A Business Innovation Story: Using Technology to Bring Untapped Financial Leverage to You
In 2010, ED NORTON and three partners founded the company CrowdRise, an innovative new web platform on which individuals, organizations and companies can crowdfund and tap into previously under-leveraged networks of people to raise support for causes they care about. What started out as a personal fundraising project turned into a leading next-generation approach to activism and social impact that both Barron's and Forbes have called 'a game changer for philanthropy.'
The CrowdRise technology platform is now applied to international non-profit organizations and for-profit companies to unlock the power of crowd participation to create huge untapped financial leverage. CrowdRise is a for-profit company that helps other companies and organizations by disrupting traditional marketing, fundraising, and purchasing pathways, and by encouraging consumer loyalty, brand networking and customer participation. Working with partners as diverse as the NY Marathon, the Clinton Foundation, Skoll Foundation, United Airlines, Groupon, Mozilla, John Hancock and the Huffington Post, CrowdRise is rewriting the playbook on how organizations involve donors and consumers to participate in their brand and mission.
The Power of Philanthropy and Responsible Business
ED NORTON was a founding partner of CrowdRise, a web-based technology platform that changes the way organizations share their mission and involve those who share it. So far, CrowdRise, recognized by Barrons and Forbes as a philanthropy game-changer, has helped non-profits raise more than $50 million by utilizing an easy-to-use, democratic platform which allows anyone to participate in and donate to the mission. CrowdRise is only one of the many philanthropy efforts which Norton oversees; he is also the UN Ambassador for Biodiversity, President of the Board of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, Founding member of the Yale University Middle East Peacemakers Fund, an early member of New York’s High Line urban redevelopment project, and other projects including the Signature Theater Company devoted to American playwrights. Mr. Norton can speak personally and intimately about his fundraising efforts and our responsibilities, particularly with regard to sustainability and natural resource management in our industrial economy.
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Ed Norton: Environmentalist, Entrepreneur and Actor
Award-winning actor, screenwriter, director and producer ED NORTON is a visionary entrepreneur and committed social and environmental activist. Norton is a founding partner of CrowdRise, the web-based technology platform that forever changed the way organizations share their mission and involve those who support their causes. Recognized by Barrons and Forbes as a philanthropy game-changer, CrowdRise is only one of the many philanthropy efforts which Norton oversees. Known for his acting as well as his activism, Norton has appeared in many notable films, most recently joining the cast of Knives Out in the sequel to the hit film. He is also the UN Ambassador for Biodiversity, President of the Board of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, Founding member of the Yale University Middle East Peacemakers Fund, an early member of New York’s High Line Urban Redevelopment Project. Highly praised for his environmentalist efforts, Variety did an interview with Norton, chatting about all things sustainability and actionable change. He hosted an episode of the UN’s new podcast launched in summer 2021, called No Denying It. In this episode, Norton introduces Nzambi Matee, a Kenyan materials engineer working towards reusing plastic to solve the housing crisis and create jobs. Norton speaks personally about his fundraising efforts and our responsibilities, particularly with regard to sustainability and natural resource management, in our industrial economy. He leaves audiences transfixed and empowered to make an impact.
Watch some of Ed Norton's talks here > >
Edward Norton is one of the most celebrated actors of his generation. He has starred in over 50 films, produced 13, written 5 and directed 2. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards (for Primal Fear, American History X & Birdman), 3 Screen Actors Guild Awards, 2 BAFTAs, 2 Golden Globes and has won the Golden Globe, an Emmy, an Obie and numerous other awards for his performances and productions.
His most recent film as a writer and director is, “Motherless Brooklyn”, which he wrote, directed, produced and starred in. A meditation on hidden power and the threat of autocracy in America, filmmaker / historian Ken Burns wrote that the film is ‘nothing less than a modern masterpiece.’
He most recently appeared as the instantly iconic tech billionaire ‘Miles Bron’ in “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” which is now the second- most watched film in the history of Netflix.
Norton has a substantial parallel career as a serial entrepreneur, investor and activist in both environmental sustainability and technology ventures.
In 2004, Norton co-founded the water treatment technology company Baswood Technologies, which was acquired by Cambrian Innovations, on whose Board he still serves. The company has pioneered the ‘Water Treatment / Energy Savings as a Service’ model and counts many of the largest industrial users of water in the world among its customers.
In 2010, Norton and his wife, film producer Shauna Robertson, co-founded CrowdRise, a charitable crowdfunding and fundraising software platform that, within three years, grew into one of the largest crowdfunding platforms in the world. Over $500 million USD was raised for charities on CrowdRise. In 2017, CrowdRise merged with GoFundMe to create the largest online charity platform in the world. Norton serves on the Board of GFM, which now processes nearly $4 billion of charitable contributions annually and is routinely cited as one of the most important social impact companies in the world.
