Blog
"creative action in unlikely places" has been addressed!
chattanoogans have rallied together and addressed the creative action in unlikely places cause! glass house collective, formerly known as chattanooga STAND, has reached their first milestone. many thanks to all of you who supported this cause and contributed your money, time, and expertise. with your support, glass house collective will be able to bring together residents in creative projects and partnerships with artists, entrepreneurs, and volunteers to re-imagine glass street and the surrounding neighborhoods.
after posting creative action in unlikely places and listing their needs, the group at glass house collective began rallying support on causeway.org by emailing friends and family and using social media and word of mouth. because they encouraged others to catch their vision and support their cause, creative action in unlikely places became the most supported cause on causeway!
with the help of many supporters and the 10 for 10 causeway challenge, the newly formed glass house collective was able to raise $11,343.20 to help fund their first six months of work! Expertise contributions of design, real-estate development, and marketing were also donated in addition to 112 hours of volunteer time. this is what causeway is all about: find a cause you care about, and get others on board by rallying support until it can be addressed. thank you to all of you who gave to the glass house collective through causeway. let's continue to better chattanooga one cause at a time!
causeway's 2011 results
in just 4 months chattanoogans have rallied together and used the causeway platform to take action in our city. thank you for your support and involvement! As you can see from our 2011 results below (september - december), we're off to a good start and look forward to making a bigger impact in 2012.
thank you for your support!
on behalf of everyone here at causeway, we want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has supported the chattanooga community through causeway and these amazing causes in 2011. we had 163 chattanoogans get involved and create profiles (if you haven't picked up your free t-shirt yet, come see us!). 22 chattanoogans posted a local cause they cared about, and we saw the first cause addressed this december. thanks for supporting and contributing to these causes, coming alongside civic entrepreneurs, and building momentum to get stuff done in our city.
The First Causeway Cause Has Been Addressed!
chattanoogans have rallied together and addressed the first cause on causeway.org- "chambliss shelter kids need more"! many thanks to those who posted the cause, posted the way to address it, and contributed through volunteer hours, monetary donations, or donations of toys and clothing.
one of the coolest things we've been able to witness through causeway is how chattanoogans pool their ideas and resources together and take action.
in this case, an individual saw a need and posted a cause to the site (thanks alice!). after learning more about the children’s home/chambliss shelter and their needs, a group of folks from abba’s house in the awaken college lifegroup decided they wanted to "adopt" this cause for christmas, and they suggested a way to address it. their way - awaken college santa’s helpers - detailed their commitment to purchasing needed and wanted items for several children and delivering them to the children's home.
spreading the word and rallying others to support a cause you care about is critical to a cause's success. as the awaken group began planning, other chattanoogans began contributing to the cause, and another group at abba's house heard about the college lifegroup's efforts and wanted to join in - doubling the effort!
the cause was up for less than a month, but was able to rally contributions of:
- 15 volunteer hours
(spent purchasing and delivering gifts to the children's home) - 55 new clothing items and toys (delivered to the children's home)
- $15.00 (since the effort was focused on gifts, these funds were used to purchase additional toys)
thank you again to all of those who contributed, in whatever way, to this cause! we look forward to sharing more results with you in the future!
The 10 For 10 Causeway Challenge
causeway will match contributions up to 10% through december 31st
in this season of giving, we want to give back and help jump start civic entrepreneurs in our city. our 10 for 10 causeway challenge is a way to do just that. for every cause on the site that has 10 or more monetary donations of $10 or more, we will give a 10 percent match -- up to $1,000 for each cause. the 10 for 10 causeway challenge ends december 31st, so now is the time to rally supporters around the causes you love most.
how can you rally support?
use your networks - whether it's through a social network, email, or word of mouth - and include the link to the cause you're trying to raise support for.
a couple things to note:
all monetary donations to causeway are tax deductible. when you contribute to a cause, our goal is to pass 100% of your contributions to the cause (rather than to overhead, slush funds, etc), and let you track results, transparently. to do this, causeway covers the website costs, credit card transaction fees, etc., which is why we accept separate donations to causeway to help us keep the goals on track.
