Pledge 1%

Over the years, I’ve written about my belief in the importance of giving back to your communities and #givefirst . In this spirit, one of the key organizations my partners at Foundry Group have helped create and nurture is Pledge 1% . In 2007, we were a founding member in the predecessor organization to Pledge 1%, called Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado (or EFCO). EFCO started as an experiment here in Boulder, not unlike Techstars and Startup Week /Weekend that got their start in our backyard. In 2014, Pledge1% Global launched as a joint effort between Foundry Group, The Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado , The Salesforce Foundation and The Atlassian Foundation which we helped seed financially and continue to support. ...

It’s awesome how Startup Week and Weekend have grown from an experiment here in Boulder into a global set of events that are now housed under the Techstars umbrella. I’m not doing my usual crazy schedule of running around to panels and events as I’ll be out of town for most of the week but wanted to highlight a few events I’m especially excited about. Amy and I supported the Pledge 1% Colorado Nonprofit Pitch contest last year with a $10,000 grant through our Anchor Point Foundation and are happily doing it again this year. This and other Social Impact Track events are working to engage the broader startup community and expand Startup Week beyond just high-tech startups. ...

SRS Acquiom and Pledge 1% have teamed up to created EscrowUP by SRS Acquiom . As investors in SRS Acquiom and members of Pledge 1%, we are excited about the creative idea the two organizations have come up with to increase charitable giving as a result of merger transactions. When one company buys another, a portion of the proceeds (usually between 10% and 20% of the deal) goes into an escrow account for a period of time (usually a year or two). This escrow is used to cover any undisclosed or agreed to liabilities that come up for this period of time after the transaction. One of the shareholders, called a shareholder rep, is responsible for managing all the activity on the sellers side. It’s a thankless task and a number of years ago my partner Jason Mendelson helped create SRS Acquiom to address this . Instead of a VC, board member, or founder being the shareholder rep (and doing what can turn into a lot of work for free), you can now outsource this to SRS Acquiom. ...

At Foundry Group, we have a deeply held belief that we benefit from our local community (Boulder, in our case) and that we have a responsibility, as we have success, to give back to our local community. My partner Seth Levine just had an excellent OpEd in the Boulder Daily Camera explaining this. It’s titled Entrepreneurs can give back, by giving early to EFCO . In it he explains more about Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado (EFCO) and Pledge 1% , two organizations we have helped create. ...