Giving back and engaging with communities has been on my mind a lot lately. Since graduating from CU in 2014, I have been enamored by the Boulder and greater Colorado startup community. I owe most of where I am today to this amazing community – it was at a Silicon Flatirons event at CU that I met Julie Penner and learned about Techstars and eventually became an Associate for the Boulder program, and that led me to my current position at Foundry Group with Seth Levine. I decided it was time to give back to the community that has given me so much.
With the encouragement and recommendation from Seth, I am honored to be serving as a new board member for Pledge 1% Colorado alongside an amazing group of people (including my old boss, Julie).
Seth has been actively involved in Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado (EFCO) since its’ inception in 2007. When Ryan Martens was building Rally, he wanted a way to bake giving into his company from the very beginning – so that if his company was successful, part of that success was shared with the broader community that helped him build Rally. Ryan partnered with Brad Feld to establish a Colorado affiliate of the Entrepreneurs Foundation (originating in Silicon Valley). They started it under The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County to avoid forming a new nonprofit. Nearly 10 years later, 100 Colorado companies have joined the network and put upwards of $5M directly into local nonprofits, along with hundreds of hours of volunteer time.
In December 2014 EFCO launched Pledge 1% in partnership with Salesforce, Atlassian, and Rally for Impact. The global movement now includes more than 800 member companies (inclusive of EFCO’s members) who have pledged 1% of equity, time, product, or profit. Earlier this year, EFCO officially spun off the global program to the Tides Center in San Francisco while retaining our independent Colorado presence as a program of The Community Foundation.
In an effort to better align the local program and goals with the global movement and get even more Colorado companies to join the movement – we are rebranding to Pledge 1% Colorado and expanding our pledge options to include: founder equity, employee time, and company product, in addition to early-stage company equity and annual profit pledges.
See more on their blog here and reach out with any questions.
For companies in Boulder, Colorado or now anywhere in the world – I urge you to check out the local and global movement and consider making the pledge.
#PledgeItForward
Concurrent with Denver Startup Week (September 12-16), Pledge 1% will be kicking off #PledgeItForward to reach 1000 global pledges by Giving Tuesday (Nov. 29). #PledgeItForward is a campaign to challenge the existing Pledge1% community to help us grow the movement. Don’t just take the pledge, encourage and empower your peers to join you. And now there are even more ways to give.
Please help spread the word with your network by sharing one (or all) of these Click to Tweets below!
EFCO is now Pledge 1% Colorado with new ways for startups to #givefirst to local nonprofits! Take the pledge today: http://bit.ly/2bWGQKb
.@Pledge1CO builds on EFCO’s $5M to local charities with new ways for startups to #givefirst: http://pledge1colorado.org/blog/
I pledged 1% of my [$/product/time] via @Pledge1CO, an easy way to #givefirst and positively impact CO communities: pledge1colorado.org