July 27, 2018
Financial terms of the deal, which closed in June, were not disclosed. Boosterville co-founders Pam and Tom Cooper will remain with Beyond, which has about 500 employees. The husband-and-wife duo—well known in local business and tech circles—is relocating to Robinson, Illinois, to be nearer to family, Pam Cooper told IBJ. Cooper
In 2013, the Coopers  founded Boosterville as “a better way to fundraise than selling wrapping paper, cookie dough and other trinkets,” Pam Cooper said. They built a platform to partner school fundraising with supporting community businesses. Tom Cooper was founding chief technology officer of ChaCha Search Inc. and hc1.com before co-founding Boosterville. Pam Cooper founded Fiberxperts Inc., a carpet cleaning franchise that she operated for 20-plus years. Beyond, a financial technology and transactions company offering a suite of business tools and services including payment processing, employee management (payroll, HR, compliance), lending, and point-of-sale, will maintain a small central Indiana presence which Cooper thinks could grow. “Beyond is growing and they’ll be adding sales people and that will likely happen here too,” she told IBJ. The Boosterville platform will be rebranded to Chip-In and utilized by not-for-profits as a fundraising tool to facilitate an increase in digital donations, Beyond officials said. “We believe the acquisition of Boosterville will be instrumental in our company’s continued growth,” Beyond CEO Robert Carr said in a statement. “Our new Chip-In program empowers local businesses to support non-profit groups in their community while also ensuring that support makes financial sense. In turn, non-profits play a key role in building a flourishing local business community by reciprocating and supporting those businesses with their collective buying power. As buyers continue to be more intentional about where they shop, the Chip-In app makes it easy to find businesses that donate to causes they care about.”
Cooper said selling to Beyond wasn’t a difficult decision because “we have very similar philosophies.” Beyond has a strong charitable component, funneling a portion of its profits into helping children that either are living in foster homes or whose parents are incarcerated to have access to a post-secondary education. Officials for Beyond and Boosterville began talking about an acquisition in January. “This immediately gives us resources,” Cooper said. “It gives us a national salesforce for our technology. And this helps Beyond because our platform provides a feature they need. It’s a differentiator.”
Pam Cooper conceived the idea for Boosterville after years of fielding donation and sponsorship requests at her carpet cleaning business in Carmel. She donated gift certificates to silent auctions and sponsored her children’s soccer team. “I did all of those things knowing I was just being a good community member,” Cooper said. “I was probably not going to get any business out of it.”
At the same time, she helped her children fundraise for their schools by selling items from various catalogs. “Everybody who participates in that hates it. Nobody wants that stuff,” Cooper said. “Merchants hate it because they’re completely cut out of that—those dollars are just sucked right out of the community and gone.”
She figured there had to be a better way. So she started thinking about how to use technology to solve the problem, and for more than four years, she worked to create a platform with her husband. Cooper gave a nod to zWorks, a Zionsville co-working space. “They supported us and gave us what we needed to get this off the ground,” Cooper said. Technology, venture capital, media and marketing
Schoettle grew up in Indianapolis, graduating from Southport High School and Indiana University. He then departed on a tour of middle Indiana, reporting for papers in Greenwood, Frankfort, Columbus and Franklin before landing at IBJ in 1998. At his previous jobs, he spent a decade as a political and government reporter. Beyond writing, Schoettle’s passions include animals and wildlife, watching all manner of television and long-distance cycling and running. Though he put away his trumpet many years ago, he remains an avid music fan. Schoettle shares his home in Southport with his wife, Elizabeth, three salty dogs and three sweet cats. Preferring to live in a “park-like setting,” one of his primary goals each spring and summer is to see how seldom he can mow his front lawn. Phone:

