My Next Adventure

Today I am excited to announce that, together with a great team, I have formed a new company, Groundswell (www.groundswell.io // on LinkedIn here).? Groundswell sits at the intersection of American innovation and generosity.? Our intent is to bring the financial technology revolution to the philanthropic sector and empower individuals and corporations to better tackle the most pressing issues of our time.?

The past 18 months have laid bare the myriad of challenges facing our local and global community.? First, COVID-19 has decimated countries around the world; but it wasn’t just a crisis of health.? It revealed countless inequities throughout society.? Suddenly kids were going hungry because they could no longer access free lunch at school.? Without suitable WiFi, many of those same kids lost an entire year of education. Women left the workforce in droves to fill an unexpected child-care void. We saw the pandemic disproportionately impact black and brown communities, often medically underserved.

George Floyd’s murder in broad daylight was a wakeup call to many, who flooded the streets in the pursuit of justice - not just for Floyd, but for the dozens of black men and women inexplicably killed over the past decade.?

The stunning fall of Afghanistan to the hands of the Taliban reversed two decades of progress on human rights, specifically for women and girls in a country that has historically brutally repressed both.?

Finally, never to be ignored, Mother Nature continues her relentless assault.? Fueled by climate change, hurricanes are getting stronger, fires are burning fiercer, and floods are rising faster (shameless plug: Team Rubicon continues to crush it here - support us here).?

Yet despite all of this suffering I remain hopeful.?

The hope I have for the world is fueled by my recent past experience.? For the past decade I have helped build and lead the nonprofit organization Team Rubicon. Over that time we responded to nearly 1,000 disasters and humanitarian crises around the world and here in the U.S. That herculean effort was fueled by a groundswell of volunteers and donors. Over 150,000 volunteers - mostly military veterans - registered to serve, and tens of thousands of donors, foundations, and corporations contributed over $250 million to our effort. The outpouring of support was nothing short of inspiring.?

So, despite the toxicity in our public discourse, America has not yet become apathetic. I firmly believe that we all aspire to create healthier, safer, and friendlier communities. I believe that we want our children and grandchildren to enjoy a world that is better than the one we inherited.? Finally, since America is the most charitable nation on the planet, I believe we’re willing to invest our own hard-earned dollars to make it happen.

At least that’s what I hope. But, as I learned in the Marine Corps, hope is not a strategy, and that is where Groundswell comes in.?

Groundswell (www.groundswell.io) is founded on the principle that everyone should be able to give like Gates, get taxed like Buffet, and get recognized like Rockefeller.? Our aim is to democratize philanthropy for the masses, and we’ll do that by building a solution that gives everyone the power of a personal foundation in the palm of their hand.?

Our aim is to democratize philanthropy for the masses.

We also recognize that the model for today’s corporate philanthropy is outdated.?

Corporate philanthropy has long been a centralized function wherein senior executives determined what issues were most pressing and what solutions were most worthy of support.? But what if companies acknowledged that diverse problems require diverse solutions, and instead repurposed a portion of their charitable giving as a new element of compensation by providing it to their employees to give to the solutions they believe are best for the problems they think are most critical? Like the 401k did for retirement, Groundswell will usher in a new era of employee empowerment.?

Finally, by building on a modern technology stack, we can dramatically reduce the fees associated with moving this money to nonprofits, leaving them with more cash to generate more impact.

Americans currently give nearly a half-trillion dollars to charity annually, but there’s more to do and more to give.?

Groundswell’s vision is simple: a future where every solution is funded, and every problem is solved.

I’m lucky to be partnering up with two entrepreneurs and philanthropists that I’ve long considered both friends and mentors, Joe Marchese and Adam Miller.? Heather Hartnett has joined the board of directors. Our founding team is growing, but already includes Tammy Hahn as Chief Product Officer, Karan Keswani as Chief Technology Officer, Candice Schmitt as Chief Administrative Officer, Daniel Covelli as a full-stack engineer, and Megan Vandervort as Marketing Director.? Of course I've tapped Sarah Lenger to help with design.

We have closed an initial? $5 million in funding, with a group of investors that include leading venture capital firms like Human Ventures, Lowercase Capital, Core Capital, and Quiet Capital, and individual investors that span multiple Fortune 500 CEOs, former military generals, media executives, entrepreneurs, and my mom :)?

Want to help us change the world?? Click here to see how you can get involved.?