One community a time.
Funded by a local business owner!
ImpactClub® was born out of a frustration. The fact is, people want to do more to impact the lives of others, but they don’t know how. This was especially true for me, and the group of entrepreneurs I worked with. Each had a successful business, having gone through our Accelerator-like program. But something was missing. I wasn’t the only one to feel it either. Income wise, business was good. The fulfillment though, wasn’t there.
As a group, we started to ponder such questions: Why were we fighting so hard to grow these businesses? What was the bigger purpose? There has to be something beyond just making money?
What’s next?
Around that time, the concept of a giving circle was introduced. It wasn’t the first time I had heard of it. It was the first time, though, that it clicked. This led me, all of us, to research the giving group models. We found shortcomings in every version we analyzed. From being highly inefficient to being just flat out broken. Most are run as hobby-projects, not having the precision of a true organization. So, in the spirit of Elon Musk, just as he did in designing Tesla, SpaceX, and Solar City, we started with “a clean slate.”
Innovation isn’t free.
By the time we mapped out the vision of what we would build, and how it’s components would be integrated (from The Game of ImpactClub® to the Leaderboards, and Elevated Philanthropy to IODs: Impact of the Day) to have the biggest Impact possible. We landed on a number of ~$300,000 to build the needed infrastructure. Then there was the cost of hiring all the videographers. Post production. Investing in data and video systems. Travel to and from events. Not to mention, the cost of launching in each new city itself.
Using the capital from our other companies. Ryan Sloper and I, my business partner, vowed to put up the money to build the national infrastructure, if… each local entrepreneur, as they became skilled enough storytellers (to effectively spread the message), would fund the ongoing cost of a launching a local ImpactClub® in their community.
It was unanimous, each agreed.
In November 2016, I hired the tech team that is responsible for bringing ImpactClub® to life. On December 19th, a month after rolling into beta to better prove the concept, ImpactClub® Northern VA launched. In one hour, ImpactClub® members (112 Impact Venture Capitalists, driven by the 10 DNA traits) donated $11,200 to ImpactClub’s first recipient; StillBrave: Childhood Cancer Foundation, founded by the incredible “Tattoo Tom” Mitchell.
A month after that, on January 28th, ImpactClub® Temecula launched. Taking what we learned from the first launch and applying it. This time, in one hour, 181 (new) ImpactClub® members donated $18,100 to an incredible local charity. A month later, this again repeated in Frederick, Maryland, where 182 (new) ImpactClub® members donated $18,200 to another incredible local charity, to help fund the fight against domestic abuse.
Soon, this was repeating itself in multiple (new) communities each month. We slowly put in place the Operations to be able to handle the scale. ImpactClub®, as a Community, soon passed the $100,000 mark donated, then $200,000 donated. Then $300,000, and this? All before the ImpactClub® infrastructure ever even officially launched.
That first year of beta, we discovered what ImpactClub® could be.
The Home of Worldchangers.
