Royal Oak-Based Crowdrise Designs Fundraising Challenge for Arts, Beats & Eats

In 2012, the four-day festival raised $337,092 for charity. With the addition of technology, ABE event producer Jon Witz expects the festival’s donations to rise to $500,000 this year.

The concept to help to further reward non-profits started as a discussion among neighbors, Witz said.

"Crowdrise is in the same building in downtown Royal Oak as Arts, Beats & Eats," Witz said. "We were talking about how we could help each other and they agreed to do some things for us they normally don't do."

What is Crowdrise?

Crowdrise.com is a friend-to-friend fundraiser website designed to make fundraising fun, according to its co-founder and CEO, Robert Wolfe.

"It's a niche website grown out of social networking to show how you give back," said Wolfe, who is also the founder of Moosejaw, the clothing and outdoor gear retailer known for its silly "Moosejaw Madness" marketing.

"If you are familiar with Moosejaw, you understand how we try to make retailing fun. It's the same sort of concept we have with fundraising," Wolfe said.

Each festival volunteer will be encouraged to setup a profile on CrowdRise.com and raise pledges of donations for their individual charities. The more pledges that are raised, the more funds each of the charities get in addition to the festival’s donations.

If website platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter define, "this is what I'm doing right now," Crowdrise defines, "this is how I get back," Wolfe said.

ABE, which raises funds for several local charities, has always had a ground campaign but they didn't live online, Wolfe said. No one knew much about the charities or how much money they were raising.

"Crowdrise will be able to offer a concise narrative of ABE," Wolfe said. "People are really passionate about their causes and can raise a lot of money. Crowdrise allows organizations to create a lot of awareness."

Crowdrise's clients include the Red Cross, the Boston Marathon, the Clinton Foundation, Stand Up to Cancer and many others. Tons of celebrities also use Crowdrise including Barbra Streisand, Sean Penn, and others.

The company is headquartered in Royal Oak on Fourth Street.

"Our staff loves Royal Oak. It has a kick-ass suburban downtown," Wolfe said.
"We were originally in Birmingham but everyone wanted to be in Royal Oak because everyone lives around here."

Let's get started

FirstMerit, the presenting sponsor for ABE, will be awarding $20,000 in incentives to the fundraising challenge.

The website will go live in a week or so, according to John Witz.

"We expect it to really catch on after the Fourh of July," he said. "It's all built and just about ready to go. "

Witz said the challenge will embrace all ABE charities and he's excited about its potential to raise more funds for them.

"We're always trying to improve the event and what it can do for the community, and this achieves that," Witz said.