Young firms urged to give helping hand
Roger Fillion, Rocky Mountain News
Published February 27, 2007 at midnight
Movers and shakers in Colorado's entrepreneurial community are launching a foundation to spur entrepreneurs to give to charity early on - rather than waiting until they've made their fortunes.
The new Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado will encourage local start-up companies to donate a stake in the business to the foundation.
The target amount is 1 percent of a company's equity, once it has received a significant infusion of outside investment.
If the company ultimately is sold or sells stock to the public, the foundation would cash in its holdings and distribute the proceeds to charitable causes. Companies would recommend where the money should go.
Five upstart technology companies - Collective Intellect, Me.dium, NewsGator Technologies, Rally Software, and Tendril - are initial participants.
"The spirit is to engage the whole company in the philanthropic activity," said Colorado venture capitalist Brad Feld, a co-founder of the new foundation.
He said waiting until a company is sold or goes public often is "ineffective" and that entrepreneurs by then get "besieged" with calls for charitable giving.
"We decided to take a different approach and create a new program to help all entrepreneurs contribute early on in the creation of their companies and support the many things we all love about living in Colorado."
The new foundation is modeled after similar entrepreneurs foundations in California and elsewhere.
The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County will administer the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado.
"We're betting that these folks who've had success in the past will have success in the future," said Josie Heath, president of the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County. "If they do well, we do well."
Heath's foundation also is partnering with the Denver Foundation and the Rose Community Foundation. Backers ultimately hope to work with community foundations across the state.
fillionr@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2467
Featured
-
2008 Voter’s Guide
Use our Ballot Builder tool to compare your viewpoints to the candidates.
-
A Dozen on Denver
Sandra Dallas wrote 'Lennie's tavern' for our ongoing fiction series. Check it out!
-
Rocky Multimedia
The news comes alive in our videos and slide shows. Catch up on today's events.
-
Bronco Dean's rant
Listen to Bronco Dean's totally biased pregame rant about the Broncos-Jaguars game.
-
Presidential Elections
See how Colorado counties have voted through the years.
-
County election profiles
A look at how residents in each Colorado county may vote.
-
A dream fulfilled
A Rocky Mountain News and MediaStorm production
-
Latest from Dove Valley
Click for more broncos videos.
-
Sam Adams' Open Mic
No. 44 means a lot to Floyd Little




Post your comment
Registration is required. Click here to create your free user account, or login below.
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.