Please join the greater EFCO community and participate in I Volunteer! Day on April 17 this year. This is a great way to engage in meaningful work outside the office with your co-workers and other local start-up employees. We are also working on collaborating with Metro Volunteers in Denver to include Denver-based activities for those who work and live in Denver. Look for more information on EFCO targeted events well in advance of the date. If you have questions before the next announcement about how your company can participate, please contact me at josh@symplified.com.

If you're looking to financially assist the Haitian relief effort, you can go to this site and have your contribution matched by the Entrepreneur's Foundation of Central Texas. It is available to all 'high-tech employees':

http://www.givetoaustin.org/HelpHaiti/

Please spread the word.

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.

Bill Marshall with his three other founders and the rest of the team at miRagen Therapeutics announced that they joined the Entrepreneur's Foundation of Colorado (EFCO) with an equity grant.

"We are thrilled to have the team from miRagen join EFCO's corporate social responsibility efforts. During the past two years, most of our members have hailed from the software and internet space. With miRagen's mission of developing innovative microRNA based therapeutics for cardiovascular and muscle disease, we are proud to have add a company from the biotechnology space;" said Ryan Martens, CEO for EFCO.

"We are very pleased to support EFCO's mission through the donation of an equity grant," said William S. Marshall, Ph.D., President and CEO of miRagen Therapeutics, Inc. "It's no coincidence that miRagen is based in Colorado as this area is a preeminent center for research in both cardiovascular biology and RNA. So it's particularly fitting that as our company grows our ability to make a difference in our community will grow along with it."

About miRagen Therapeutics
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally. Astonishingly, in the United States, every 37 seconds a person dies from cardiovascular disease. For survivors, life changes dramatically after an adverse heart event. Because of the significant toll that cardiovascular and muscle disease takes on patients, miRagen Therapeutics, Inc., was founded in 2007 to develop innovative microRNA-based therapeutics for cardiovascular and muscle disease. Only recently discovered, microRNAs are short, single-stranded RNA molecules encoded in the genome that regulate gene expression and play a vital role in influencing cardiovascular and muscle disease. Principally funded through venture capital investments, miRagen combines world recognized leadership in cardiovascular medicine with unprecedented in-house expertise in microRNA biology and chemistry. For more information, please visit www.miRagenTherapeutics.com.

About EF Colorado
EFCO working with entrepreneurs to help them meet their philanthropic objectives through equity, volunteering and social enterprises. Contributing companies simply select a cause or theme and one of three Colorado Community Foundation, including The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County, The Rose Foundation and The Denver Foundation, takes care of the granting process. EFCO is an affiliate member of the national Entrepreneurs Foundation, an organization formed in 1988 with affiliates in Silicon Valley, Austin, Southern California, New England, Dallas, Portland, Atlanta, Hawaii and Israel.

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.

BOULDER, CO. - November 6, 2009 - PingGadget today announced that it has joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado (EFCO) to support philanthropic efforts throughout the community. EFCO allows startup companies to donate a fraction of their equity to Boulder's Community Foundation during initial stages of liquidity.

While they may want to directly support charities, most startups are not in a financial position to do so. Through EFCO, entrepreneurs can focus on building their business while meeting their philanthropic goals.

"Boulder is a thriving space for social media technology and we are thrilled to be a part of this supportive community. Through EFCO we are able to establish a culture of giving back and allowing the community to share in our success," said Dennis Moulton, co-founder of PingGadget. "EFCO is dedicated to the long term health and sustainability of Colorado and we want to lend support to that goal."

Donations from EFCO to the Community Foundation are channeled to various non-profit organizations throughout Colorado, allowing EFCO to focus on working with entrepreneurs to help them meet their philanthropic objectives. Contributing companies simply select a cause, and the Community Foundation takes care of the rest. EFCO is aligned with the Entrepreneurs Foundation, an organization formed in 1988 with affiliates in Silicon Valley, Austin, Southern California, New England, Dallas, Portland, Atlanta, Hawaii and Israel.

"Working with various local initiatives through the Community Foundation, EFCO allows entrepreneurs to support a range of causes from education to the environment," said Tom Keller, one of the founding trustees of EFCO. "PingGadget's support helps us to achieve the critical mass of equity donations we need to truly make a difference in our community."

For additional information about PingGadget, contact Dennis Moulton at dennis@pinggadget.com or visit www.pinggadget.com.

About PingGadget

PingGadget is a next generation microblogging service. The web-based service allows users to connect and converse in real-time with people and the things they care about. The PingGadget service will be available in January 2010. Go to www.pinggadget.com to pre-register.

If you missed the 2009 EFCO Recruiting Event, you can read about the event and view some videos from the event at:

Rocky Radar

Colorado Startups Video from David Cohen

We could not have had such a great event without our sponsors including:

Boulder Ventures, Cooley Godward-Kronish,LLP, Ground Floor Media, Hogan and Hartson, Kendall, Koenig & Oelsner, Rally Software, Quist Valuations, Salesforce.com Foundation, Square1 Bank and TechStars Investors.

Thank you all for your involvement, support and attendance.

EFCO Community,

We provided seven volunteers for the grant process with the Community Foundation of Boulder! With a total of 60-65, we helped provide 10%+ of the volunteers.That's fantastic! Thanks to those who spread the word and thanks to those who signed up. It's a great way to help and a great way to be involved and learn about our community.

The Community Foundation is recruiting volunteers for our 2009 Community Trust Grant Selection Committees. The Community Trust is the most responsive fund of The Community Foundation and provides grants to Boulder County nonprofit organizations, through a competitive proposal process driven by community input and guided by staff expertise. There are seven Community Trust funding focuses (Arts & Culture, Basic Needs, Civic Engagement, Education, Environment, Health & Human Services, and Youth) and at least one committee per funding focus. Five to eleven volunteers serve on each committee and include individuals who have served on a grants committee in past years, business partners, non-profit staff, Boulder County residents, and Community Foundation donors, trustees, and staff. The time commitment for volunteers is the beginning of October through mid-December and includes a total of four meetings. To learn more or to sign up, please contact Gretchen Minekime at 303-442-0436 x107 or Gretchen@commfound.org.

During our first 2 years, we recruited 27 companies and the exits of 5 of those companies put over $100,000 into the community. So we are having a party!

If you do not have an invitation, please contact us to join the Board of the Entrepreneur's Foundation of Colorado and its executive members in attending our 2009 recruiting party. This party for member companies, prospects and local service providers aims to connect socially minded, entrepreneurial executives along the Front Range in a dialogue of corporate social responsibility and give-back. Sponsored by Boulder Ventures, Cooley Godward-Kronish,LLP, Ground Floor Media, Hogan and Hartson, Kendall, Koenig & Oelsner, Rally Sofware, Quist Valuations, Salesforce.com Foundation, Square1 Bank and TechStars Investors.

The event will feature a presentation from Suzanne DiBianca, the Executive Director of the Salesforce.com Foundation and graduate of CU Boulder. Suzanne was instrumental in forming the Foundation with Marc Benioff as Salesforce.com was just starting in 1999. In addition to forming and actively managing this shining star, she as been instrumental in sharing their 1% model with other organizations. (Share the Model) Suzanne and Marc have donated materials to EFCO and product to local non-profits including EFCO/Community Foundation and Intercambio. Following Suzanne's talk and questions, we will introduce companies to EFCO model, beneficiaries and local resources for corporate volunteering and give-back.