When the San Francisco Department of Public Health banned Virginia Ramos in June from selling the handmade tamales she'd been peddling for decades in local bars, the office of her city supervisor was inundated with calls from outraged constituents who had come to know and love her.
Ramos, an immigrant who started her business to supplement a job cleaning houses, didn't initially know where to turn. "I come in from Mexico, I never go to school because I have to work for my kids, I got seven kids, I learn English, I write a little bit (you can see my twitters they're really bad)," she told SFist at the time. "But if you kids can help me, let me know. Maybe something on the Internet ... then later when I've got more money then I can start my own little place."
Supervisor David Campos represents District 9, which encompasses the city's Mission District, a neighborhood with a strong Latino history that — like many in the city — is rapidly gentrifying. This often leads to tension between tech companies that produce a flood of wealthy professionals and the people who have lived there since before it was hip.
In the conflict, Campos and his team saw an opportunity. The way to legitimize Ramos' business was to get her in a brick-and-mortar shop, but a commercial kitchen plus rent is expensive, and while she had some savings, it wouldn't be enough.
So Campos contacted Indiegogo, "to see if, as San Francisco locals, they might be interested in helping us save the Tamale Lady," he said in a speech on how his office is using crowdfunding to his district's advantage. Campos' team worked with the company to set up a crowdfunding campaign to help raise the $50,000 she needs to open up shop, and stay in business.
In addition to helping a constituent, "this is how we wanted to reach out to the tech community," Nate Albee, legislative aide to David Campos, said in an interview. "There have been a lot of meetings and community rallies against the gentrification issue, and we really think that working together is the only way to solve this problem."
In September, to raise awareness for the Indiegogo campaign, Campos' team partnered with Uber, the popular taxi app, for a "Tamales on Demand" event in which users could use the app to summon Ramos for a free tamale. The company then donated $5,000 to her effort — the largest donation to date. At time of writing, the campaign has raised a total of $17,321, with nine days remaining.
Hi to all may frens thans so Mach for the supour and David Campos he is the best person I ever met I love all the tamale lady
— Tamale Lady (@TamaleLady) September 20, 2013
"Even though some people see tech as a problem, it's also part of solution," Albee said, referencing Campos' approach to bridging the gap between the old and new neighborhood. "Nobody wants the Mission to be a mall — they want these small, independent businesses to keep thriving."
While technology is often cited as a barrier to real human connection, it also unites people in a way that's changing communities and individual lives, as well as how we do business. And it's happening all over the country.
Doing Good for Great Business
For over three decades in Yonkers, N.Y., Greyston Bakery has employed vulnerable people in his community, those who have been incarcerated, homeless or have had substance-abuse issues. The bakery, which supplies brownies to Ben & Jerry's ice cream, has a unique motto for a for-profit business: "We don't hire people to bake brownies, we bake brownies so we can hire people."
In order to expand the bakery and hire 15 new employees, Greyston is also turning to Indiegogo. With a goal of $25,000, it has raised $9,311 so far, with 43 days remaining
Greyston is "providing people with resources and skills, so we can break the generational chain of poverty," Jonathan Greengrass, Greyston Foundation's vice president of development and public relations, said in an interview. What's more, as a benefit corporation, it can "prioritize profits, social contributions and environmental impact equally."
A lacrosse, leadership and educational program for young women in Harlem, N.Y. is also finding success with its Indiegogo campaign, having already surpassed its $20,000 goal, with 14 days left.
Part of that success is due to momentum powered by social networks, where people who care about an issue can quickly inspire those in their networks to act, according to Simon Catalda, president of the organization's board of directors.
"It's exciting to see a lot of social enterprises leveraging the platform, from my perspective as a fellow social entrepreneur." Danae Ringelmann, Indiegogo's co-founder and chief customer officer, told Mashable. "As someone else who's trying to create a business in the world where our financial goals and social-impact goals are 100% woven together in our DNA."
Financing small business can be "inefficient and unfair," Ringelmann said, so she and her co-founders saw an opportunity to make the process more egalitarian. Indeed, a successful crowdfunding campaign can provide market validation for small, socially focused businesses that might otherwise encounter skepticism from more traditional funding venues.
"A lot of people think it might be that there's a tradeoff of doing good and doing good business," Ringelmann said of the social-entrepreneurship trend and its natural home on Indiegogo. "I wholeheartedly disagree. You have to do good to do great business."
The Way We Give
"With a connected web, we all have a chance to be Batmen/women of sorts," Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian told Mashable in July. This partially explains the magic of crowdfunding: Online connections allow people to finance not only the entrepreneurs they support, but the individuals who inspire them.
On crowdfunding site GoFundMe, donors raised nearly $160,000 for Glen James, the homeless Boston man who returned a backpack with $40,000 in it. Strangers also raised $15,000 via the site as a thank you to Charles Ramsey, the neighbor who in May helped free three women held hostage in a Cleveland house for 10 years.
When asked what powers these campaigns, GoFundMe CEO and co-founder Brad Damphousse echoed the experience of Simon Catalda, leader of the lacrosse program in Harlem.
It's "much easier to share stories with a large amount of people and, in turn, attract more donors," since the "campaigns are connected to the networks we already use," Damphousse said. "Word travels fast — which is part of what makes crowdfunding such an effective fundraising vehicle."
With its immediate impact, ability to connect strangers quickly and knack for motivating people to give, crowdfunding "is changing the way that people give," he added.
Technology that unites government with constituents, funds the social entrepreneur and introduces those in need to people who can help — it doesn't get much more connected than that.
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Image: Flickr, Ray_from_LA
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