GroundSwell is different from the many banks and financial institutions offering debit cards in two main ways:

1. We share the fees we earn with our customers. Nonprofits are always in need of money to fund their mission and we'll give it to them. Very few people LOVE their banks - but lot's of people are passionate about saving the whales, protecting trees, and feeding children (to name a few).

2. We care about making people feel good about using our card and supporting their nonprofit. When was the last time a bank thanked you for paying them money?

Through partnerships with nonprofits. We co-brand a debit card that they distribute to their loyal members, who become our customers, and together we share in the revenue. While many banks scrape by adding one customer at a time - we'll be getting loyal advocates by the tens of thousands.

We make money every time someone makes a purchase with using our card or mobile app. Every debit transaction incurs an "interchange" fee - this is paid by the businesses selling goods or services and what we share with our partners.
Last year interchange fees generated over $60 billion in revenue for debit and credit card companies.

The market is enormous. Virtually everyone that has a debit card and supports a cause is eligible - approximately 213 million Americans. Interchange fees generated $60 billion in revenue for banks.

A few things.

We believe that business can be used as a force for good - that it's essential to make a profit to be sustainable, without being exploitive.

We understand that nonprofits serve an essential purpose and need to be supported - they are the ones doing the work many for profit companies can't - or won't do.

In addition, when customers use our cards we understand the service matters - real (old fashioned) customer service. The kind of service that would never say things like "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do."

There are many companies, banks, and credit unions offering traditional and prepaid debit cards. What we’ve done is developed a novel approach to customer acquisition by directly integrating our nonprofit partners into the business. They’ve already aggregated millions of supporters - we are providing them with a platform to deepen the relationship and profit from the invisible processing fees that are being generated by their members.

In a word, symbiotic. We cover all the costs to get the programs up and running - and we work together to make it successful. Our goal is to require as little work from them as possible, so they are free to work on their mission.

Our go-to-market strategy is another unique aspect of how we do business. Unlike many banks, credit unions, or prepaid debit cards, our message is delivered by and from the organizations we partner with. From a customer’s perspective, they are simply doing more with an organization they already know and trust. GroundSwell is just the platform that makes it possible.

There are couple of key differences.

One is the difference in motivation. GroundSwell was conceived from the start to provide sustainable funding to organizations making the world a better place. Other companies may “give” something back - but we’re here to use business to serve a purpose beyond mere profit. Profit is something you need to be sustainable - it’s a measurement of health. We incorporate nonprofits into our business strategy in a symbiotic relationship, not solely as a beneficiary of our altruism.

The second key difference is an extension of the first. Because we partner with organizations, our customer acquisition model is much more efficient than a typical bank or debit card. When we partner with an organization - their members become our customers. Rather than battling one at time, we get customers by the thousands.

Carefully. One thing we haven’t discussed yet is our commitment to the customer experience. We want to make it delightful, each step of the way. To think about the experience of whomever is interacting with us - at all times.

There’s some elegance to how you roll out any program, and we expect we will continue to get better at it over time. In simple terms, the leaders of an organization agree to work with us, and then we partner up to communicate with their members. From the initial introduction to the program maintenance, we are in the background doing the heavy lifting.

Our founder, Dan, was out of the country for a few years building a health and wellness resort in Nicaragua. When he came back to the US, he was looking at the landscape of the world and realized that many of the companies doing the most harm had the most money. It's like this perverse inversion where the people that are polluting the world and slaying endangered species have all the resources they need to carry on. Dan wondered how he could create a balance. How can we bring balance to the system and help the organizations that are literally making the world a better place. That started him on a path and, four years later, here we are.

Right now we look like a metaphorical rocket ship on the launch pad fueling up. It’s been a long and expensive process working with the banks, Visa, and finding the appropriate partnerships to handle things like processing and compliance.

We are now at a point where we will begin onboarding our first customers soon - which is why we opted to partner with Wefunder. With a company name like GroundSwell, what better way to raise our next round of funding than crowdfunding? In a perfect world we’d get 10,000 people investing $100 each.

Every time we adjust our financials it moves around a little, but the number is always around 30k active card users spending $600-$1000 per month. We model this range for two reasons.

1. $600-$700 is the prepaid industry average for usage. Given the loyalty of our customers to the nonprofits and our communication strategy, we think it could be much higher, but we like to be conservative in our assumptions.

2. Almost everyone - regardless of their economic status is going to spend about $1000 per month on things like gas and groceries.

It’s pretty simple. Imagine offering a cold glass of water to someone in the walking through the blistering heat of a desert. They need money and we want to share it with them.

For specifics, we’ve created simple models to show a range of expected outcomes based on their membership.

We see the GroundSwell as a spending card. If you want to make a purchase, use your GroundSwell card. Although we have FDIC insurance and many other services - the card should almost be used as a budgeting tool. Transfer whatever you are going to spend each month onto our card, it’s pretty basic.

Beyond the benefits of supporting your favorite nonprofit, there is one other significant reason for spending this way. With the increase in hacking and fraud, do you really want to expose your entire account balance to the risk of it being taken? Even giant retailers like Target have fallen prey... with the GroundSwell card, you always control how much money is on the card.

The main thing we are doing different is using the “why” we are in business to drive our decision-making. The genius of GroundSwell isn’t some complicated technology - it was the realization that an existing economic system, like payment processing, could be used as a force for good.

In support of our “why” is a philosophy of serving the customer - something that seems to be lost in most financial institutions. We appreciate it when people use our cards, and we’ll make the experience delightful as a result.

We are raising money to provide funding to launch our first customers at no cost to them. Because we serve nonprofits, charging an upfront expense is something that would create friction in the relationship and could prevent them from getting started.

Crowdfunding our GroundSwell seemed like the perfect way to do it.

One is the fact that there aren’t many people willing to take this kind of risk at our age. We're not a bunch of kids in our 20’s and this is not a startup we're doing on a whim or just to make money. There's real purpose behind this and it’s the expression of our personal and business philosophies. Dan, the founder, was a surgeon in Beverly Hills. He left his practice to carved out a world renowned health and wellness treehouse resort in the jungles of Nicaragua. Joe spent over a decade as an investment advisor and launched a few companies himself. We understand what it means to work the grind and we are willing to do it, because it needs to be done. We're fully aware that all our planning and models come down to execution and we are a team of doers. If it works out exactly as we planned, fantastic. If we have to change or make adjustments, we are prepared for that as well.

The second piece is the other people that are on the team. We are attracting brilliant and amazing people to this concept because they all agree that there's something wrong with a system where a company can pollute the oceans, chop down the trees, and let people starve to death, but still profit mightily. We want to build the counterpoint to that system. To build a durable business that does good, but also makes a profit. That seems to be somewhat novel but we're saying there's a way to do both. There's a way to be profitable in a way that is not exploitive.