POSITIVE CHANGE,
BLOCK BY BLOCK

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Dear Friend,What a year it has been! I am honored to be writing this message as we conclude ioby’s fifteenth anniversary year. During this time, ioby has supported hundreds of projects and transformed thousands of lives—including my own.While I am new to the CEO role, ioby has been in my life for more than a decade. During that time, I have witnessed firsthand how our organization supports change that might not otherwise be possible. I first worked with ioby as an organizer in Brownsville, Brooklyn, where I collaborated with neighbors on a community visioning process called The Hope Summit. There, residents came up with dozens of brilliant ideas, but continued to run into a huge funding barrier when implementing their vision. Enter ioby.The team guided our crowdfunding process from start to finish while trusting that Brownsville’s residents knew what was best for the place they loved. It was true solidarity in action. Since then, I’ve worked with the organization in almost every capacity, including as the funder of ioby’s first match grant program across New York State. I can’t wait to build on those experiences in this new role.One of my initial memories of the organization comes back to Erin Barnes, ioby’s former CEO. Erin and I met at the annual Hike the Heights event in New York City. I was immediately struck by her vision for an organization that centered local ideas as a vehicle for collective transformation. Erin carried forth that vision for fifteen years and provided leadership that was steadfast, strong, and curious. It is a privilege to carry forward that legacy into ioby’s next era.As we enter 2024, a critical year of transition and transformation, I am driven by several core questions: How can we help people raise and access funding as soon as possible? How do we remove barriers so that emergent leaders can step into their power? What does it look like to truly build an organization with and for ioby leaders?This is also a pivotal year for our country, and I believe ioby is uniquely poised to meet this moment. While political leaders exploit our differences to gain power, ioby illuminates our connections and provides a path forward. While these differences are exacerbated by social isolation, which the US Surgeon General calls the greatest public health issue of our time, ioby creates opportunities for shared purpose, deepening community bonds and combatting this crisis of disconnection.I hope that by sparking change block by block, we can connect neighborhoods around the country and, ultimately, improve the health of this nation as a whole. We must remember that despite the divisions that surround us, we are bound together in what Dr. Martin Luther King called “an inescapable network of mutuality.”The transition into the future of the organization will be different, but the core will stay the same. Thank you so much for helping us get to this place. Let’s take what we’ve learned and build the world we dream of—together.

In solidarity,
Nupur Chaudhury
CEO,
ioby

Local Leaders say ioby is good at...

ioby has supported 3,715 projects since its inception.

Each one tells a unique story of tenacity and hope. Here are a few highlights from the last fifteen years that demonstrate ioby’s wide-ranging impact, from solutions to climate catastrophe to creating safer streets. Taken as a whole, they are a snapshot of how far we have come, and a source of inspiration for the many ways we might move into the future together.

The Eagle Scout Environmental Awareness Fair

This was the very first project fundraised on ioby more than fifteen years ago! A seventeen-year-old Eagle Scout named Edward Maddelena reached out to raise money for an environmental fair he was hosting in his Bensonhurst, Brooklyn neighborhood. Maddelena raised $150 for reusable bags and pizza—and says the experience sparked his love for local volunteer work, which continues to this day.

Ride On! Bike Co-op

Ade Neff has been a long time project leader with ioby, fundraising for several active transportation projects that have created positive change in the famously car-centric city of Los Angeles. Neff’s work centers on mobility justice and transportation equity, the idea that everyone has a human right to get around safely. In 2015, he founded Ride On! Bike Co-op, which provides no-to-low-cost repairs and bike-riding classes to residents in South LA. Almost nine years later, the co-op is still going strong.

Sister Supply

“Period poverty” refers to inequitable access to menstruation products such as tampons and pads. To address this problem in Memphis, Tennessee, ioby leader Eli Cloud created Sister Supply. What started as a small fundraiser to distribute products to a handful of organizations in the city has transformed into a full-scale nonprofit that has impacted thousands of people: since their initial fundraiser in 2014, Sister Supply has donated over 600,000 products to menstruators across Memphis.

