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Chicago-based Public Good Software has raised $1.6 million in seed funding from a list of star investors: Chicago’s Hyde Park Angels, Firestarter Fund, founder of WordPress Matt Mullenweg, founder of OpenTable Chuck Templeton, and Mike Sands, CEO of Signal. New funding will be used to improve technology, develop new features and expand to other markets.
The for-purpose online community pairs people with nonprofits working on critical problems around Chicago like homelessness, hunger and child literacy.
"2015 is the year for us to prove our model, both for consumers, where we can really show value to people so they can be happier and get more engaged in their community... and for organizations who have a lot of technology needs," Jason Kunesh, Public Good Software CEO, said. "If we can give them better performance, better conversions, better pages, and cut their costs, that's really what our mission is."
Since its soft launch in September 2014, Public Good has been introducing their platform to local nonprofits, making sure their innovative technology demonstrates a seamless and rewarding experience. Kunesh notes that this is the way they've been able to connect with nonprofits to elevate their mission —they're eliminating the cumbersome process of gaining software and building awareness manually.
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"If you give people the power to do stuff, you're going to be surprised by what they can do," Kunesh (pictured above) said. "Being able to give data to people so they can share what their philanthropy is or what they care about, that's kind of the whole point of calling it public good. It's you doing good, it's also you making that good public."
They began making that good even more public this year, partnering with the Chicago SunTimes and the Chicago Reader to implement a Take Action button. With the click of an icon, readers can directly engage with nonprofits, rather than relying on social media or other forms of support.
The original ideation for Public Good Software formed while Kunesh was working with Obama For America’s digital team. As Director of UX, he saw the opportunity for improvements on the tech side of the nonprofit sector, joining with co-founders Dan Ratner and Paul Smith to make their conversation into a tangible business.
"We realized there was still a lot of nonprofit organizations that were being underserved by tech," Kunesh said.
Almost four years later, the team (minus Smith) plans to expand to other urban areas with a large concentration of nonprofits and position itself for a Series A next year.
“Chicago is a roll-up-your-sleeves and get-down-to-work kind of place,” Kunesh said in a September interview with Built In Chicago. “We have a transactional focus, we have always revolved around some sort of commerce. Now, with Public Good, we want to take that kind of experience and make it easy for people to get involved. We want to let people see that the whole picture is greater than the parts by creating a new kind of marketplace.”
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