Couple sells Zionsville software firm nine years in the making

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PRINCETON, N.J., July 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --  Beyond , the business tools and services company founded by Robert O. Carr, announced its acquisition of Boosterville, a technology that connects non-profit organizations with local merchants. The platform, rebranded Chip-In , will be utilized by non-profits as a fundraising tool to facilitate an increase in digital donations. For businesses, the Chip-In program is an affordable way to drive new business, convert loyal customers, and manage donation requests. With the new robust mobile application, consumers make deliberate decisions about which businesses to support based on their cause affinities. The acquisition furthers Beyond's mission to strengthen businesses and communities across the country. In just over one year, Beyond has built a product suite to streamline processes for small and mid-sized enterprises, including payment processing, employee management, point-of-sale, and lending. The launch of Chip-In expands its focus to non-profit organizations, an underserved market with many of the same operational needs as for-profit businesses. "We believe the acquisition of Boosterville will be instrumental in our company's continued growth. Our new Chip-In program empowers local businesses to support non-profit groups in their community while also ensuring that support makes financial sense. In turn, non-profits play a key role in building a flourishing local business community by reciprocating and supporting those businesses with their collective buying power. As buyers continue to be more intentional about where they shop, the Chip-In app makes it easy to find businesses that donate to causes they care about," stated Beyond CEO Robert Carr. In 2013, Pam and Tom Cooper founded Boosterville as "a better way to fundraise than selling wrapping paper, cookie dough and other trinkets." They built a robust platform to partner school fundraising with supporting community businesses. Now, with Boosterville team member Jill Turcic, they join Beyond to continue to develop their non-profit technology. About Beyond
Beyond  is a financial technology and transactions company offering a suite of business tools and services including payment processing, employee management (payroll, HR, compliance), lending, and point-of-sale. Founder and CEO Robert O. Carr launched Beyond in 2017 with non-profit  Give Something Back  designated as a founding partner and beneficiary. About Boosterville
Boosterville is a platform that connects businesses with cause-driven buyers. Non-profit groups encourage their supporters to shop at participating businesses that then share a portion of those sales with the non-profit.

Beyond Acquires Non-Profit Platform Boosterville

ZIONSVILLE, IN (February 7, 2017) — Boosterville , an award-winning, offers and loyalty platform that seamlessly connects merchants with cause-driven buyers, announces the completion of the company’s seed round of funding. The round, which will be used to accelerate the rollout of the platform to new markets, totaled $830,000 and was co-led by 316 Investments and VisionTech Angels with a matching investment from Elevate Ventures . Greg Willman, co-founder and CEO of 316 Investments who will be joining the Board of Directors, stated, “Our excitement for Boosterville stems from our long history in the retail space and understanding of the innovative marketing solution that Boosterville brings to merchants who want to support non-profit groups in their communities as well as grow their customer base.”
Boosterville works with all existing payment card processing and POS systems with no new hardware, integrations or training required. An immediate text message at the time of purchase notifies the buyer of the merchant’s contribution to their selected non-profit, resulting in increased engagement and loyalty for platform merchants. Ben Pidgeon, executive director of VisionTech Angels, said, “Merchants have long been challenged by measuring return on investment of local marketing dollars spent. Boosterville has developed an elegant, yet powerful solution for businesses to engage with customers in supporting local causes, help local groups raise funds they need to be successful, and in the process, build a more loyal customer base. VisionTech Angels is pleased to have Boosterville as our first investment of 2017.”
Boosterville CEO Pam Cooper stated, “We’ve seen great interest this last year and are thrilled to have these leading retail and technology experts join our team. We’re excited that they recognize the value of our technology and the tremendous opportunity to help the millions of merchants across the country increase their revenues while enhancing their relationship with their local community and non-profits.” Cooper added, “It’s wonderful to join the rising tide of Indiana’s tech startup community and prove that founders don’t need to leave the state to secure angel investment or talent for their growing companies.”
During 2016, Boosterville established a technology partnership with one of the world’s largest credit card networks, secured agreements with national non-profit and faith-based organizations, was selected for Facebook’s FbStart program, and visited with now-Governor Eric Holcomb to introduce Boosterville and discuss fostering entrepreneurial growth in Indiana. Most importantly Boosterville received overwhelmingly positive response during a pilot program in Zionsville after months of testing by local development partner merchants: WB Pizza, Cobblestone Grill, and JiffyLube of Indiana. Prior to launching from Zionsville’s entrepreneurial and coworking center zWORKS , Boosterville graduated from two tech accelerators — the SeedHatchery in Memphis, TN and Prosper Women Entrepreneurs in St. Louis, MO. The company is currently operating in previously vacant commercial space owned by the Town of Zionsville.