Hike the Heights

In New York City and other urban areas, public parks are often the backyards of a neighborhood—providing much-needed green space to gather, exercise, and build healthy communities. 20 years ago, Hike the Heights came together to celebrate that green space in two NYC neighborhoods: Harlem and Washington Heights. The event has developed into an annual tradition that combines physical activity with arts, crafts, and civic participation.

Kangaroo Birthing

According to the CDC, Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes than white women. At a moment that should be rooted in celebration and care, Black women are too-often faced with a healthcare system that stigmatizes their experiences and denies their pain. In the face of these problems, Black doulas have rolled up their sleeves to save lives. Among these activists is Syreeta Gordon, who founded Kangaroo Birthing, which improves maternal health outcomes for Black women in Pittsburgh by training them to become doulas in their own communities. Gordon successfully fundraised for doula scholarships on ioby, and has expanded her work ever since.

East Brooklyn Mutual Aid

The COVID-19 pandemic was one of the greatest crises in recent memory, and required community leaders to respond in dynamic, urgent, and unprecedented ways. This included the founders and organizers of East Brooklyn Mutual Aid, who worked to provide high-quality food to their neighbors at the height of the pandemic. Since 2020, East Brooklyn Mutual Aid has fundraised more than $150,000 on ioby–which has gone to deepen the movement for food justice across their neighborhood. We’re proud of our ability to get funds out the door quickly and provide much-needed support for organizations who do not have 501c3 status.

We Run Brownsville

Women are often told to “practice self care” without being given the adequate time or resources to do so—or by encouraging the false premise that self-care requires you to leave your community. We Run Brownsville addresses this inequity through an 8-week walk-to-run program that trains women to compete in a 5k race and improve personal and collective wellbeing. The group also cultivates political power by encouraging women to invest in their agency, which has powerful implications on and off the track.

Durga Puja

This year, through a partnership with the Walton Family Foundation, ioby provided match grants to projects in two Northwest Arkansas counties that improve indoor and outdoor spaces. This included a successful fundraiser for Durga Puja, an annual Hindu festival that pays homage to the Hindu goddess Durga. Organized by members of SAMHATI, the “three-day extravaganza” included dancing, drawing, and singing. In total, SAMHATI raised $30,000 on ioby and accomplished their goal of passing down Bengali heritage, culture, and values to the next generation growing up in Arkansas.

Climate Chronicles

In many frontline communities around the world, the impacts of climate catastrophe can already be felt on a daily basis, from extreme weather events to unprecedented drought. However, many of these crucial stories are actively silenced. Climate Chronicles aims to address this imbalance through storytelling workshops that center frontline, directly-impacted communities. Their goal is to spark urgently-needed policy change and build a supportive network of peers. Change will come by centering the most vulnerable among us and ioby is proud to support these networks of solidarity and care in the movement for climate justice.

Dream Garden

In addition to building a thriving community garden on a formerly empty lot in Niagara Falls, New York, Project Green Space created a youth development program for high school students. Those students named the plot “The Dream Garden,” a place to imagine new futures, cultivate self-sufficiency, and deepen community relationships. In addition to the garden—which has thrived since 2018—the young people created a musical based on their experiences, envisioning a world of food sovereignty and power for all.

