Hylo
Community stories

What actually happened when communities used Hylo.

Real groups using Hylo to coordinate, support each other, and make decisions together. These are their stories — what they were trying to do, how they used the platform, and what happened.

Common Good Missoula
A city that organized itself around housing — and won.
Civic
Float
$700,000 allocated by the community, not a committee.
Participatory Funding
Planetary Health Alliance
210 organizations across 47 countries, coordinating in one place.
Global Network
The Great Simplification
Turning a global audience into local communities of action.
Community of Practice

Common Good Missoula

A city that organized itself around housing — and won.

Civic
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A photo from a Missoula assembly, or a Hylo map view of the engaged neighborhoods.
The group

Common Good Missoula is a civic organization that works to strengthen community engagement and participatory democracy in Missoula, Montana. They bring together residents, organizations, and local government around shared challenges — housing, land use, economic development — through assemblies, working groups, and collaborative processes.

The challenge

Missoula was facing a housing affordability crisis. Zoning reform was needed, but the standard approach — public comment periods, town hall meetings, advocacy campaigns — was fragmented. Different stakeholder groups were working in isolation. Residents felt excluded from planning processes. The city needed a way to bring diverse voices together, sustain coordination over months, and make the outcome feel legitimate to everyone involved.

What they did on Hylo

Common Good Missoula set up Hylo as their coordination hub for a sustained zoning and land use reform campaign. They used cross-group posting to share updates across neighborhood groups simultaneously, so different parts of the city stayed informed without anyone having to attend every meeting. The map grounded the conversation in geography — people could see which neighborhoods were engaged and where the gaps were. Discussions let residents weigh in asynchronously between assemblies. Events organized the assemblies themselves.

What happened

The campaign succeeded. Missoula passed zoning and land use reforms that increased housing access. The process brought together stakeholders who would not have coordinated through traditional channels — renters and developers, longtime residents and newcomers, neighborhood associations and city staff. The group continues to use Hylo for ongoing civic engagement beyond the original campaign.

Note for the team: This story needs specific metrics. How many residents participated? How many neighborhood groups were involved? What was the timeline from launch to passage? What did the reforms actually change? These details transform a good story into a compelling one. Talk to the Common Good Missoula team and get numbers.
In their words

[Quote needed — reach out to Common Good Missoula leadership for a statement about what Hylo made possible that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.]

Float — Funding Lab for Agroecological Technology

$700,000 allocated by the community, not a committee.

Participatory Funding
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A screenshot of a Float funding round on Hylo — proposals, discussion, or vote tally.
The group

Float is a participatory funding initiative for agroecological technology. Rather than having a small panel of experts decide where money goes, Float distributes decision-making power to the community — the farmers, technologists, and land stewards who understand what’s needed on the ground.

The challenge

Traditional grantmaking concentrates decisions in the hands of program officers. The people closest to the work — who understand which technologies would actually help farmers, which projects have community support, which interventions would be most effective — rarely have a say in where the money flows. Float wanted to invert this: real participatory funding where the community reviews proposals, discusses priorities, and collectively allocates resources.

What they did on Hylo

Float used Hylo’s funding rounds to run their entire participatory allocation process. Community members submitted proposals for projects and technologies. During the discussion phase, the community reviewed and debated proposals — asking questions, challenging assumptions, and building shared understanding. During the voting phase, the community voted to allocate the funding pool across proposals. The entire process — submission, deliberation, decision — happened transparently within the Hylo group. Everyone could see the reasoning, the tradeoffs, and the outcomes.

What happened

Float distributed over $700,000 USD through participatory funding rounds on Hylo in 2025. Resources flowed to projects that had genuine community support rather than institutional backing. The process demonstrated that communities can allocate significant resources through democratic processes when they have the infrastructure to do it well.

Note for the team: Flesh this out with specifics. How many proposals were submitted? How many community members voted? What was the average funding amount per project? How did the community feel about the outcomes? Were there any projects funded that wouldn’t have been under a traditional panel model? A quote from a funded project or from Float leadership would be powerful.
In their words

[Quote needed — from Float leadership or a community member about the experience of participatory funding.]

Planetary Health Alliance

210 organizations across 47 countries, coordinating in one place.

Global Network
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A map view of PHA member organizations, or a photo from a PHA regional gathering.
The group

The Planetary Health Alliance is a global consortium of over 210 organizations committed to understanding and addressing the human health impacts of environmental change. Based out of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, PHA connects researchers, educators, practitioners, and policymakers across 47 countries.

The challenge

A global network of 210+ organizations with 5,000+ newsletter subscribers needed more than email blasts and annual conferences. Members wanted to find each other, collaborate on projects, join affinity groups, and share resources — but there was no persistent community infrastructure. Communications went one-way from HQ. Regional connections were invisible. People who might collaborate didn’t know each other existed.

What they did on Hylo

PHA built their community on Hylo with nested groups for regional hubs, thematic working groups, and special initiatives. The member directory helped researchers find collaborators across disciplines and geographies. Cross-group posting connected regional hubs to the global conversation. Events organized webinars, regional meetups, and the annual conference community. The platform became the persistent space where the network’s relationships lived between conferences.

What happened

PHA moved from one-way communication to genuine multi-directional coordination. Regional hubs became active spaces for local collaboration. Members across countries discovered shared research interests and launched joint projects. The annual conference community on Hylo gave attendees a place to continue conversations and collaborations year-round rather than losing momentum after the event.

Note for the team: PHA is the most institutionally credible name on the platform. This story needs hard metrics: how many active members on Hylo, how many regional hubs are active, any research collaborations or projects that originated through connections made on the platform. A quote from PHA leadership (Marie, Max, or another leader) would carry enormous weight for funders and institutional partners.
In their words

[Quote needed — from PHA leadership about the shift from one-way communication to community coordination.]

The Great Simplification

Turning a global audience into local communities of action.

Community of Practice
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A screenshot of a regional meetup post, or a Hylo map view of distributed members.
The group

The Great Simplification is a media platform and community centered around Nate Hagens’ work on energy, ecology, economics, and human behavior. The community includes thousands of people worldwide who are engaged with the ideas and looking for ways to act on them — locally, practically, in their own lives and communities.

The challenge

The Great Simplification had a large, engaged audience — people watching videos, attending events, sharing ideas — but the community existed primarily as a passive audience consuming content. There was no infrastructure for members to connect with each other, find people near them, or organize local action. People in the same city who shared the same concerns had no way to discover each other through the platform.

What they did on Hylo

The community moved to Hylo as a space where audience becomes community. Discussion posts replaced passive consumption with active exchange. The map revealed that people who felt isolated in their concerns had neighbors who shared them. Topic-based discussions let members go deeper on specific themes. Events organized local meetups and study groups. The platform became the place where ideas about the great simplification translated into local relationships and action.

What happened

Members transitioned from audience to community — posting discussions, organizing local meetups, and connecting with people in their own regions who share their concerns. The platform provided the infrastructure for a global intellectual community to develop local roots.

Note for the team: This story is important because it demonstrates Hylo’s value for "culture creator" communities — a large audience built around ideas that wants to become a participatory community. Metrics needed: active member count, number of local meetups organized, geographic spread of activity. A quote from Nate Hagens or Jeff (who has expressed interest in supporting Hylo financially) would be particularly valuable.
In their words

[Quote needed — from community leadership about the transition from audience to participatory community.]

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