ioby

Location: Nationwide

Website: www.ioby.org

Climate change. Toxic landfills. Shrinking parks—and wildlife.

You care about these things, and you want to pitch in. So you recycle, buy local and use only ‘green’ products. You’re doing your part for the environment. Right?

Sure. Recycling and buying local or green are great. But if you want change that goes deeper—change you can really invest in—what about starting in our backyard?

Welcome to ioby. Together, we represent a new face for change—one that’s hopeful, positive…and visible.

"It’s our backyard, and it belongs to us and our kids." –Brandon Whitney

It started with a legacy of city dwellers. These people—your everyday neighbors—created daily change. They cleaned up lots. Planted trees and gardens. Brought fresh produce to areas that needed it. They got their hands dirty. But few noticed. Joyful as it was, the change was tiny—and isolated. To gain steam, it needed power, money, people and hype. It needed a platform.

Enter ioby. ioby connects change with resources. It enables all of us to invest in change—then see (and live with) the return on our investment. These pages aren’t glamorous. There are no celebrities, no large-scale protests. There are everyday neighbors taking small steps—bringing sunlight, open space, fresh food and greenery into our backyards.

Small steps have big impact. They can ripple through the city. To us, that’s real—and it goes far. It goes beyond your intentions, beyond the abstract, beyond the simple ‘click.’ Take a look around! Pick a project close to your home or your heart—and help us spread the word.

ioby is an environmental nonprofit organization. Our name is derived from the opposite of NIMBY. We have a mission to deepen civic engagement in cities by connecting individuals directly to community-led, neighbor-funded environmental projects in their neighborhoods. We do this primarily through our web-based crowd-resourcing platform.

Crowd-resourcing is a made-up word combining the concepts of crowd-funding (the ability to pool small donations made online to a specific cause or project) and resource organizing (a core tenet of community organizing that considers activists and advocates the best supporters to ensure financial sustainability of a cause or project). We believe that crowd-resourcing is a powerful way to build support and ensure success of a project.