Alto, Haiti, and the Support of the Entrepreneurial Community

Many of our clients and friends know that, in addition to alto, we are heavily involved in helping Haiti.  Josh and I are founders and Board members of Mangrove Fund (along with my wife and Peter Galen, a close friend of alto and us personally).  Mangrove is a Portland-based 501(c)(3) public charity.  We have been focused exclusively on Haiti since our inception in 2007.  I’m not going to go into too much detail on Mangrove here.  If you want to learn more about us, click here.

Since the devastating 7.0 quake hit Haiti on January 12, Mangrove has kicked into high gear.  In the first two weeks following the quake I basically worked almost every waking hour on Mangrove.  Thankfully, every member of the alto team has stepped up to help, whether by spearheading the administrative side of capturing donations and email addresses, to running fundraising events, to covering me on some of our client needs while I was out promoting our fund and cause.  It has felt great to have a team not only pull together for the legal work we do on a daily basis but also truly show their dedication and teamwork when working on something like Mangrove – an initiative for which none of us get paid.

It has also been inspiring to see the large number of our clients, colleagues (even competitors), and partners who have helped Mangrove.  Karin McKercher, an attorney at Ater Wynne, has been great both in terms of getting us on people’s radar and writing this great blog post that really does a good job of talking about all of the help we’ve gotten thus far.  Obviously we can’t capture everyone who has donated, provided advice, or otherwise helped in a single article.  These people have been invaluable to us.  In many ways, Mangrove is a start-up and, like every other start-up, getting the right people on the bus has made our success possible.

Another great experience I’ve had during this process has been tapping into the creative talents of the entrepreneurial community.  People like Carrie Atkinson, founder of Sock It To Me, and Karen and Aaron of Delta Café have developed and run some great fundraisers for us.

This brings me to the next event we are doing.  John Friess has led the charge and was the initial inspiration.  In the past, his organization, Starve-Ups, ran a fundraising event called Build a Business in a Day.  Modeled after “The Apprentice”, Starve-Ups raised thousands of dollars for victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Asian Tsunami.  When I was talking to John about Haiti and Mangrove, I could almost see the synapses firing as he quickly threw out ideas for what we could do.  The result (still in progress) has been an event that is being promoted and supported by virtually every technology-related organization in Portland and many individual companies.  We think it is going to be a great event for us not only from a dollar perspective but also just to keep the energy and focus on Haiti.  If you are in Portland, please check out this event and sign up for a team.  It will create team-building and test the sales and marketing skills of everyone involved.  Prizes will include some great merchandise from Columbia Sportswear and other Portland-area companies.  Click here for more information on the event.