5 Minutes with DonationMatch Co-Founder Renee Zau

By Juliet Davenport, Nonprofit Ambassador at DonationMatch

When was the last time you experienced a pain and decided to devote your full-time effort to solving it? Co-founder Renee Zau became an accidental web entrepreneur when she wished for a product like DonationMatch and waited several years for "someone else to build it so I could be a customer." When that didn't happen, she and boyfriend Darryl took what they learned working for a VC-backed startup where they met, their savings, and advice from smart friends to get accepted into and graduate from the Founder Institute (a tech startup accelerator), which propelled DonationMatch into the premiere platform for reaching consumers through charitable events.

Here's what we learned in 5 minutes with Renee!

How did you come up with the idea for DonationMatch?

Inefficiency bothers me. I hated seeing myself and other wasting time typing the same information from the same donors over and over again for fundraising auctions. I also experienced the pain of not having an easy way to collect and track the requests my business was receiving. All the paperwork being mailed back and forth seemed wasteful, and I wanted a centralized place for both donors (companies) and receivers (nonprofits) to not just manage donation records, but make requests and seamlessly transfer necessary information easily. I waited four years before Darryl caught on to how frustrated I was and realized I wasn't alone in needing a solution.

What do you think charities can learn from the private sector?

I know that the ultimate goal of a charity isn’t to make money, but I think many fail to invest in practices early on that will help them become financially self-sustainable. When a charity can’t focus on its mission because it needs money and has to constantly fundraise, it ultimately hurts its ability to do good work. Just like a startup for-profit, I’d like to see nonprofits:

• Strive for long-term financial viability with an aligned business model,
• Identify whether their mission is unique and necessary (as opposed to initiating a project within an existing organization), and
• Plan for a bootstrapped success model based on partnerships and leveraging the help of others, in case funding doesn’t come easily.

Where would you like to be in 5 years?

In five years I’d like to be able to sign on to DonationMatch as a fundraising event chair in the U.S. or Canada, input my event details, and be able to fill my silent auction, opportunity drawings, and gift bags in an hour while having fun. This would be possible because of smart tools we're building into DonationMatch that help companies and brands want to donate goods because it's easy, cost-effective, and profitable. I can't wait for this day!

What is your weakness?

There’s always room for dessert. Even for breakfast.

What is another question you would like to ask Renee?

Why The Founder Institute?

By Darryl Rettig and Renee Zau, Co-founders, DonationMatch Pretty much everyone is familiar with the movie The Karate Kid. The short story is that the protagonist, Daniel, was new to an area and was bullied by a bunch a local kids while trying to win the heart of a girl. Into his life steps a handyman, Mr. Miyagi. He instructs Daniel to wash and wax his car, then paint various items around his house. Daniel doesn't see how these tasks relate to effectively fighting back, but does them reluctantly. At a critical point in the movie, Mr. Miyagi shows Daniel that the tasks he performed were actually practice in disguise, not a waste of time. He was being taught the necessary tools of success.

Going through Founder Institute often reminded us of The Karate Kid. Our mentors and our facilitator Jeanine Jacobson played the role of Mr. Miyagi; and we (Darryl and Renee, co-founders of DonationMatch) were Daniel. Every week we had presentations to watch, pitches to give, and about 30 hours of homework. While reviewing the homework assignments we'd say to each other: "Don’t we already know this?" "How does all this busy work help us?" And sometimes, "This doesn’t apply to our situation." But while completing each assignment, we inevitably would discover some critical bit of information that could increase our chances of success. Every task had a valid takeaway, and we learned that some of our assumptions were completely wrong. Whether it was from interviewing our customers, completing a financial model, or meeting one-on-one with mentors, we made improvements that likely would never have happened, or would have come too late for our long term success.

In the end, with the tools taught at FI, DonationMatch will be a better product for our customers, a stronger organization financially, and ultimately a more successful company. As we apply these principles going forward, we certainly won’t have all the answers, but we at least we’ll have a better idea of the questions to ask. This is not only a win for us, it's a win for our customers.