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Erin Barnes is a leader at the intersection of civic technology, community organizing, place, and inclusion. For 15 years, Erin was CEO of ioby, an organization she cofounded, designed to mobilize neighbors who have good ideas to become powerful civic leaders who plan, fund, and make positive change in their own neighborhoods.
Prior to co-founding ioby in 2008, Erin was an environmental writer with a background in water management. From 2007 – 2008, she was the environmental editor at Men’s Journal magazine, was a freelance writer on climate change and other environmental issues, and was a contributor to Al Gore’s book Our Choice. From 2003 – 2005, she worked as a community organizer and public information officer at the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition in Portland, Oregon.
In 2018, Erin was named an inaugural Obama Foundation Fellow. In 2012, the Rockefeller Foundation awarded Erin and her co-founders at ioby the Jane Jacobs Medal for New Technology and Innovation.
Erin holds a B.A. in English and American Studies from the University of Virginia and a Master of Environmental Management from Yale University. While at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, she was a U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies scholar in Portuguese. She did field research on socio-economic values of water in Goyena, Nicaragua, and the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazon. Her report “Market Values of the Commercial Fishery on the Madeira River: Calculating the Costs of the Santo Antônio and Jirau Dams to Fishermen in Rondônia, Brasil, and Pando-Beni, Bolivia,” was published in the Tropical Resources Institute Journal in 2007.
Erin has served on the boards of the Bronx and Manhattan Land Trusts, EcoDistricts, and as Board Chair of Resource Media. Erin lives with her family in the Wallabout neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY, just off Myrtle Avenue.
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John Mitterholzer was selected as our incoming board chair, effective January 1, 2026. President and CEO Erin Barnes spoke with John about his Main Street journey, the importance of preserving places, and his work in climate justice.
Honoring the legacy of one of the founders of the Main Street movement.
Meet Maxine Clark—entrepreneur, philanthropist, and board member at Delmar Main Street in St. Louis, Missouri—and hear Erin's takeaways from their conversation about advocacy, resiliency, and leadership.
Erin Barnes explores the ways that Main Street programs are built to last, and how we can recognize this durability in the places we love and the organizations we steward.
We are excited to welcome Lynda Tran, Tyrone Rachal, and Mary Helmer Wirth to the Main Street America Board of Directors.
Erin Barnes spoke to Frances Jo Hamilton at Heritage Ohio about the importance of stepping up for our communities.
MSA President and CEO Erin Barnes explores how a holiday market in a public park brought a new focus on growing humanitarian needs in downtown city centers.
Erin Barnes shares her reflections from the 2024 Main Street Now Conference in Birmingham, Alabama.
