Matt Galligan

A while back, I started a cause called 1% of Nothing with Shervin Pishevar. The premise was to get startup founders to contribute part of the equity in their company to a non-profit of their choice to get involved in philanthropy at earlier stages than usual. We’ve now had hundreds of companies make the pledge and with my new company, Circa, we’re following suit.

We’re donating 1% of our equity to charity: water and an additional 1% to the Knight Foundation.

I’ve been donating to charity: water personally for quite some time and truly believe in its cause: giving clean water to the one billion people on this planet without it. It’s unfathomable that so much of the population doesn’t have access to such a core human necessity, so they’re trying to change that in a big way.

Because Circa is in the news world, we’re also very keen on the future of journalism and news. With that, the additional 1% will be heading to the Knight Foundation which is dedicated to advancing journalism, innovation around media, and the fostering of communities. It began in 1940 and just last year paid out over $100m to endeavors in related spaces. There simply isn’t a more well-aligned and perfect cause for us to be a part of.

Our goal here is twofold: If we do well and see a liquidity event sometime down the road, we’ll give a windfall of cash to these organizations which would be awesome. But additionally, it creates a silent partner at the table that represents these causes. We’ll align our own goals with the company to the goals of those organizations. This might change the way we make the big, macro decisions but we’re ok with that. We want to change the way news works, and in doing so if we help these organizations out, we’ve met all of our goals.