ALL-TIME IMPACT

$20,647,030

TOTAL RAISED NATIONWIDE

2023 IMPACT

$2,165,242

TOTAL RAISED NATIONWIDE

2023 Projects by Type

ioby mobilizes neighbors who have good ideas to become powerful civic leaders who plan, fund, and make positive change in their own neighborhoods.We are creating a future in which our neighborhoods are shaped by the powerful good ideas of our own neighbors.

ioby is based on the simple but radical idea that collective liberation begins block by block. We trust that neighborhood leaders know what is best for their communities —and that those ideas radiate outward, sparking positive change that helps us all.ioby’s role in this ecosystem is simple. Through coaching, online fundraising, fiscal sponsorship, and fundraising match programs, our goal is to make that change as seamless and accessible as possible. The majority of leaders we partner with are grassroots or unincorporated groups, many of whom we support through fiscal sponsorship programs. We help them receive tax-deductible donations without the administrative overhead, so that neighborhood leaders can focus on change—not paperwork.We want to contribute to the felt sense that people have the power, resources, and support they need to create change where they live. By encouraging everyone to see themselves as ioby leaders, we deepen civic participation in our blocks, neighborhoods and, ultimately, our society as a whole. We resist isolation and apathy and stand firm in our belief that a different world is possible. In fact, we can witness it growing in ioby neighborhoods every single day.

Coaching, Support, & Resources

Over 15 years, ioby’s coaches have developed expertise in crowdfunding and resource-generation for organizations of all sizes. In 2023, our average donation was $143 and 91% of the groups we served had an annual operating budget under $100,000.We coach ioby leaders through every step of the crowdfunding process, from making their first ask to thanking their donors at the end of a campaign. We help them get unstuck when they get stuck. Additionally, we help them identify collaborators and additional resources such as match funds to ensure their project is as successful as possible. This year, more than 50% of the people ioby coached were first-time fundraisers; 81% of project leaders considered their ioby project a success.

National and Place-based Focus

ioby facilitates local impact that drives national change. This year, project leaders came from 147 zip codes and reached more than 2,700 donors. We see all of our communities as interwoven—though we may be far away geographically, our work is deeply intertwined. By making these connections visible, we honor local expertise while advocating for a vision of all of our communities that is more equitable, abundant, and fair. As movement work teaches us, what happens at the small scale becomes the large scale.

Fiscal Sponsorship

Fiscal sponsorship enables unincorporated groups to receive tax-deductible donations. This allows organizations like mutual aid groups to quickly put funds back into their communities without the administrative hassle. Fiscal sponsorship also removes the administrative overhead that disproportionately prohibits BIPOC-led and other marginalized organizations from accessing funds. This year, 70% of ioby leaders identified as BIPOC, which exceeded our goal of increasing this percentage from 50% to 65% annually.

Match Programs

Our match programs combine philanthropic, government, nonprofit, and corporate dollars with grassroots-led crowdfunding to maximize financial impact in our communities. By combining resources, we are able to increase the impact we can have — while continuing to center neighborhood voice and vision. This year, we partnered with the Walton Family Foundation to raise nearly $265,000 for projects in Northwest Arkansas, which spanned an immersive walk-through replica of a Delta juke joint, a community-based photography studio for kids, an annual day of the dead celebration, and much more!

Commitment to Racial Justice

Racial justice is woven into every aspect ioby’s work. We are specifically focused on supporting BIPOC-led organizations who have been systematically excluded from other philanthropic resources, and are committed to the ongoing work of repair that is required to build truly just neighborhoods. Additionally, as a BIPOC-led organization, we are dedicated to seeing ourselves and our communities reflected in every decision we make, from our hiring practices to an equitable storytelling framework.

While technology impacts every aspect of our lives, the needs, perspectives, and ideas of people of color have often been systematically overlooked from the process of developing new technologies. To address this and expand our support for ioby project leaders, one of the largest investments ioby has made in 2023 is in the transformation of ioby.org, our digital platform and suite of tools.As any ioby project leader knows, our website is the hub of all project activity, from setting up a campaign page to posting success stories along the way. We want to make that process as simple as possible. In short, we need to ensure our technology supports the transformation you are leading in your neighborhood.The relaunch of ioby.org is led by ioby’s Chief Technology Officer, Andrew Lomax, and an all-BIPOC technology team. The digital platform pilot will launch in 2024 with several new, key features. These will include more intuitive functions, like being able to build your fundraising page on a mobile phone or cash out your campaign in a single click. It will also include a core focus on ensuring accessibility so that ioby’s tools are fully aligned within a disability justice framework.Our goal in 2024 and beyond is holistic integration: designing tech products that are as useful as possible for ioby project leaders, and ensuring connection is central to everything we build. By making an investment in an in-house technology team, we ultimately hope to build products side-by-side with ioby project leaders to build the world we want to see—both online and off.

