Who are the creators behind elefunds?
Elefunds was founded by Tim, Yannick, Christoph, Ben and David in autumn 2011 during the StartUp competition @ the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin). Our founders team includes a wild mixture of professions ranging from Senior Business Consultants over Software Developers, Philosophers, MBAs to Anthropologists. We enjoy this diversity in professions as well as experiences and lifestyles because it is the essential to our work as well as the key to our motivation and endurance.
Since we love what we do and how, by now our Team has grown to become a company of 10 People supporting our idea and working on product development, marketing and sales to enrich our idea of sustainable and ethical consumption and make elefunds available in thousands of shops worldwide.
What is the idea behind your company?
The primary idea has always been to provide a more convenient form of giving to charity.
In a time of Web 2.0 and social media we thought it would be cool to give whenever you want, whatever amount you want and share it with your friends, therefore becoming an evangelist for your favorite charity. While thinking about that we noticed that not only charities but also shops could be promoted that way and therefore we could make shopping more ethical and responsible.
Based on that idea we started elefunds with the development of the Plugin you are beta testing in the UCON-Shop right now. All friends and fans of your products can round-up their grand total by the end of their shopping tour, choose up to three organizations by which the money is split equally and give for good. Afterwards you can share your good deed on facebook and promote your favorite charities just as UCON-Acrobatics.
At the beginning “.com” companies always have to be fast in order not to be bought up by bigger competitors – are you worried and how do you avoid something like this from happening?
For sure the whole web business is fast growing and rapidly changing. But since our project is a unique feature in the e-commerce market and we are not aiming for huge profits but a more sustainable economic system as such we don’t think anybody will copy elefunds.
The most important contribution to this believe might be that we are well trusted by our international charity partners for we have been fundraisers for quite a while. So we can guarantee that all donations are efficiently directed to your favorite organization via our foundation and this ist he most important issue of all. So we hope that we will build a sustainably growing company that provides creative software solutions to give for good for quite a while.
How did our cooperation come about?
We had been working on the project for almost two months when our developers told us about your berlin-based Streetwear brand. Since we all are used to skate, surf or free ski and strictly prefer T-Shirts over Suits we came to meet you guys @ your showroom in Friedrichshain and fell in love with the products right away, as you can see on the pictures your shirts are daily workwear.
But seriously, beneath the opportunity of testing the software in a berlin-based store we especially like the way you guys work on your products. We identify with your philosophy in the way you are trying to create long lasting and therefore sustainable favorite pieces. This is exactly what we think to be the paradigm of our generation to do/own or wear things that are making a difference.
How do you choose the aid organizations for your collaborations?
In fact every charitable organization or foundation can become our partner. But, there are some restrictions as for example a verified „Gemeinnützigkeit“ from the german tax authority. Furthermore we prefer organizations that have transparent as well as democratic structures in terms of decision making and disposition of funds. As a form of simple benchmarking we are currently using the catalogues of the „DZI“ for trustable charities just as the Initiative for a transparent civil society (ITZ) guidelines. We built up these restrictions to be able to secure that the donated amounts are efficiently and directly used in a straight forward manner.
Concerning ourselves, we do apply the rules of the European Fundraising Association and do have a verified „Gemeinnützigkeit“ as well, so we can guarantee that your donation gets where it belongs.
What are your future plans? Are there more companies you want to cooperate with and how do you define your goal?
By now we are simply as amazed as grateful for all the support we experienced in the last months. Since so many people joined us on our way, enchanted us and liked the idea of giving to charity while shopping online, we will definitely increase the number of shops and charities we work with, to make all areas of e-commerce and charities available to our fans. Therefore we are looking for experienced developers an office as well as investment right now.
The next step then will be to get elefunds international and give donors all around the world the possibility to shop and share for their beloved charities. Because giving is easy!
Featured products: The Scream Tee and Gustav Hood
