ioby opens office in Miami-Dade County

Innovative Partnership taps crowd-funding tools to make Miami Neighborhoods stronger & more sustainable

(MIAMI, January 16, 2013) - ioby is pleased to announce the opening of its Miami-Dade office. With funding and support from the Health Foundation of South Florida and the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, ioby and the Miami-Dade County Office of Sustainability have developed a partnership to bring a new crowd-resourcing platform to Miami-Dade County neighborhoods.

ioby is a web-based crowd-resourcing platform that supports community-led, neighbor-funded projects for stronger, more sustainable neighborhoods. Through ioby, people with good ideas for their neighborhoods can collect tax-deductible donations, recruit local volunteers, and share ideas in a likeminded community.  To post a project as part of ioby’s inaugural Miami cohort, submit your idea at ioby.org/mdc by February 21.

“We all have ideas about how we can make our neighborhoods nicer. Maybe you want to lead a project to make an intersection safer for pedestrians and cyclists, or maybe you wish your block had more trees, or maybe you want to start a local food program at your kid’s school,” says Karja Hansen, ioby’s Miami-Dade Project Recruiting Manager. “ioby is designed for people just like you to make sure you get the resources you need to bring your idea for change to life.”

The Miami-Dade County Office of Sustainability invited ioby to bring its services to the area as an implementation partner of their five-year sustainability plan, GreenPrint. ioby will be located in the Office of Sustainability at the Stephen P. Clark Center in downtown Miami.

“GreenPrint is a community wide sustainability plan that is for everyone and has to be enacted by everyone. In it are objectives for government, for business, for community,” says Nichole Hefty, Manager, Miami-Dade County’s Office of Sustainability. “By partnering with ioby, we are saying that our residents and communities  are important partners in our work and we are using innovative ways to make our communities more sustainable.”

This partnership could not be possible without the support of the innovative funding partners, the Health Foundation of South Florida and the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, who are boldly using digital placemaking tools to deepen civic engagement.

“Community gardens, walkable neighborhoods, healthy food programs in schools and hospitals, safe bike lanes – all these projects are good for individual health and strengthen neighborhood cohesion, says Dr. Steven Marcus, President, Health Foundation of South Florida. “Unfortunately, many of these smaller-scale, shorter-term, demonstration or pilot projects lack a consistent source of timely funding. ioby fills that support gap.”