Short Summary
Christopher Girdwood spent time working in New Orleans after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. After talking to a number of small business owners, it became clear that disaster recovery efforts fell short of expectations. Girdwood realized that there is not an ideal solution for small business owners to stabilize their sales immediately after a disaster.
Our Innovation: Redirect Consumption Patterns to Disaster Areas.
Here is how Recovery Pledge works. Before a disaster occurs, small business owners will build profile pages on recoverypledge.com and enter descriptions of products and services they will offer. In the event of a disaster, the marketplace will be activated and consumers will be able to take the lead in disaster recovery by purchasing recovery pledges. These recovery pledges simply represent the goods and services that you, the consumer, will receive from the small business once it has recovered.
Simply, Recovery Pledge enables you, the consumer, to redirect your consumption patterns to disaster areas. In doing so, you will stabilize small businesses and the communities they call home.
Why? According to the Insurance Information Institute, up to 40 percent of businesses affected by a natural or man-made disaster never reopen. The Recovery Pledge mission is to reduce this percentage by letting consumers take the lead in disaster recovery.
We are asking for your financial support to build and launch the Recovery Pledge marketplace. In doing so, consumers from all over the globe will have the opportunity to take the lead in disaster recovery – by purchasing products and services while simultaneously helping small businesses recover from a disaster. The Recovery Pledge team designed the marketplace to be hyper-local with global potential.
Feel free to review our Business Plan for more details!
What We Need
We need to raise $37,500 to build a robust social enterprise platform that can facilitate both e-commerce and measure the consumers' impact throughout the disaster recovery process. We contacted a few local LA agencies for RFPs and discovered this budget to be the lowest cost for a minimum viable product.
It is very important for us to work hand-in-hand with the development team, which is why we chose a firm that is walking distance from our office. Here is the break-down of the platform build cost:
Design Criteria and Cost
Front-end Design – Research, UX & UI Concepts ($5,000)
Design Revisions & Page Production ($5,000)
Content & Asset Management ($7,500)
Customized XHTML JAVA, ASP.NET Development ($20,000)
Total Minimum Viable Product Cost ($37,500)
Here are the answers to the FAQs. Also, email me if you have any specific questions about our cost structure. I would love to hear from you.
What You Get
We designed the perks with consumers, small business owners and investors in mind. Also, technologists and entrepreneurs will be intrigued with the source code perk. Here are individual perk details.
The Sticker Kit
You, a concerned consumer, will receive the three stickers below to place on personal items. Each sticker will be 2.5 inches in diameter.
![Sticker Kit]()
CONSUMERS
Give your favorite small business a membership to Recovery Pledge. This way, in the event of a disaster you can support them through the recovery process. After you purchased the perk, we will confirm the recoverypledge.com membership with you and the small business owner.
***Send us a photo of the small business you supported to hello@recoverypledge.com. We would love to share it via our social network. Below is a photo of our Social Media Director and Christopher Girdwood supporting their favorite small businesses.
![Recovery Pledge supports Small Businesses]()
Small businesses range from local restaurants to machine shops, plumbers or electricians...from artists to masseuses and everything in-between. Support your favorite small business!
SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
Purchase a membership perk for yourself. From my experience in New Orleans, I know that you need to stabilize your sales in the event of a disaster. Recovery Pledge is the solution that drives consumers to your business immediately after a disaster.
***Send us a photo of your small business to hello@recoverypledge.com. We would love to share it via our social network.
NOTE: The regular price for a one year membership to Recovery Pledge will be $50. This campaign gives you a great opportunity to get a heavily discounted membership rate!
INVESTORS
We want to highlight your generosity on our About Page with a photo and short biography. We encourage couples or families to purchase a single perk so we can highlight you all together. Here is how your photo and bio (300 character max) will look.