Boosterville Receives $830K Investment to “Boost” Loyalty Platform Growth

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When I was a kid, fundraising meant selling wrapping paper we rarely used and chocolate we shouldn’t have been eating. But thanks to a handful of new startups, old-school bake sales and magazine drives are giving way to digital crowdfunding campaigns, mobile e-commerce efforts and money-making market research partnerships. With the growth of crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo , services like Fundly , Razoo and Dibbee have made it easier for schools (and other nonprofits) to solicit donations from their communities online. But other startups are pitching schools with even more interesting fundraising models that take a page from the books of consumer e-commerce companies. Advertisement
Boosterville , for example, a startup launching this week as many kids head back to school, provides parents and school supporters with a “mobile wallet” that allows them to give a percentage of the proceeds from their purchases (from participating local and national merchants) to their schools. Launched by Pam Cooper, an Indianapolis former PTO president, and her husband Tom, the former CTO of search engine ChaCha, the goal is to allow parents to buy the things they already need while supporting their schools and community. Advertisement
E-commerce services court schools
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“As things like Groupon (s GRPN) and other shopping [startups] started coming online, we started thinking of ways to apply that consumer technology and wrap it up in a different bundle for schools,” said Pam Cooper. Advertisement
Through a mobile-optimized website (the company says mobile apps are on their way), parents can connect a bank account to a Boosterville account in support of their school. Then, at the point of purchase, they can pull out their phones to pay for items through the site. Two percent of the purchase price goes to the school, while one percent goes back to Boosterville. Even though businesses lose out on a portion of the sale, Boosterville claims that by being a part of the Boosterville network they could attract more business from those who want to shop responsibly and support their schools. Advertisement
A San Francisco startup called Schoola also blends fundraising and local commerce with a Groupon-like approach that offers parents limited-run deals from local businesses. Through its site, which has attracted 12,000 schools since launching last fall, businesses can offer cheaper goods to parents and then donate about a third of the proceeds to the school. Instead of employing an army of salespeople, it relies on parents to recruit businesses who want a new, philanthropic way to reach customers. A more recent service from the company, Schoola Stitch, gives parents a way to sell used children’s clothing online to make money for their schools. Advertisement
“This helps them raise funds in a responsible way that doesn’t require [parents] to simply write a check,” said Schoola founder and CEO Stacey Boyd, a former teacher and principal. Advertisement
Trading shopping data for school support
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Yet another company launched in the Bay Area last year, Shoparoo , turns parents’ shopping excursions into cash for schools in a different way. Through the startup’s mobile apps, parents can take pictures of their grocery store receipts to earn points that the company converts into money for that person’s school. Brands, like Dove and Breyer’s, pay for the (anonymized) shopping data, which in aggregate can provide insights into consumer behavior and preferences, according to Shoparoo. In a given year, it estimates that a parent could raise $10 to $15 for her child’s school. Advertisement
Given widespread budget cuts — 80 percent of U.S. schools have experienced some kind of cut since 2008, Schoola’s Boyd said — schools are in an especially vulnerable financial position. Still, even as schools increasingly need more money, the general economic pressures faced by families, and growing disenchantment with traditional fundraising efforts, are making it tougher for schools to raise money through the tried-and-true candy drives and catalogue-type sales. Advertisement
According to the Association of Fund-Raising Distributors & Suppliers, which includes the third-party vendors that enable traditional school fundraisers, schools raised about $1.4 billion in 2012. And that’s down from about $1.7 billion in 2005 . For new startups, digital fundraising services not only give schools a better way to raise money, they provide a way to tap into what Boosterville estimates to be a $5 billion market (when you consider the total sales, not just the schools’ take). Advertisement
Getting new apps and services to be a part of parents’ daily routines could be tricky — especially when there are so many other shopping apps competing for their time. And ongoing fundraising efforts, rather than shorter drives, could make it more difficult for schools to keep up the momentum to reach short-term goals. But given growing interest in buy-local movements and shopping responsibly — not to mention more parents for whom using digital tools is second nature — these efforts are likely just the beginning of a new era of fundraising for schools. Advertisement


School fundraising grows up with mobile wallets, daily deals

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Boosterville, aka Chip-In, is an offers and loyalty platform that seamlessly connects merchants with cause-driven buyers to raise funds for their favorite non-profits simply by using their credit card.

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