The Upside Foundation of Canada

Background

The Upside Foundation was registered as a charity in 2013. It is dedicated to introducing corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) to the technology start-up community. It provides a means for entrepreneurs and start-ups to embrace a social mission and give back without impacting their capital, or distracting them from the time-consuming mission of building their companies.

Full Description

The Upside Foundation is introducing an Israeli innovation that makes it easy for young entrepreneurs to make philanthropy part of their corporate culture. Upside encourages early-stage companies to pledge 1% of their shares to charity, and to convert this to cash upon attaining substantial success, including being bought, or completing an initial public offering. At that point, a substantial donation would be made to registered charities. This process creates a new market for corporate philanthropy, and enables young companies to have a Corporate Social Responsibility program in place, which they might otherwise not have pursued.

An early-stage consolidation grant through the Social Innovation Fund would help The Upside Foundation to hire a general manager; strengthen the institution and its procedures; build a donor and partnership base; and the program its services across the Canadian startup community.

http://upsidefoundation.ca/