@rrhoover thank you for reaching out. Donation-based platforms like Tilt are very powerful for funding all kinds of change in communities especially at the prototype stage. Neighborly started out as a donation-based platform to get started, and helped dozens of communities raise millions of dollars for things like playgrounds and low-cost wireless broadband for low income communities. During that time we learned worlds about the potential and also the limitations of the donation model in funding public goods. We're bringing some of the power of crowdfunding to the $3.6 Trillion municipal securities market. As a scale reference, people (who Wall Street call "retail") buy more municipal bonds every week than Kickstarter has raised in its entire history. Use cases we're already seeing include new types of schools (some charter, others not), municipal wireless mesh networks, low income housing in high-priced markets, skate parks, community solar infrastructure and more. Our hope in the long term is to make the giant, murky market that funds civic projects more accessible to both sides of the table, starting with investors, but eventually making it possible for civic visionaries to do nearly turnkey capital formation for civic projects we're not even thinking about today.

@jase @rrhoover I spent a couple of years looking at donation-based models for civic projects, and while I think they're awesome at solving, small-scale, uncontroversial issues, they haven't proven they can solve big, hard problems. That's the main reason I decided to join Neighborly last year. The long version: http://rodrigodavies.com/blog/20...

@davidspinks thank you for reaching out. We are huge fans of @neighborland and their work in the civic engagement space. To our knowledge they don't work on anything in the realm of financing projects, so a different and very complementary space. To your questions -- 1. To our knowledge, no company to date has attempted to bring crowdfunding to the $1 billion per day municipal bond market. If you know of any we'd love to learn more about them. 2. Individual investors join to invest in the places they love, and eventually communities will be able to turn to Neighborly to handle the entire financing project.

Thanks for the heads up @jmrushworth. My wife and I have worked on/raised funds/pushed through bond/tax measures for playgrounds, green space, schools & transportation projects in San Francisco. Current funding options are not so awesome for the communities raising the funds or the tax payers paying the bill. I will most certainly spend time checking this out.

@dmgrossblatt we're building this for civic visionaries like you & your wife, would love to connect sometime this summer if you're up for it to learn all about what would be most useful for your next endeavors. Thank you @jmrushworth for connecting the dots.

Thank you @aplusk! Honored to be part of the Product Hunt community. Our cities borrow over $1 billion each day to build and maintain schools, parks, and other important civic projects, through a process that's been taken over by middlemen and global banks. Neighborly lets you invest directly in those projects, so you can do well financially by doing good for your community. We'd love to hear more about what projects you want to see built in your community! This marketplace is being built for civic visionaries like you and we're working nonstop to curate projects that people care about most. Also, a little more about why this matters for anyone interested.

@jase This is a greet idea as P3's become more popular and more troublesome. We're doing something slightly similar but strictly for restaurants. (@aplusk we should talk ;) ). Infrastructure (including schools, etc.) is something that people who live in the community should be able to have a stake in, with more than just tax dollars.

@jase and by the way, I tried to sign up and got a 500 :(

@miles_matthias Thanks for the heads up Miles! Lots of traffic at the moment, we're looking in to it now

@aplusk Nice hunt! Seems like a really nice interface & solution to a traditionally complex problem.

@jonathancordeau thank you for the kind words and support. As a double-sided marketplace we've chosen to focus on buy side (individual investors) for the start. Muniland is enormous, with around 50 or so unique new issuances per calendar day. We won't necessarily need support or buy-in from communities to access the buy side of the market, but eventually want to be helpful as a one stop shop for communities doing finance. By which time we need to have figured out the answer to your question :) Although we've been astonished by the number of communities who reach out to see whether there is a chance to use the system now. Charter schools, low income housing, shipping container community retail parks... really innovative and inspiring stuff that gives us hope about the future of the nation.

@joostschuur ya we were "honoured?" when Neighbourly came online in the UK a year after we started doing donation-based crowdfunding. They even liked our heart-shaped logo!

@ekryski wonderful questions. We're less focused on revenue / business model at the moment, more focused on doing something revolutionary in a market where there are lots of little evolutionary fixes happening. Fortunate to be well supported and to have lots of persistent team members in it for the long haul :) First deals will be all around the bay area. We'll be looking at CA deals outside the bay later this year, and elsewhere in the US early 2016. Expected returns vary depending on project, investment duration and financial situation of each individual investor. While I can't state expected returns in general terms, the table in this independent article about Taxable Equivalent Yield is a reasonable approximation of what folks might expect from some opportunities on Neighborly.

@bowman thank you that means the world coming from you. We're huge, huge fans of @Zaarly and you personally

@nicolasegosum thank you we're honored!

@michaelpatzer awesome to hear. We are fans of Points of Light and the crew at @villagedefense in Atlanta. The use case you mention illustrates the exact kind of project we hope to enable local-first finance for.

@michaelpatzer nice! If you know any other engineers with financial background please send them our way!

@lewis502 awesome comment. Transparency is at the center of this marketplace, you raise a very important point. The need for greater transparency has been a huge motivator for doing this from the very start. That, and getting back to a regenerative model of community finance.

@vladtenev wow that means the world coming from you! @robinhoodapp is a massive inspiration, in our minds the strongest example of how to #fintech. Appreciate the mention!

@diligentdil yes worldwide eventually. Nearly turnkey capital formation for civic projects that matter. Every community should be able to do local-first finance, without loads of middlemen.

@rish_says Transparency and a great way for citizens take action on projects to happen. A killer feature.

@mylskfmn awesome questions. The primary instrument offered on the marketplace is the municipal bond, which wasn't subject to the Securities Act of '33 so no accreditation required to purchase. Munis are effectively loans. Most are tax-exempt.

@jase Thanks for the answers, very interesting, and huge for your business model! I've been doing a lot of researching into crowdinvestment in another (completely unrelated) non-traditional investment market. Is there any minimum investment per deal? You guys are really beating the SEC crowdinvesting platforms to the punch, albeit in a different market.