EFCO member Rally Software hosted over 100 people last night for our first ever Summer Startup Happy Hour. Attendees included EFCO members and sponsors, and participants and mentors from TechStars, Unreasonable Institute, and Startup Summer. The agenda included several rounds of ‘speed-dating’ to facilitate cross-program networking and finished with recognition of our most recent member contributions – bringing our total community impact to over $500K! We also welcomed new members and heard from our community foundation partners about their latest focus areas.

Thanks to all who showed up – and if we missed you, check out the great local coverage (Daily Camera, BCBR, BCBR) we received and be sure to join us next time!

Thanks to Nanette, executive director of RMVCA, as well as the entire board of the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association for their support of our mission. For the second year, EFCO was the proud beneficiary of proceeds from sponsors and the annual poker tournament. These proceeds will be leveraged to help expand EFCO in Colorado this year and to support the work we’re doing with local entrepreneurs and companies.

Venture Capital in the Rockies Winter is the premier venture capital conference in the Rocky Mountain West, bringing together almost 400 entrepreneurs, investors and the service providers that support them. Over 20 companies presented at this year’s conference. It is great combination of business and winter entertainment that takes place annually at Beaver Creek.

It is with sincere gratitude that I thank the sponsors of the poker tournament. All of their sponsor dollars went directly to EFCO:

• CBRE
• Holme Roberts & Owen
• KPMG
• Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association
• Square 1 Bank
• Silicon Valley Bank
• TriNet

Last week in the Denver Business Journal, Bruce Goldberg helped us announce changes to the EFCO model that expand support beyond just 1% of equity for fast growth companies, to include 1% of Profit in LLC, LLP and S corporations.
Based on a review of other Entrepreneur Foundation Affiliate models and a desire to increase our reach and services, our board voted to expand the membership model for EFCO. Beginning in March of 2010, we now have two different membership models and an optional membership fee.

• For equity-financed, high-growth companies, we continue to offer the 1% equity model. This model works through a warrant mechanism that executes at change of control.
• For partnership and profit-centered businesses, we are now offering a 1% of profit model. This model allows more profit focused firms to donate 1% of annual and/or 1% of liquidation profits to EFCO. This mechanism operates through non-binding promissory note.
• For all members, we have created a new EFCO operating fund at the Community Foundation serving Boulder County. This is now an optional, but default, 10% allocation to this fund for all new members. We will use this fund to operate EFCO and provide services in the forms of community volunteering, marketing and education services.
• For all members, we have created an optional membership fee. Like the new EFCO fund above, these fees will fund services in the forms of community volunteering, marketing and education services. These modest, $1,000 to $3,000 per year fees, directed at the large members (greater than 50 employees), will be instrumental in helping grow an income stream with a goal of hiring a part-time Director in 2011.

We are thrilled with the impact we have had in the local community in our first three years. We hope these changes will allow us to spread this culture of giving and philanthropy to a much larger community of Colorado businesses. These models are working at other EF Affiliates around the country and we believe it will work here in Colorado.
Thank you so much for your support. Let us know if you have any questions.
Ryan

For folks who could not make our summer recruiting party, below is 30 minute movie of Suzanne’s talk. If you are interested in corporate philanthropy and corporate social responsibility, this is a must see.

Suzanne is the current and founding Executive Director of Saleforce.com’s Foundation. Suzanne is also on the board of the national Entrepreneur’s Foundation and is an alumni of the University of Colorado.

Suzanne started the talk by playing a video of all the good work that the Salesforce.com Foundation has done. At the end of the video below, Suzanne explains how the newest part of the foundation works as a social enterprise. It serves non-profit, and university markets with an 80% discounted subscription of the complete Salesforce.com offering. This is very interesting funding model that is really worth the listening to.

Thank you again Suzanne and the Salesforce.com Foundation for supporting the Entreprenuer’s Foundation of Colorado.

The number one reason to join the Entrepreneur’s Foundation of Colorado (EFCO) is to help strengthen the culture of giving in our communities. By joining EFCO when your company is young, you get to send a strong message of corporate citizenship in the Colorado community to your employees, investors and fellow community members. You acknowledge that a part of your success is due to the amazing state that you work in. As your company grows, EFCO helps its members spread the word of corporate citizenship through local volunteering programs and fundraising activities.
EFCO membership happens through a simple mechanism of a stock grant, usually in the form of a warrant to purchase common stock, roughly equal to 1% of your Series A equity. This equity grant is administered by the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County and can be allocated to any Community Foundation in Colorado. In addition, your gift can be allocated to any specific charity or areas of interest supported by your company. Only at the time of a liquidity event, the money flows directly to the organizations you allocate it to. There is no fee of any sort anywhere along the way – the Community Foundations are providing this service free of charge to EFCO.
By giving early in the life of the company, you have a chance to build the value of giving back into the corporate culture of your organization. This act allows you to position corporate citizenship with your employees and customers over the lifetime of their relationship with your firm. This is unique leverage that donating to charity on individual basis does not easily provide.
Our success in 2007 and 2008 started in the Boulder high-technology start-up community. Late last year, we began to reach into other industries including venture firms, natural food, biotechnology and clean-technology as well as firms outside Boulder County. Please consider EFCO in 2009 as stronger Companies make stronger Communities.

On May 28th, the Boulder County Business Report will present its Mercury 100 awards for the fastest growing companies in Boulder County.
As part of the presentation, Tom Keller will present a quick overview of the Entrepreneur Foundation of Colorado. Tom’s story is great. He is a serial entrepreneur who worked at 5 different companies in Boulder County in this decade. Tom was recently the CEO of Intense Debate that was acquired by Automatic.
Tom will tell his personal story with regards to EFCO, the story of EFCO’s impact on Boulder Community in 2008 and his personal involvement with BlueSkyBridge. BlueSkyBridge works to prevent child abuse here in Boulder County and was one of the recipients of funding from Boulder Community Foundation in 2008.
Come listen, learn, get inspired and help lead Boulder County.

Following the Friendship Fun Run for Intercambio and KGNU, a team of folks from six of the EFCO companies gathered at Rally for a two hour Strategic Planning session.
Using Rally’s Agile coaches, Ronica, Rachel, Hubert and Tamara, the teams broke up into four groups to help the Intercambio team and board test their thinking with regards to the national expansion plans. The groups topics included:

• The Worst Case Scenario – What if we can only raise $200,000?
• The Wild Upside Case – What we do if we were able to raise double?
• Targeting our Partners – How do we prioritize the new geographies and affiliates?
• What is the best way to share and protect our assets – The intercambio way and database?

Given these topics groups worked through collaborative exercises to expand and challenge their thinking. Finally, they worked to converge on recommendations to move forward with in each area. In my opinion, it was amazing fast and effective session to meld these diverse groups and share insights from our local business teams with this amazing non-profit. And, as a result of the effort, there is now an on-going, skills based volunteering team, that is helping Intercambio re-host its community management database into a more effective model using the non-profit, free-edition, of Salesforce.com. It was all I could have hoped for in our first event.
Thank you to all the teams that participated during the day including members from:

• Rally Software – Winner of the over 10% Participation Award
• Symplified – Winner of the over 10% Participation Award
• Tech Stars
• Foundry Group
• NewsGator
• Salesforce.com
• FilterBox

Thank you Mike Platt from Cooley, Godward & Kronish LLP and Bill Roberts from Hogan & Hartson LLP. We would not have have felt comfortable taking the leap without your help!