In 2014, Norton and Daniel Nadler co-founded EDO, a company applying advanced data science and machine learning to the development of highly innovative audience measurement signals for the media and advertising industries. The company’s data and software is now used by all of the major television network ad sellers and a rapidly growing share of the world’s largest brand advertisers in auto, insurance, CPG and movie marketing.
EDO recently closed an $80million investment round and is regularly cited as one of the most significant new technology companies in media and advertising. Recently, both Disney and Netflix named EDO as their
preferred provider of measurement for ad supported streaming across their platforms and all other major streaming platforms followed suit making EDO the leading measurement provider for the ad supported streaming industry. Norton was the co-CEO of EDO for the first three years and he and Nadler now serve as co-Chairs of the board.
In 2020, Norton co-founded Zeck, a business software company offering a subscription cloud-based board governance and presentation platform.
Nearly 300 companies and non-profits are using Zeck in its first year and it is on pace to increase that by nearly 500% this year. Norton is the Head of Strategy for Zeck.
In 2020, Norton also co-founded Stax Engineering a company providing emission capture as a service to shipping companies in California ports. Stax uses electric-powered, barge-mounted emission capture systems to help all shippers be compliant with new state regulations requiring 100% capture of emissions while at berth in California ports. Norton is the Chairman of Stax.
Norton is also a committed social and environmental activist.
Norton currently serves as the United Nations Ambassador for Biodiversity and for nearly 20 years he has served as the Board chair of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, an organization he helped create. MWCT is a community-based Kenyan org working to preserve the endangered wildlife and threatened forest ecosystems in Kenya’s iconic southern rangelands.
MWCT’s work to develop an innovative portfolio of sustainable, natural capital-based revenue streams for Maasai communities has been awarded both the UNDP Equator Prize and the UNEP Champions of the Earth Prize.
Norton seeded MWCT’s effort to build the Chyulu Hills Carbon project and has led the effort by the project to build a consortium of corporate partners buying offset credits. The project has generated over $12million in sales of credits to date and was just issued 3.2 million new credits.
Norton recently co-founded Conservation Equity with Brian Sheth (ex co Founder of Vista Equity / founder Haveli Investments).
A self-described ‘Environmental Benefit Corporation’, CE is seeking to design a high leverage conservation finance model that recycles foundation grant capital while creating a long-term private equity grade revenue stream purposed 100% to conservation finance, Conservation Equity has partnered with the Discovery Land group on a series of luxury ecotourism developments in Kenya. Conservation Equity will contribute 100% of its profits to conservation financing and takes no capital management fees of any kind.
Signature Theatre Company
Norton has been on the Board of New York’s Signature Theater Company since 1994 when he made his Off-Broadway debut there. Signature is the only theater in the country that devotes an entire season each year to the work of one living American playwright. Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Sam Shepard, Horton Foote, John Guare, Lanford Wilson and Tony Kushner are just a few of the playwrights who have spent a season in residence with Signature. In its fifteen years, Signature has been repeatedly recognized as one of the most important and outstanding new theaters in America, winning every award available to an Off-Broadway theater.
As noted in the NY Times, Norton led the company’s campaign to build a stunning new, Frank-Gehry designed complex of three theaters on 42nd Street…the Signature Theater Center…and personally raised most of the nearly $100million for the project and its Affordable Ticket initiative.
Opened in January of 2012, the Signature Center is one of the largest new performing arts centers built in NY since Lincoln Center and has been widely celebrated for both its design and its productions in its first year.
Middle East Peacemakers Fund
Another of Norton’s projects is the Peacemakers Fund at Yale University, his alma mater. As a response to the events of September 11th and the increasing conflict in the Middle East, Norton contributed $100,000 to establish a fund that provides travel-study grants for Yale undergraduates to study the people, languages and cultures of the Middle East and Central Asia. The Fund is now administered by the MacMillan Center for Middle East Studies at Yale and has sent nearly 100 students to the Middle East to pursue research and study. Fundraising for the fund’s endowment is ongoing.
Friends of the High Line
Norton was also an early Board member, public champion and fundraiser for the Friends of the High Line, which has worked for the last 15 years to create New York's most celebrated new public park out of an abandoned freight rail track. Running over two miles through Manhattan’s industrial West Side, the High Line now welcomes millions of visitors every year, has transformed the economics of the neighborhood it runs through and has been celebrated all over the world as one of the most creative urban re- development projects in recent memory.
Awards
For his work on the environment, Norton has received awards from the Harvard Center for Environmental Health and the International Congressional Conservation Foundation. For his work on the High Line and Signature Theater Center, he received the Mayor’s Award for the Arts from NY City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg.
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