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it was exciting to see an article in our Times Free Press newspaper this past week detailing a little bit of what causeway is all about. we have seen a huge jump in activity since the beta site launched last september. the exposure by the Times Free Press has helped us reach a larger audience and get others in the chattanooga area excited about giving and being involved in our community. 

we love chattanooga and believe strongly that we are not alone in this.  chattanoogans are famous for rising up and helping out in our community.  help us as we champion more community involvement so chattanoogans will take ownership of our city and contribute towards its improvement.  find a cause you care about, help think of a way to get it done, contribute and rally support, and let's see results.  jump over to the Times Free Press site here and see their take on what this startup called causeway is all about.

here are the top 10-ish reasons why you might want to get involved with causeway:

1. you love chattanooga.
2. you think we, as individuals and as a community, can help ourselves better than, say, the government can. (not starting any fights here-- government officials have suggested the same to us...)
3. you like the idea of supporting civic entrepreneurism, connecting folks who have good local causes with folks who have good ways to address them (“cause-way”).
4. you think it’d be cool if it were easier for people to contribute to their community on a level playing field, according to their means-- for example, if someone can’t give money, maybe they’ve got time, tools, facilities, or expertise, which can be just as good, and just as worthy of recognition, as money.
5. you like the idea of a place to see “civic business plans” come to life-- a place to create, review and even crowdsource plans to improve our community-- in other words, a place to treat chattanooga like it’s our business, because ... chattanooga IS our business.
6. you’re tired of giving money or time to something and not really knowing... where it went.  (causeway passes 100%- actually 110%- through, and even covers credit card fees.)
7. you’re a businessperson, or you simply like the idea of seeing results of projects, good OR bad, so chattanoogans can learn from other chattanoogans, and our community can keeping getting smarter and better.
8. you’d agree that, even if one small project doesn’t save the world, it can set an example for others-- others who might have a great idea and just need a little inspiration.
9. you like local-- buying local, hiring local, designing local, giving local.  and you like local grassroots efforts, even if, like CW, they’re a little crazy or underfunded at first, like a startup.
10. you’d love to have one place to choose and track all your local giving-- including all the local nonprofits you already know and love. causeway can support both new causes and existing ones-- and can provide a platform for every charitable event or organization in town, without bias or territorialism, or taking a cut for ourselves.
11. you like folks who give 110%.  The volunteers at causeway-- and we are all volunteers--give 110%, literally.  not only do we put 11 items in our top 10 lists, but we’ll pass 110% of donations to causes in 2012-- by providing a 10% match up to an additional $1000 per cause (until we can afford more).  Why? because sometimes good ideas, and entrepreneurs-- for profit or nonprofit-- just need a little boost to get going. (and on the flipside, people who contribute want to see their full contribution go to the cause they support).

like those entrepreneurs, causeway is just getting started.  but if any of these points strikes your fancy, find a cause you’d like to support, submit your own cause, or contribute directly to causeway-- why? to help folks in our community to help each other, and to help themselves.  

because in chattanooga, and at causeway, we believe where there’s a cause, there’s a way.

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.  

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.