SMASH stands for Struggle for Miami’s Affordable and Sustainable Housing. It is a community-driven developer that creates sustainable low-cost housing to address the problems surrounding gentrification, slumlords, and LGBTQ youth homelessness. With such a hefty goal, they decided to start off with a pilot project, a small 3-unit apartment building. The team successfully financed this first project through StartSomeGood by raising $325,140 USD.

In an interview with Executive Director Adrian Madriz, he reflected on his initial fears on running such a large and unprecedented campaign, as no one had crowdfunded this large for any project in Miami before. Because they were venturing into uncharted territory and had no time to waste, they sought the expertise of the StartSomeGood team.

“StartSomeGood’s Upgraded support was critical in terms of helping us meet our goal, and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without the good council of the team at StartSomeGood. They suggested a number of strategies that we should pursue, especially when it comes to getting direct support from our member base: they outlined social media strategy, media outreach, and consulting strategies. The best thing about the support was the reassurance that we had put together an effective plan that would work. It helped get the morale from the team here in Miami that we needed to make this monumental task successful.”

Adrian’s advice to potential crowdfunders: “I encourage people to do research about the platform that is right for them. For us, it took a long time to decide, but we are really happy with the decision we made to fundraise through StartSomeGood. We learned that you need to spend money to make money - things like promotion, marketing, and consulting are worth the investment.”

Check out their campaign