Daniel Miller, 25, and his brother Benjamin, 36, are the pioneers behind Fundrise, a Web platform that lets communities invest in local real estate projects. Sons of a prominent developer in the Washington area, the brothers began wondering a few years ago why people in a community, like the transitional H Street NE neighborhood, couldn’t have more of a say in what was being built there.

They realized that who the investors are and where the money comes from determine what gets built: distant private equity backers who see a deal as simply an investment vehicle tend to put up cookie-cutter projects and strip malls anchored by chain stores — hardly what the community may want or need.

“Who your money is affects what you build, but no one ever thinks about that,” said Benjamin Miller, who also co-founded a site called Popularise that lets developers solicit input from the community. “We’re taking an institutional asset and changing who gets to invest in it.”