At the end of their campaign, every ioby project leader is invited to participate in a survey about their experiences. We have an 85% response rate, which means that we have detailed insights into what went well and what we are able to do to improve in the future. We use these insights to guide our future decision making to ensure we are always learning and growing to meet our leaders’ needs.

Here are the top three things we've learned this year and what it means going forward:

1. ioby proves that community change doesn’t require 501c3 status or a big budget.Over 60% of ioby projects are led by an informal group of volunteers. The remaining projects are led by small nonprofits, 85% of which are also volunteer-led. For all these community leaders, nonprofits and volunteers alike, 75% of their funding comes entirely from donations. A full 91% of the groups we support are able to reach brand new donors through their ioby campaign, and for a quarter of ioby campaigns, nearly all of their donors are brand new.2. ioby helps even the most experienced community leaders build new fundraising skillsThis year, 58% of ioby leaders report having led community volunteer projects for a decade or more, and yet 80% of ioby users self-report that they are beginners or have only intermediate skills in crowdfunding. This means the ioby training experience is filling a skill gap among even experienced community leaders. Learning to crowdfund is helping organizers build a new funding stream outside of grantmaking philanthropy. Resident leaders funded by hyper local residents are implementing their own vision for their neighborhood.3. There was a 10% increase in campaigns where nearly all donors were new.This means ioby is helping people reach new donors, increasing the likelihood that their campaign will be successful. Additionally, our coaching and platform services are increasing the number of donors, and therefore the number of people involved in those community projects. At their best, donations are more than financial. They are a form of resource redistribution that helps deepen community relationships and a sense that we can all contribute to the places we love most in distinct, personal ways.

Four Levels of Impact

In 2023, ioby implemented 12 match programs in partnership with foundations, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and local governments. Through these programs, ioby leveraged over $673,000 in institutional funding to catalyze resident-led change.ioby's match programs are unique partnerships that support those best positioned to make change and build power in their neighborhoods—residents themselves. Match programs provide local leaders with an opportunity to double their crowdfunded gifts and access timely, flexible, funding alongside ioby’s proven coaching and resources.The local leaders ioby supports in communities across the country often do not have access to traditional sources of funding. The partners ioby work with to provide match programs want to get their funding to the grassroots and deep roots level. Our equity-centered model works to address both of these needs and provide a powerful boost to neighbor-led positive change.

2023 Snapshot

NATIONWIDE

The Reimagining Communities Match Program (in partnership with the Communities First Fund) supported BIPOC-led projects that radically reimagine public space or support the implementation of public infrastructure investment in their communities across the country.

CLEVELAND

Both the Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Match Program and the Fowler Family Foundation Creative Arts Matching Fund supported Cuyahoga County residents with ideas to improve their communities through the arts.One county over, the Lorain Match Program (partnership with the Community Foundation of Lorain County) supported individuals and volunteer-led nonprofits with ideas for positive change.

DETROIT

The Detroit Match Program (in partnership with the Ford Foundation) supported neighbors with a variety of creative ideas for a thriving Detroit.

NEW YORK

The Healthy Food, Healthy Lives Match Program (in partnership with NY Health Foundation) supported BIPOC residents working to improve community food systems and food justice.The NYC Green Fund Crowdfunding Challenge (in partnership with City Parks Foundation) supported residents working to improve, maintain, and build community through green spaces.The Con Edison Power Up Neighborhood Match Program helped spark and support creative ideas for public art and environmental projects.The Clean Bay Match Program (funded through an Environmental Benefit Project under a Clean Water Act settlement) amplified residents’ work to restore water quality.

