CauseMatch

This is personally one of my favorite website stories. 

A close friend of mine, Joseph Borenstein, had identified a niche offering in the crowdfunding space – matched donations. Drawing from his experience using good old fashioned fundraising for a variety of non-profits, who realized that connecting larger donors with multiple smaller donors could maximize the impact and giving potential for both. 

He told me about his idea, and explained he was a few months out from launching because he was still formulating his business plan. 

Why wait? I said. Let’s get you set up tonight!

I have long been a proponent of launching before you are ready. Most things can’t be planned for, and you learn most from simply doing.

Further, I’m a big fan of WordPress and the tremendous power of existing plugins that can do the bulk of the work for you.

So, that evening, in my living room, we sat down and created the first version of CauseMatch, powered by a crowdfunding plugin we planned on customizing.

I connected Joseph with a developer I had been working with via Fiverr, who worked with him to transform regular the regular crowdfunding features into the matching experience we were aiming for.

A week later, Joseph launched his first campaign for a local school.

Lots of things went wrong. But the campaign was still a success.

CauseMatch has gone on to raise tens of millions of dollars for charities all over the world, and the Fiverr developer I originally introduced to him has since gone on to work full time for CauseMatch, opening an entire office and hiring multiple people to support the company’s development needs.

I am proud to have been a part of CauseMatch’s founding story, and for having a part in pushing it to launch that much sooner.

Check out CauseMatch.com, it has come a long way since we first threw it together in my living room.

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