Social Microfunding — New Signature Helps ioby Bring Environmental Projects to Life, Block by Block
**Update: Check out our new post: Drupal 7 Commerce in action for ioby.org**
New Signature worked with ioby to design and build a new social microfunding web service that connects people and money to site-based environmental projects. All of the projects funded through ioby are conceived, designed, and run by neighbors—which ensures community buy-in, long-term caretakers and daily reminders of what’s been achieved. The website provides a five step process to empower visitors to help make a difference: (1) pick a project, (2) nurture it through funding, (3) follow the results, (4) get your hands dirty and inspire others, and (5) prepare for great things. The optional sixth step is “rinse and repeat”.
New Signature used Drupal 7 as the platform for the ioby website. Drupal 7 provided a powerful and flexible platform that answered ioby’s need for a robust e-commerce and collaborative social community solution. New Signature developed the ioby Drupal 7 website to be fast, responsive and handle huge amounts of traffic. The website uses Drupal’s rich social networking integration to make it easy for visitors to share what they have learned on ioby and build their own network of ioby donors and volunteers through their profile page. The ioby website leverages Drupal Commerce–a professional e-commerce solution for Drupal 7. New Signature utilized Drupal Commerce to present a simplified and streamlined process to the visitor, empowering them to easily move from project selection through checkout and payment. New Signature further extended the Drupal platform through the use of contributed and custom modules.
New Signature also employed other web technologies and services in building the ioby website. For example, jQuery–a fast and concise JavaScript Library–was employed by New Signature because of its lightweight footprint, CSS3 compliance and cross-browser compatibility. New Signature also utilized the Google Maps API to provide visualization of the large number of projects interactively.