SACRAMENTO

The Sacramento Arts & Culture Match Program (in partnership with the City of Sacramento’s Office of Arts & Culture) supported residents to make their neighborhoods stronger, more vibrant, and more just through the arts.

Spotlight: Supporting Community-Led Change in Northwest Arkansas

In 2023, ioby partnered with the Walton Family Foundation to create the Northwest Arkansas Neighborhood Match Program. Donations are matched up to $15,000 for public space projects in Arkansas’ Benton and Washington counties that are led by residents or small local nonprofits. Program participants benefit from ioby’s individualized coaching and access to fiscal sponsorship and other key resources.So far, ioby has leveraged over $114,000 in match funds provided by the Walton Family Foundation to support residents to raise an additional $123,773 in donations for 12 local projects—for a total of $237,773 directed to community-designed and led projects! This program is continuing into 2024, and we can’t wait to see what creative ideas residents are able to realize next.

In partnership with the Summit Foundation, we created our brand new Active Transit Toolkit, a guide to building sustainable transportation projects in communities around the country. We spoke with ioby leaders in Rhode Island, California, and Tennessee about what made their projects successful—and how those lessons might be applied to new projects in new places.Active transit refers to movement that does not rely on cars, such as walking, biking or taking public transportation, and the infrastructure that makes it safer and easier to opt into these activities. At the root of active transit is transportation equity, the simple but radical idea that every person has a right to get around efficiently and safely in the place they live. As communities around the world organize to address the ongoing impacts of the climate crisis, active transit offers a way to positively impact both our neighborhoods and the planet. As ioby has believed for fifteen years, projects that are forged at the local level have the potential for massive collective impact.In addition to core interviews with active transit organizers, we’ve included dozens of projects that have successfully fundraised on ioby, from collectively-owned bike repair shops in Miami to a safer crosswalk project in Memphis, Tennessee and Crosswalk flags around the country. We hope that this toolkit will inspire neighborhood leaders to create or deepen transit projects in their own cities.

With your support, we will:

Create a brand-new ioby.orgIn 2024, we are eager to pilot a new version of ioby.org. After a monthslong listening tour, we have developed a product that we hope will meet critical user needs—and will be constantly iterated based on ioby project leader feedback. These features will include the ability to build and update your funding page on a mobile device and a more seamless disbursement process.

An expanded commitment to building connections across neighborhoods, deepening civic and public health at the national level.2024 is a presidential election year, which means projects that deepen the civic health of our neighborhoods and, by extension, our nation will be at the core of our work. We are entering a period that will require us to forge new definitions of what it means to be an American, and we hope to contribute to that conversation in a way that cultivates an expansive vision of community wellbeing. In 2024, we will support projects that embody that work across the country.

An ongoing commitment to racial equity.In 2023, we set an explicit goal that 65% of project leaders will be BIPOC. We ended the year at 70%, exceeding that goal. In 2024, we aim to continue our equity commitment with a specific emphasis on ioby’s Match programs. In 2022, over 50% of match funding was secured by BIPOC-led ioby campaigns; in 2023, this number was 69%! In the coming year, we are confident that number will continue to grow.

A Return to Pittsburgh.This year, we will return to Pittsburgh, a city where we have facilitated deep change in the past. From 2016 to 2019, we had place-based staff in the city, where we saw visionary projects emerge. In 2024, we will launch a new place-based strategy there with funding from the Hillman Family Foundations. Our focus will be twofold: our first goal is to increase the capacity and funding for neighborhood leaders, deep roots groups, and grassroots organizations in the city, with a specific focus on underrepresented residents. Our second is to integrate ioby as a valuable tool and resource for resident-led change — ensuring that we are able to support Pittsburgh leaders for the long haul.

