Originally published on the StartSomeGood blog.
At StartSomeGood we have spent the past 30 days focusing on gratitude. Each day across our social media we have acknowledged a project, partner, person or community which has made our progress and success thus far possible.
This is important, because truly, without the support from so many people we would not be here. To often in business and life we get caught up in our own challenges and needs and forget to give thanks for what we have. And like everyone else, we have challenges. Running a social enterprise startup is hard. The crowdfunding industry is brutally competitive and the impact investing ecosystem very nascent. Our hours are long, our stresses are many.
But we have so much to be grateful for. We have the best jobs in the world, working with inspiring entrepreneurs and community groups rolling their sleeves up to make a positive impact on the world. Just in the last year we’ve received our share of awards and recognition, we secured the backing from investors and with the help of some great partners completely rebuild our platform, to better serve our community of changemakers.
What what is crowdfunding but an exercise in gratitude? We support campaigns we are grateful to see go ahead, individuals whose energy and commitment to change inspires us. Successful fundraisers make it all about the community they serve and are generous in the express of their gratitude for those who help push them forward.
So we are surrounded by positivity and so grateful for everyone who has been part of our journey, so we wanted to take this time over the past 30 days to express this and highlight some of the specific people who have made it all possible.
These people break down into four main groups:
The social entrepreneurs, non-profits and community groups who chose StartSomeGood as their platform of choice. Thank you! Without you this would be a pretty boring website and, well, we wouldn’t really have a business would we? We exist to help you make a difference, thank you for your confidence in us and for giving us the opportunity to serve. Thanks to your quality and commitment to make a difference we have the highest project success rate in our category.
The individual supports who rallied behind these projects. Without you we’d have aspirational projects on the site but not the success they and we need to impact the world. You are the other half of our great success rate. The almost $5 million USD you have contributed have helped over 600 projects launch, grow or continue, and collectively you have helped to save or improve hundreds of thousands of lives. We are so grateful for your support for these important projects.
Our partners, investors and supporters. In early 2015 Trimantium Capital and Vasudhara Foundation invested in StartSomeGood and their support made our shiny new platform possible. We have also pioneered a powerful new form of matched giving which we call Crowdmatch, whereby institutional investors match their funds to those contributed by the community on our platform. Thank you to ING DIRECT who co-created Dreamstarter with us, our original crowdmatch partnership (which is currently open for applications!), and to partners such as the cities of Melbourne, Parramatta and Fremantle, the Inner North Community Foundation, Foundation for Young Australians and Social Enterprise Finance Australia who have embraced this model.
Thank you also to those who deemed us award-worthy last year. We had an amazing run of awards in 2015, co-winning the Social Investment award at the Australian Social Enterprise Awards, receiving the Innovation Award at the Australian & New Zealand Internet Awards and being acknowledged as Innovator of the Year by the Nexus Summit and ANZ in conjunction with our joint-venture partners Good Mob (launching next month!).
And finally, thank you to our team! Nothing is possible without a passionate and dedicated team and we’ve been fortunate to have some incredible people in StartSomeGood, from our core staff, our interns and volunteers who contribute to our blog and events.
Why this matters
Gratitude is essential to maintaining motivation and perspective. Gratitude is scientifically proven to improve physical and mental health, as well as your empathy, self-esteem and resilience. Gratitude really does make your life better!
Here's a great video on gratitude from the Capturing Gratitude Project:
For myself personally, I try to take a minute each day to reflect on what I’m grateful for, as covered in a recent blog post on morning routines. Make gratitude a part of your daily routine!
So thank you to everyone who made our progress in 2015 possible (and in the years before that). With your support I’m confident 2016 is going to be an ever more amazing year of growth and impact!