Tech Conference Leverages the Power of Community

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The power of charity big data sees GROW Conference attendees create social impact for Whistler Charities

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2014

Whistler, BC – In a mountain village that purports community and healthy living, is there a way that GROW Conference can support the community beyond the tourist dollars and conference budget?  According to Dexterity Ventures Inc. CEO Gena Rotstein there is.

Dexterity Ventures has launched The Place2Give.com Whistler GROW Fund for the attending tech companies along with the angel and investor communities who have converged in Whistler, BC for GROW 2014. The fund challenges attendees to make a social impact on Whistler’s charitable sector. Last year during the Alberta floods, a similar fund started by the Dexterity Ventures raised over $1.1 million in donations, which were distributed to 20 local charities.

Using the company’s online charity research and giving portal, Place2Give.com, to gather information on the Whistler charitable sector within hours of arriving in Whistler the Dexterity Ventures team launched a Motif Giving fund.

The Whistler specific fund supports four local organizations that are able to track their donation dollars back into their community. They are the: Whistler Arts Council, Whistler Animals Galore Society (WAGS – Animal Shelter), The Community Foundation of Whistler, and The Whistler Blackcomb Foundation.

*There are 35 registered charities in Whistler, with an economic contribution of $77,916,526.00 and employs 641 people. The four charities identified for the Grow Conference fund, in aggregate drive $15,555,775.00  back into the community through funding initiatives and projects on an annual basis and employ 93 people in the community.

The Place2Give.com Whistler GROW Fund allows donors to choose a charity to give to directly, OR pool the funds to be directed to areas of greatest need. Place2Give Foundation takes care of the reporting to the CRA, tax receipts back to the donor, and disbursements to the charities. Furthermore, using the proprietary technologies developed by Dexterity Ventures Inc. reports back to the donors and the community at large the impact, over time that the contributions have had on the organizations and their projects. In essence, looking beyond the total dollars raised.

“Look around the room; I think there are over 700 delegates here. What if we each donated $10, that’s $7,000 new charitable dollars into the Whistler community that can be tracked and reported on,” says Rotstein. “A single $10 donation might not go far, but the collective action can actually push the needle on a project or an issue. As part of the ‘Internet of Things’ we wanted to showcase the impact that charity sector data and the power  and influence that the GROW Conference attendees have when it comes to hyper-localized giving.”

For more information on the Place2Give API, or the pricing and licensing of our data, please contact us directly at .

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Contact:

Meghan Somers
The Agency
+1 (587) 899 0615
media-contact at place2give dot ca

 

Notes to Editors:

Dexterity Ventures Inc.

Place2Give.com was developed by Dexterity Ventures Inc. Dexterity Ventures Inc. focuses on creating leading edge technologies that support the philanthropic and social visions of individuals, families and businesses supporting North America's charitable sector. Dexterity Ventures operates Dexterity Consulting, Canada’s first philanthropic brokerage firm, and Place2Give.

Place2Give is a donor-centered charity search engine. It provides donors with the tools they need to search, evaluate and give to Canadian and American charities that align with their passions. Place2Give is tackling a number of goals: to integrate big data for the North American charitable sector using our algorithms and prescriptive data analysis; to provide a valued resource for donor decision making; to improve financial advisors’ workflow pertaining to their clients’ philanthropic investments; to help charities articulate their Key Performance Indicators; and to provide third parties aggregated data on the charitable sector.

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