team in Memphis, says that the city is interested in taking up the role of tactician in placemaking projects. “What we have seen in Memphis is local government embracing the idea of testing ideas before they invest in them,” say Pacello. “From re-tooling intersections to be more responsive to the needs of pedestrians to temporary road diets that slow down traffic while prototyping new bicycle infrastructure. The city is using inexpensive materials, typically just paint and plastic bollards, to allow the public to engage with the proposed improvements before they become permanent.”
Pacello points to two examples that illustrate the city’s approach to iterative placemaking. At an intersection in South Memphis that sees heavy pedestrian traffic, the city used paint and plastic bollards to temporarily enhance a highly trafficked intersection with a better crosswalk and bump-outs. Then, after a year of studying the effects of the treatment, the city is planning to make the improvements permanent. In Downtown Memphis, the City used similarly inexpensive materials to test a road diet – complete with protected bike lanes and additional pedestrian space – on Riverside Drive. Now the City is measuring community response for a year and plans to make permanent improvements based on community feedback.
In acting as a tactician, Memphis has established itself as a leader among cities looking to incorporate design thinking into its approach to problem solving. At the same time, citizens in Memphis have demonstrated the same level of commitment to taking a measured, incremental approach to public space transformation.
Back in 2010, neighbors in Binghampton – a neighborhood that suffered from severe disinvestment after the construction of I-40 cut right through the heart of it – came together to reimagine Broad Avenue, the community’s historic main street thoroughfare. Inspired by the Better Block method, the community planned “New Face for an Old Broad,” a two-day intervention followed by a series of many more small, low-risk projects meant to help neighbors, businesses, and government imagine this stretch of Broad Avenue as a thriving commercial corridor. They painted protected bike lanes, staged pop-ups in vacant storefronts, and invited musicians and artists to provide cultural programming. The event was a tremendous success, and heralded $2.5 million in private investment in the next year alone. Four years later, the commercial district boasted 95% occupancy and a total of nearly $40 million in private investment.
The city, inspired by this citizen-led movement, worked with local cycling advocates, businesses, and the team at Livable Memphis to raise the funds to make that bike lane on Broad Avenue permanent. This two-way protected bike lane is part of what is now known as the Hampline, and the majority of it was paid for by a combination of federal, state, city, and private funds. But in late 2013, when the team behind the Hampline realized that they were about $70,000 short of meeting their target, they turned to neighbors on ioby for support. Later that year, the team had raised enough in citizen philanthropy to begin the timely installation of the bike lane.
Bela poses a series of questions often posed by those who are skeptical of government involvement in guerrilla interventions:
But what happens when city bureaucracies and private developers adopt the tactics of guerilla artists. Do they lose their potency and radical potential? Do they actually result in more resilient and just neighborhoods? Can tactical urbanism catalyze institutional change?
Bela outlines concerns that skeptics have voiced about the public sector turning to tactical urbanism. Namely, some are worried about governments that are increasingly relying on private partners to supply the resources, while communities have always relied on government to ensure the equitable distribution of public resources. This messaging problem poses some challenges for proponents of tactical urbanism, which is founded in principles of equity and the importance of broad civic engagement.
At ioby, we believe that an important role of government is to facilitate and encourage citizen-led interventions in neighborhoods with histories of disinvestment. Municipal government is uniquely positioned to create a permitting and regulatory environment that is favorable to the tactical urbanist, and eliminate barriers to would-be leaders in priority neighborhoods.
Based on nearly five years of working with more than 750 leaders, we’ve learned a few things about the psyche of the self-starting urbanist. Specifically we have found that people with great ideas to improve their neighborhoods are put off by two significant barriers: First, a lack of confidence, bred by a limited knowledge of permitting procedures and a fear being penalized for staging a public space intervention; and second, a lack of timely, right-sized funding.
ioby’s crowd-resourcing platform funnels capital from the neighborhood – financial, social, and in-kind – to citizen-led projects. ioby offers neighborhood leaders the tools and guidance that they need to bring their ideas to life. Still, even equipped with resources and support, onerous and intimidating permitting requirements are roadblocks that prevent leaders in underinvested neighborhoods from taking on tactical urbanism projects.
A year into our partnership with Memphis, we are excited to build on this innovative way that we have worked with government to support tactical urbanists. Right now, ioby is working with the Memphis-Shelby County Office of Sustainability to find ways to find, encourage, and support Memphians looking to make their neighborhoods stronger and more livable. Together, we hope to build a system that will integrate ioby’s crowd-resourcing platform into a neighborhood visioning process.
Thanks to StreetPlans for this useful graphic about the Top Down, Bottom Up cycle of citizen and government interactions in tactical urbanism.
As communities work with the Office of Sustainability and their partners to develop long-term goals for their neighborhoods, ioby will equip them with fundraising and organizing tools they need to take on shorter-term projects toward their visions. If successful, city and county government will be able to keep an eye on these initiatives taking form, deploy resources where needed, and expedite approvals where possible. Through our partnership, ioby hopes to facilitate the “measure, test, refine” model made famous by pioneers like Bela.
As they aim to encourage tacticians engaging in iterative placemaking, cities like Memphis could reorient their procedures and policies to accommodate leaders in neighborhoods where obstacles to civic participation are most significant. To sum our reply to Bela’s questions, the involvement of city government does not threaten the integrity of the tactical urbanism movement. In fact, we boldly suggest that with the right kind of thoughtful public investment and policy adjustment, governments can grow and diversify the legions of tacticians that are taking root in cities across the country.
ioby is proud to announce our partnership with Groupon Grassroots. Beginning today, Giving Tuesday, and throughout the giving season until December 31, Groupon will be matching donations to ioby projects when donors purchase giving codes through Groupon Grassroots. Your $10 purchase will be doubled by Groupon and given to you to apply $20 to an ioby project of your choice. Don’t delay! Get your giving code doubled by Groupon today!
How it works
This Giving Tuesday, ioby is excited to be partnering with Groupon to help get these awesome neighborhood projects the funding they deserve. All of these projects are aimed at making neighborhoods stronger and more sustainable, and they all need some extra cash to come to life.
Instructions:
Learn. Click on each project to learn more and decide which project you’d like to support.
Make your gift. The giving code that you purchased from Groupon is worth $20, but you can choose to give as much as you’d like. Enter the full amount that you would like to give into the orange box on the right-hand side of the project’s page, and click the “Donate to this Project!” button.
Look over your Donation Cart. You will be brought to your Donation Cart, where you will review your order. Once you’ve looked this over, hit “Checkout.”
Redeem your code. On the Checkout page, enter your giving code and click “continue to next step.” If you entered your giving code correctly, you should see $20 applied to your donation. Now you can continue checking out as you normally would!
If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at donations@ioby.org.