Apollo Gonzales
ioby Board Chair
President, Nimbus Strategies, Inc.

Evelyn Burnett
Co-Founder and Partner, ThirdSpace Action Lab

Jamie Hand
Director of Strategic Impact and Narrative Change, Creatives Rebuild New York

Jena’ Bradley
ioby Board Secretary & Governance Cmte Chair
Director, Community Impact, United Way of Greater Cincinnati

Christine Rico
ioby Board Treasurer & Finance Committee Chair
Consulting CFO, CFO on Speed Dial

Omar Parbhoo
ioby Board Development Committee Chair
Vice President, ideas42

Nupur Chaudhury
CEO
ioby

Loren Blackford
Interim Executive Director,
Sierra Club

Lindsay Campbell
Research Social Scientist,
U.S. Forest Service

Scott Miller
Consultant, Scott Miller Strategies

Michelle Huang
Partner,
Generation Investment Management

Karyn Williams
Program Director,
Design Trust For Public Space

Justin Garrett Moore, AICP
Program Officer, Humanities in Place, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Nadia Owusu
Director, Storytelling,
Frontline Solutions

Ioanna Paraskevopoulos
Executive Director and Co-Founder,
Action Tank USA

Harriet Tregoning
Director, NUMO Alliance,
WRI Ross Center For Sustainable Cities

Camilla Velasquez
GM,
New York Times Cooking

Art Chang
Innovation Leader

Alyssa Dizon
Growth Product Manager, BlocPower / Organizer, Bed-Stuy Strong

Gail Scovell
Nonprofit Attorney and Advisor

Erica Guyer
Deputy General Counsel, The Rockefeller Foundation

Huma Hamid
CoFounder,
Pakistani Women in Computing

Thomas Knight
Product Manager,
Teachers Pay Teachers

Melissa Malzkuhn
Founder & Creative Director, Motion Light Lab, Gallaudet University

Koketso Moeti
Founding Executive Director,
amandla.mobi

Kirsten Moy
Complexity explorer;
practitioner member of the WICI

Ramya Raghavan
Director, Civics and Policy Marketing,
Google

Doug Rushkoff
Professor of Media Studies, Queens/CUNY; Author & Host of Team Human

Jonathan Schwartz
Chief Technology Officer,
Jetty

Micah Sifry
Co-Founder of Civic Hall,
Author of The Connector

Yolonda Smith
Cybersecurity,
Sweetgreen

George Suttles
Executive Director,
Commonfund Institute

Allison Thrush
Fortress Investment Group

ioby’s work in 2023 was made possible with generous support from the individuals, foundations, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and local governments listed below. We are incredibly grateful for their dedication to supporting resident-led positive change in communities across the country.

Foundations, Nonprofit Organizations, Businesses, and Local Government

Brooklyn Brewery
City of Sacramento
City Parks Foundation
Claneil Foundation
The Cleveland Foundation
Communities First Fund
Community Foundation of Lorain      County
Con Edison
Covington & Burling LLP
Cuyahoga Arts and Culture
Flagstar Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Char and Chuck Fowler Family      Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates
     Foundation
The George Gund Foundation
GirlTrek
Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr.
     Foundation
Hillman Family Foundations
Hyde Family Foundations
The JPB Foundation

The Kresge Foundation
LINK Strategic Partners
Movement Strategy Center
Natural Resources Defense Council
New York Health Foundation
Participatory Budgeting Project
Prospect Hill Foundation
Saint Luke's Foundation
Salesforce
Summit Foundation
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
David Rockefeller Fund
ThirdSpace Action Lab
Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation
Walton Family Foundation
Yale School of the Environment

Individual Donors

All donations to ioby and projects on ioby are tax-deductible to the fullest extent available. If you'd like to make a donation to support ioby's mission, please do so below or mail a check to:In Our Backyards
PO Box 4668 PMB 74253
New York, New York
10163-4668

• Support This Work

THANK YOU!