| In the beginning of December of 2022 I sent a couple of notes out to the Prototype community about my year-end Social Capital match.
If you’re unfamiliar, on December 2nd, 2021 I was named Next Jumps 2nd Social Capitalist and was awarded a grant of $100,000 every year for the rest of my life, which I am able to give throughout the year. You can read the story of how this all came to fruition here |
| Part of this responsibility is to train my judgment and decision making but a bigger piece is to give to those who are doing great things. In December 2021 I gave a total of $35,000 to various non-profits with a month to donate this money… it was extremely difficult to say the least (you can read about those organizations in the link here). One thing that I did that I want to continue to do is our Prototype Community Donation Match. |
| 2022 marked the 2nd year of the Prototype community match where I match a total of $10,000 in charitable donations that our community has made throughout the year 2022.
Within 12 hours of announcing this in 2021, the $10,000 total was hit! I was overwhelmed…roughly 15 individuals shared what they donated from the year and I matched it. Some donations were $50 some were over $1000… this is my way of connecting the gift I got to our community at Prototype and giving back more to the things you care about. This year, I received several emails and texts from various folks within the Prototype community sharing their charitable contributions and I matched them. I wanted to share who these individuals were and the organizations I matched (that is all below). A cool thing is that these donations ranged from $25 to close to $3000 dollars. Regardless of the donation size, I want to share this amazing gift with the community we have built at Prototype. In addition, another thing that I did this year is grant each of our full-time coaches $2500 of the social capital grant to give to a charity or organization that is near and dear to their heart. The only ask I had was for them to share their WHY… it was cool to read from Coach Jon, Brian, Tommy, Joe, and Steve who they wanted to support. It was real teaming sharing this with the coaches. Below is the organizations that they chose to support along with links to check them out. Coach Jon Collette- Project Just Because Coach Tommy Flynn- Joy of Music Program (Worcester) Coach Steve Cimino- Nephcure Coach Joe Black- El Buen Samaritano Coach Brian Zancewicz- St. Judes The last change I made this year was to highlight and share some of the social capital grant 1 member at Prototype. Not a match, but to give them the power to give to any organization or individual that they wanted. Something important to me and the team at Prototype is recognizing our top members and those that are true representatives of what we believe in at Prototype. This year, I awarded the winner of our annual Virtuosity Award (member of the year) $2500 to give. This individual has sworn to secrecy as the team at Prototype chose this individual to be our Virtuosity Award winner. This person will be announced at our annual Holiday Party and will share their WHY behind the organization they gave to. We are keeping this a bit of a secret until then : )
Lastly, as this organization I felt has been making a meaningful difference, has ties to the Prototype community and I just love what they are doing, I decided to give $5000 again this year to the TMI Project. The founder of TMI is Eva Tenuto who was introduced to me by her sister, Stephanie Nephew last year. I’m excited to see what TMI does in 2023 and I’m excited to share more of what they are doing with all of you! If you’d like, can read about a few of the organizations I gave to earlier this year here. Such as the Big Fish Foundation, Forging Youth Resilience, and Calling All Crows as part of Row For Crows event. |
Here is the list of individuals I matched this year along with links to the organizations that they supported. I’m keeping their donations private, however.
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I’m excited to continue to iterate on my approach to this incredibly challenging and humbling responsibility. I think it’s easy to think it’s not very difficult to give away $100,000… heck, even $40,000 which is what I gave this year. But when you are trying to do it with purpose and find those that are doing good work that are aligned with what I’m passionate about, it’s easier said than done! I will keep you all posted and appreciate your support in this endeavor.
Love,
Mike