Give Forward

GiveForward is excited to be participating in midVentures25 competition– an event that brings together 25 tech start-ups, all competing for the chance to win valuable prizes.  We will be among the “best investor-ready early-stage start-ups” Chicago has to offer.  Win or lose, the event is a great opportunity for GiveForward and the other start-ups to pitch our businesses to over 400 investors and attendees.

Judging the competition are online innovators such as Andrew Mason, CEO for Groupon, and Chuck Templeton, the founder of OpenTable.  The top 5 finalists will get the opportunity to do a 3 minute pitch for the audience and judges before the ultimate winner is chosen. 

Grand Prize includes hosting from SingleHop, software development consulting from Pathfinder Develoment, tech consulting from midVentures Group, legal services from Pasky IP, online advertising TheNextWeb,  an HP Business Netbook from ChicagoMicro, and $1,000 cash from Inventables.

midVenture25 was founded by Geoff Domoracki, CEO of midVentures, a technology based consulting firm and Jonathan Pasky, a patent attorney and founder of boutique Intellectual Property firm, Pasky IP.

The Demo Day and Conference takes place today, March 11th from 5:00 to 10:00pm at 200 S. Wacker Drive.  The event is open to the public, (with an admission fee of $10), and we encourage you to come out and support GiveFoward! 

For additional information on the event and midVenture, please click here.  For tickets, click here.

We’re not the only people holding holiday parties for a good cause this year (might as well make sure your karma’s in check while you’re rocking out, right?). Jelly Chicago, a group that allows freelancers, entrepreneurs, telecommuters and other professionals that may normally work from home to hang out with others with similar working arrangements, is holding their second annual “Tech the Halls” holiday party on December 11 and you’re invited to hang out with some awesome people and donate to a very worthy cause.

This year’s “Tech the Halls” will take place at Noble Tree Coffee at 10 PM on December 11. Jelly is taking donations for one of our favorite nonprofits, Cabrini Connections, a “grassroots non-profit organization founded to address the large number of children who live in educationally disadvantaged environments.” (You may remember them from their Northwestern vs. University of Illinois Alumni Fundraising Challenge held on our site last month)

So if you missed our Ugly Sweater Pub Crawl (or if you just can’t get enough of fundraising and partying simultaneously!) RSVP for “Tech the Halls” ASAP—the party is in 3 days!

In case you missed our Ugly Sweater Pub Crawl this weekend, here a couple links from NBC Chicago so you can experience some truly horrendous sweaters virtually. If only we could share booze with you through the internet…

Cheers to Ugly Sweaters!—A Slideshow

Three Places to Pimp that Fugly Sweater — by Marcus Riley

It’s time to dig into your closet — or maybe your grandmother’s closet — to uncover the most hideously ugly Christmas sweater you can find, because it’s time to party.

The second annual Ugly Sweater Pub Crawl kicks off Saturday at 1 p.m. at Redmond’s (3358 N. Sheffield).

The ugly party continues south, passing through Sheffield’s, Trader Todd’s, Mad River, and Uncle Fatty’s.

Tickets are $15 in advance or $25 at the door, which gets you a wristband for drink specials at each participating bar.

A $100 cash prize goes to the best/worst dressed, and proceeds from the event go to www.GiveForward.org charities.

Timothy O’Toole’s pubs are also joining the ugly sweater craze.

The Streeterville and Gurnee locations are hosting ugly sweater parties on December 11 at 9 p.m.

Prizes, including a $200 gift card to Water Tower Place, will be given to customers with the ugliest sweaters.

And forget the high fashion the Gold Coast is known for, the tackier the better will be expected at Luxbar’s Ugly Sweater Christmas Party on Dec. 19.

The customer with the ugliest sweater will receive a $250 cocktail card to Luxbar.

Sip on $5 Grey Goose martinis and work up a sweater sweat on the dance floor to the mixes of LuxLounge’s all-female DJ team.

And of course you’ll want to embarrass your kids with the evidence one day, so take advantage of a green screen Christmas photo booth where you can choose from a variety of backgrounds to match your holiday apparel.

Consider it a “tongue in chic” homage to the holidays.

Remember that sweet Yelp! party I posted about a couple weeks ago? Well now you don’t have to take my word on how awesome it was—we’ve got visual evidence! See3 Communications created this great video of the event. They do videos specifically for nonprofits. If you need this for your nonprofit, or you know of a nonprofit that does need this, definitely contact them!

