Philanthropy

If you know me, you know that I have a weird obsession with bathrooms. It goes back a long time and definitely has some strange psychologic underpinnings that I’m sure Dr. Freud would have fun discussing. I don’t fight it – I just roll with it. Several years ago, I had a discussion with Heidi Roizen about her failed attempt to get her name on a bathroom at Stanford during their fundraising drive for a new building on campus. The rejection came with the admonishment that it wasn’t an appropriate thing to do. I laughed and told Heidi – “no problem – I’m sure I can get one at MIT in no time – they are more flexible in their thinking about what is appropriate.” Boy was I wrong – I’ve written about the story before on this blog if you are interested. The bottom line is the request apparently went around the system before being crushed by the bureaucracy somewhere at MIT. Their loss. ...

Amy and I are proud to announce that we’ve completed the fundraising for Boulder Building New Orleans. Our goal was to raise $50,000 to fund a high quality / low cost house in New Orleans for someone displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Due to the generosity of many of our friends in Boulder (and several from outside Boulder), we’ve accomplished this goal. The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County was instrumental in helping us manage this effort. Thanks to everyone involved! Following is the press release that the Community Foundation issued last month. ...

Congrats, thanks, and welcome to my friends at Fuser for joining the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. Fuser is the 11th Colorado company to join this year. The Colorado entrepreneurial community support for EFCo far surpassed my expectations this year – a big thanks to everyone that has embraced the idea. Now that we’ve got a solid base of great companies as part of EFCo, we will really crank it up next year. ...

I’d like to welcome and thank my friends at Gold Systems for joining The Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. Terry Gold – the co-founder of Gold Systems – was one of the first entrepreneurs that I met in early 1996 shortly after Amy and I moved to Boulder. At the time Gold Systems was about 15 people. Terry, his partner Jim, and I went for plenty of long walks in 1996 and 1997 as they tried to navigate the waters of growing a young business. As I got to know Terry better, he came to epitomize the ideal of a thoughtful and generous entrepreneur and person. ...

Well – now that a few days has passed it’s old news that Solidware has joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. I’m pleased to announce the newest member of EFCo – ClickCaster. We are now up to nine announced members with several others coming soon. If you are the CEO or founder of a startup and want to learn more about joining the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado , drop me an email . Or – grab me after my morning keynote session at the CSIA DEMOgala on Thursday with Governor Bill Ritter.

Another week, another new member for the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado . My friends at Solidware have just pledged their philanthropic support for the future of Colorado. A big thank you to Sue Kunz – Solidware’s founder/CEO – and her team. Thanks gang!

A little over a year ago Amy and I had a discussion about how we could directly contribute to rebuilding New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina . We have made financial contributions and underwritten several trips of students to the city, but we were looking for something tangible to do. A close friend and nationally known architect – Coleman Coker of buildingstudio – told us of a project he was working on with his colleague Jonathan Tate to build high quality, low cost housing in New Orleans. He connected us with the folks at the Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans a New Orleans based non-profit that helps first time home buyers. ...

Blue Mountain Arts has been a fixture in the Boulder community for the past 35 years. It was started by the parents of my friend Jared Polis (Susan Polis Schutz and Stephen Schutz) who are all dynamite people. For Blue Mountain Arts’ 35th anniversary, they’ve given a wonderful gift to Boulder. Rather than having a big party and spending a bunch of money, they’ve given each of their 100 employees a share of $200,000 to donate to their favorite charities . ...

I’ve been chairman of the National Center for Women and Information Technology for the past two years. The mission is straightforward – it is “to ensure that women are fully represented in the influential world of information technology and computing.” NCWIT programming is organized into “alliances” – we have an academic, workforce, K-12, and entrepreneurial alliance. The academic and workforce alliance are the most mature; the entrepreneurial alliance is the youngest. ...

We had an NCWIT (National Center for Women & Information Technology) board meeting yesterday in advance of two days of NCWIT alliance meetings. I’m delighted with the progress this organization has made in the past three years. We held the meeting for the first time at the new CU Boulder ATLAS building. Bobby Schnabel – a co-founder of NCWIT, the Director of ATLAS (“Alliance for Technology Learning and Society) and Vice Provost for Academic and Campus Technology – has a good podcast up describing ATLAS titled ATLAS – Is It Technology, Art or a Coffee Shop . If you haven’t been there, it’s a cool, cool building. ...