48Hour Launch: Social Innovation
this past weekend, causeway co-sponsored the 48hour launch social innovation track with chattanooga stand. social innovation teams worked furiously over the 48-hour period to launch ideas that will impact our local community.
like the dozens of entrepreneurial ventures launching technology, product and social innovations off the ground, causeway had the opportunity to test out our own beta platform leading up to the event. many of the social innovation teams posted their causes to the site and began rallying the support they needed - whether it was specific expertise, volunteer hours, materials or monetary donations. these causes will continue to be listed on causeway.org, and we'll be tracking support along the way.
the causes from 48hour launch are listed below. we encourage you to check out these causes and the “ways” or plans associated with them. if you see a cause you’re interested in, contribute however you see fit.
chattafont - developing a custom typeface for chattanooga
chattanooga soul - developing a community terminal for chattanooga
china garden in chattanooga - creating a chinese garden in chattanooga to reflect our sister city in Wuxi, China
educontribution - helping educators help nonprofits
neighborhood cup - starting a youth soccer tournament pitching neighborhood against neighborhood
neighborhood watcher - creating a neighborhood watch app
open chattanooga - working together to make public data open, available and useful
open in east lake - repurposing the abandoned east lake elementary school
sickle cell awareness - bringing education and awareness about sickle cell disease
the open tree map - displaying urban tree data online
Causeway: Where There's A Cause, There's A Way
causeway is a startup, in nearly every sense of the word.
causeway is a new kind of charity-- one whose goal is to make it easy for chattanoogans to help other chattanoogans and, perhaps more importantly, to help the community help itself. it’s also a startup and a work in progress (thus the “beta” language), and, with your help, it will keep getting better.
who
causeway is supported by a growing network of chattanoogans who believe in an entrepreneurial approach to everything, including community service. we believe that if things are going to improve, chattanoogans need to take ownership, as if chattanooga was our business, because it is. read more >
what
causeway is a civic engagement hub-- a platform for pairing worthy causes with ways to address them. our goal is to support civic entrepreneurs-- the civic equivalent of the scrappy, hard-working small businessperson who sees an opportunity to make something work better. and in this case, the community is the one who profits.
when
now (in beta form). after 10+ years bouncing the idea around, we’re now officially a 501(c)(3) organization and, like a startup, we’re doing what we can with what we've got (which is not a lot). when we say it’s still in “beta”, we mean that it is not in its final form yet, but we decided to get it started anyway. with the community’s help and feedback, causeway will continue to improve over time.
where
chattanooga. local local local.
why
simply put, we believe where there’s a cause, there’s a way (thus the name...). we want to help connect community causes with the best ways to address them, efficiently. we also want to focus on results, good and bad-- so the community can learn from both, and chattanooga can keep getting better and better.
how (watch a quick intro here)
chattanoogans can post causes that are important to them on causeway.org. other chattanoogans then submit ways to address those causes, contribute to their favorite causes, and choose the ways they think are best. basically, it is a place for good “causes” to be paired with good “ways”, a place to rally behind and contribute to things that matter locally, and a place for chattanoogans to help ourselves.
anything else?
causeway is a 501(c)(3) public charity. this basically means that your contributions are tax deductible. when you contribute to a cause, our goal is to pass 100% of your contributions to the cause, and let you track results, transparently.
as for causeway itself, you are free to give directly to causeway, which will help us stick to our goal of being an efficient, transparent, results-oriented civic engagement platform.
finally, since we are a scrappy startup, we are going to make mistakes-- the website may have bugs, our language may be obtuse, and we may need to go through 2-3 different iterations of our model before it really makes sense to you. let us know. like a startup, we plan to listen to you-- our users-- to get better, all the time.
so don’t be surprised if you see some goofy stuff for the first 6 months or so. we figure it’s better to start, imperfectly, than to never start. our ultimate goal is to help chattanoogans help themselves, and we may need some of that help early on to get it right.
thank you, chattanooga. let’s see what we can do.