cause: "causeway- where there's a cause, there's a way."

cause

description

causeway is a brand new, local, grassroots, entrepreneurial nonprofit, for chattanoogans by chattanoogans-- one place, online, where good local causes, and ways to address them, come together, so that stuff gets done.

it is supported through the volunteer time and contributions of a growing network of chattanoogans who believe in an entrepreneurial approach to everything, including community service. anyone who likes the idea of chattanoogans helping chattanoogans can be part of causeway. causeway is a 501c3, so contributions are tax deductible. read more about causeway.

what's currently being done

there are many great nonprofits already out there in chattanooga, and causeway plans to support them. in addition, however, causeway plans to help the absolute grassroots efforts connect up with the support they need to get going.

on the flipside, there is no one place for potential donors to choose, organize, and keep track of all their local charitable giving. causeway can do that for you. just create a profile and get going.

moreover, many existing organizations (even new high-techie ones) still use a chunk of your donation for credit card fees, admin costs, or other (sometimes hidden) fees. causeway pledges to pass 100% of your donation (in fact, in most cases, 110%) through to the causes themselves.

what about kickstarter? it's great, but since its not a nonprofit, it's not set up to support civic (charitable) work, and donations can't be tax deductible.

why

why should people support this cause

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’re announcing today that 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.

who

who would benefit from addressing this cause

all chattanoogans, potentially.

leadership qualities

between us, we've launched successful startups (for profit), led nonprofit efforts of all kinds, been Peace Corps volunteers, seen the goods and bads of numerous nonprofit boards, worked our butts off, and perhaps most importantly, been loyal chattanoogans.

when

when it should get started

causeway should have started a decade ago, when we wrote the initial plan (but had not time or money to get started)! but better late than never. causeway received its 501c3 charitable status in 2011.

when it should be finished

when we're no longer helpful.

way

total resources requested

money needed: $25,000.00

volunteer hours needed: 2000

expertise needed:
startup experience (for profit or nonprofit), graphic design, email marketing, nonprofit work, web development project management

facilities needed:
1 office location

how we'll rally support to meet our needs

by example-- though it may take patience, we hope support comes by virtue of people believing in the mission, engaging in the platform, and seeing results. other than that, we hope to rally people through word of mouth, social media, speaking events, low budget scrappy anything-we-can-get-our-hands-on ways, super-cool (and inexpensive) t-shirts.

how we'll measure our results

constantly. we are building "results" into the model as if chattanoogans were investing in a business (because chattanooga is their business). we want to show, on the website, as much useful data as we can-- good and bad -- so that chattanoogans can learn from chattanoogans what works and doesn't work in helping our community improve. we are working hard to build up the technical back-end that will allow constantly improving data reporting.

background and plan

why will this plan be better than what's currently being done

simply put, causeway is designed to help chattanoogans help themselves. it has no "agenda" other than that. it is not connected to any foundation, large or small, harbors no biases except an entrepreneurial one, and decisions are made in a very public way, with the public leading the way.

while causeway is still a startup, the platform (causeway.org) is constantly learning from feedback and improving itself (basically, weekly), so even in areas where it may not be "better" yet, it is headed that way.

on a very practical level, causeway distinguishes itself from alternatives by passing 110% (yes 100%- from a 10% match, up to $1000) of donated funds to the causes themselves. causeway covers its own expenses, credit card fees, etc through direct donations to causeway (as its own cause, as you see here!), and volunteers, who are extremely generous with their time.

see above under "current solutions" to compare other features of causeway vs current alternatives.

examples where this has worked before

as for analogous models, on the for profit side, kickstarter.com is a great example (discussed above).

on the non-profit side, a good model to look at (though not locally focused) is donorschoose.org.

the plan

causeway is building a public "civic engagement" platform where good causes connect with people who have good ways to address them. here are three places on this website to learn more about the plan:

https://www.causeway.org/about
https://www.causeway.org/about/chattanooga-is-our-business
https://www.causeway.org/faq

milestones

1st milestone: 0 days

earn 501c3 status
(complete, January 2011)

2nd milestone: 0 days

assemble initial founding team
(complete March 2011)

3rd milestone: 0 days

get initial beta website up and running and produce some results

results

No results yet! Help this cause meet its support goals so it can get on its way!