Small Change has been named as a top 25 finalist for the Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability. We are a crowdfunding platform with a mission. Launched to let everyday people invest in transformative projects and to make neighborhoods and cities better, Small Change uses the power of the crowd to enable investors to get a return on their money while doing some good.
The Ivory Prize, sponsored by the Clark and Christine Ivory Foundation, aims to recognize businesses, foundations, non-profits, community leaders and many others that are working to lower the cost of housing. The award, which is supported through the Sorenson Impact Center at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, seeks to promote the most compelling ideas in housing affordability by working across sectors, putting a spotlight on groundbreaking innovations and leveraging its own network and resources.
The three Prize categories are construction and design, finance, and public policy and regulatory reform. The winners, who are judged to have developed ambitious, feasible and scalable solutions to housing affordability, receive monetary awards totaling $200,000.
The top 10 finalists will be announced in February, and the final winners in March.
Last year was the Ivory Prize’s inaugural year, and the top 10 finalists, along with the winners, were able to share their work at Housing + Innovation: Lessons from the Ivory Prize, presented at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The four winners were:
- Landed Homes (co-winner in Finance), for helping educators buy homes in high-cost areas
- Home Partners of America (co-winner in Finance), for developing a lend-lease model to boost home ownership
- Factory_OS (Construction and Design), for their work building lower-cost, modular, multi-family housing
- Community Powered Workshop (Public Policy and Regulatory Reform), for helping pave the way for accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in Austin, through their Alley Flat Initiative
For more information about the Ivory Prize and Ivory Innovations, check out this video or visit www.ivory-innovations.org.
Logo courtesy of Ivory Innovations