Here is an Individual Photo and Biography Sample
![Single Investor Individual Photo and Bio Sample_Recovery Pledge]()
Here is a Couple/Family Photo and Biography Sample
![Couple or Family Investor Couple Photo and Bio Sample_Recovery Pledge]()
CORPORATE PARTNERS
Let's work together in the event of a disaster to stabilize communities around the globe. Let's take this idea of enabling a purely private sector approach to disaster recovery and make it a reality. We will also highlight your logo on our home page.
We encourage you to review our business plan. Please email me with specific questions at cgirdwood@recoverypledge.com.
TECHNOLOGISTS and ENTREPRENEURS
You will receive all of our source code (valued at $37,500) for just $5,000. This is also a great perk if you are thinking about creating a social enterprise platform. Email me if you are interested in talking tech, code and site performance.
NOTE: We are a fixed funding Indiegogo campaign. Meaning, we need to get fully funded to offer the Technologist/Entrepreneur $5,000 perk. We made a promise to deliver all of our customized source code so we cannot accept anything less than what it will cost to build Recovery Pledge.
VENTURE LEVEL
You are a savvy benefactor who thinks the business model makes good sense. You will receive one of each of the previous perks. Also, we ask that you mentor the Recovery Pledge team on occasion to help us grow.
The Impact
Recovery Pledge will also serve as a data repository by documenting the disaster recovery process in communities. Using the Guide to Actionable Measurement, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Recovery Pledge will measure consumption outcomes and impact on small businesses and the communities that support them. Below is a quick summary of some of the data we want to collect and share with you all.
Inputs: the resources employed to implement activities (e.g., consumers buying recovery pledges, the value of those pledges).
Activities: the actions taken by the small business (e.g., disaster clean-up and recovery, product and/or service creation and delivery, equipment purchased).
Outputs: the direct and early results of the activities (e.g., small business retention post-disaster, main street revival metrics, community stabilization and growth).
Outcomes: the intermediate observable and measurable changes that serve as progress toward an impact for the targeted population (e.g., regional economic resiliency indicators by industry sector, per capita income, employment).
Impacts: the ultimate sustainable changes attributed to an action or combination of actions (e.g., global and environmental stewardship, sustainability, consumption patterns, GDP).
FAQs
Are you a charity?
No. We are organized as a benefit corporation. Benefit corporations have a corporate purpose to create a material positive impact on society and the environment. Benefit corporations are required to consider the impact of their decisions not only on shareholders but also on workers, community, and the environment, and are required to make available to the public an annual benefit report that assesses their overall social and environmental performance.
What makes you different from a charity?
Recovery Pledge takes a purely private sector approach to disaster recovery. From Hurricane Katrina and Sandy to the recent fires in California and Colorado, disasters just happen. When they occur, charitable organizations respond with temporary shelter, food, clothing and social services. Our mission is focused on reducing the number of small business failures after a catastrophic event. We are not a charitable organization that sends money or aid. Instead, we offer a marketplace whereby you can support the local businesses by purchasing their products and services.
What if a disaster never happens?
That is what we hope for, but it is far from reality. The Recovery Pledge team is just as concerned with disaster preparedness as we are with post-disaster economic recovery. Small business owners who join Recovery Pledge will receive guidebooks and monthly e-resources to help them build a social networking strategy that successfully organizes their customer base.
Click here to review all of the FAQs
Other Ways You Can Help
Please share the Recovery Pledge campaign with your family, friends and especially the small business owners in your community. Please call or email your local Chamber of Commerce and ask them to share our campaign with their members. Below are links to our Press Kit.
Full Press Kit
Company Profile
Pitch Letter
Press Release
Sample News Story
Connect with us!
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
Google+
Instagram
Please let us know if you have any questions. You can reach Christopher Girdwood at cgirdwood@recoverypledge.com. We greatly appreciate your support. With your help, we can make the idea of letting consumers take the lead in disaster recovery a reality.
Thank you very much for your consideration and support!
Christopher Girdwood
Recovery Pledge