On my second day at GiveForward, I was lucky enough to work the GiveForward table at Yelp’s October 15 event—Community: Causes for a Party! By work, of course, I mean eat some free spring rolls, hand out chocolate, explain GiveForward to any interested person, and award scavenger hunt prizes!

That’s right, we had a scavenger hunt—but instead of finding objects, we had our participants discover facts about some of the other nonprofits at the party. We gave out cards with questions about organizations such as Imerman Angels, Climate Cycle, Open Books, Clearbrook, Chicago Inner City Outings, etc. and when participants came back with three correct answers, they could choose a prize from our lovely, colorful, sticky note prize board of awesome.

One super awesome GiveForward enthusiast won a $350 8 bottle wine tasting at PRP Wine—congratulations, Lisa Center! You can bring up to 12 people for your private wine consultation—or less, if you don’t like to share

Other winners weren’t quite as lucky. Prizes ranged from gum to Giveasaurus t-shirts to GiveForward coozies to Sticks & Twigs (it’s a snack food, I swear). One player won our only set of Energizer Bunny foam ears. Other equally lucky participants won instant grits, cans of soup, and “vintage” (circa March 2009) GiveForward t-shirts! Only one awesome winner managed to choose the right sticky note and left with the highly coveted Giveasaurus tee.

Our next event is on December 5, the ever-fabulous Ugly Sweater Pub Crawl, so if you’re just dying to get some more GiveForward SWAG, be one of the first people there and receive a sweet GiveForward Santa Hat. For more information, check out uglysweaterpubcrawl.com!

On Thursday, September 10th nearly 200 socially minded party-goers enjoyed open bar and tasty hors d’oeuvres courtesy of GiveForward.org and Old Town Social, Chicago’s latest hot spot.

Attendees included our charity partners: Chicago Children’s Charities, PFLAG, Southwest Youth Collaborative, Volunteer Expeditions, Chicago Inner City Outings, and Midwest Young Artists along with a mix of young Chicago professionals.

See NBC’s coverage of the party here!

Don’t worry, if you missed this event, you can still come to the next one…The Ugly Sweater Pub Crawl!

Run 4 a Reason is an ongoing effort to help runners raise money for ANY reason they care about. You can help your favorite charity, a friend battling an illness or any cause that is important to you by setting up a fundraising page as part of your training.  There is no minimum amount you need to raise. You set your goal amount as high or as low as you want. It’s totally up to you!

Upcoming Run for a Reason Events:

The Chicago Half Marathon & 5K
Sunday, September 13th at 8am

The Chicago Marathon
Sunday October 11th

The Poland Spring Marathon Kickoff 5K (NYC)

Sunday October 25 at 8am

To get started, all you need to do is create a free fundraising page by clicking either link above.  Then, click “Join this Group” to customize your personal fundraising page.  Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to start fundraising.  Email your page to your family, friends and your network of people you know will support your efforts and keep them updated over the course of your training.

Imagine it. One day a year when people focus on giving. One day when people across the United States can join together to make a difference. One day, where every person, regardless of age or income level, can collectively have a huge impact. Whether people give money, time, resources, or random acts of kindness, it all helps.

This is GiveForward’s goal for National Give Day. GiveForward.org is a website that provides free personal fundraising pages so they can collect donations from friends and family all across the country towards their own great cause. For the next 10 months, we will be collecting signatures online and in person to try to get the Mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, to announce May 4th, 2010 as National Give Day. Please sign our petition. read more…

On September 13th, 2009, GiveForward.org and 200 young professionals will run in the Chicago Half Marathon and 5k as part of GiveForward.org’s Run for a Reason, a fundraising competition and celebration of Chicago’s amazing smaller non-profit community.

Our goal is to help raise as much money for Chicago charities as possible while showing the Chicago community how important young philanthropists are to these organizations.  This year, 200 young professionals, volunteers, junior board members, and non-profit staff will compete for a grand prize that will go to the winning team’s organization. read more…

Hey Chicagoans! GiveForward.org is joining with zipcar and Yelp to host a Green Trivia night at Mad River in Lakeview on April 30th.

There’s a $500 cash prize for the winning team, and all proceeds are going to help put solar panels on Chicago Public Schools through our partner, Climate Cycle.

read more…