Reposted from Todd Berkowitz – NewsGator: Giving Back to the Community
This morning we announced NewsGator's founding membership in the Entreprenuers Foundation of Colorado, a partnership between Colorado's entrepreneurial community and The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County. The foundation's mission is to encourage local startups to get involved in philantrophy early on in the creation of their companies and actively engage in driving the long-term health and sustainability of the Colorado community.
We join four other local companies-- Collective Intellect, Me.dium, Rally Software, and Tendril -- as the founding benefactors for the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. Our CEO, J.B. Holston and board member Brad Feld from Mobius/Foundry Group are among the founding trustees.
It's not uncommon to read about Fortune 500 companies or billionaire executives getting involved in philanthropy, but this organization is unique from the standpoint that it will work with much smaller companies to help build a permanent endowment that provides grants for the arts, civic involvement, education, the environment, and health and human services. Funds will be distributed to respond to the community's greatest needs and entrepreneurs will gain an outlet for community philanthropy, strengthening the culture of giving for the business and its employees.
As Brad Feld notes, "Waiting until an organization is successful before encouraging philanthropic activity is often ineffective, because the entrepreneur is often besieged by requests and, if young, not yet certain how she wants to approach her philanthropy. We decided to take a different approach and create a new program to help all entrepreneurs contribute early in the creation of their companies and support the many things we all love about living in Colorado."
A healthy, vibrant community is absolutely essential to the long-term success of any company. We're excited to be a part of this initiative. We expect this foundation to not only inspire NewsGator, but also inspire other emerging companies and their employees to and get involved more broadly in the wonderful and unique Colorado community.
You can learn more about the foundation by visiting it's Website.
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