#23: Creating massive impact with a specialized school fundraising platform – Howard Gottlieb

Howard Gottlieb created and sold several businesses before starting a school fundraising website in 2003 called Easy Fundraising Ideas. It grew into the most popular Internet website for school fundraisers. He experimented with many business models and ideas while the fundraising industry still wasn’t changing or growing. 

In 2012, Howard started Read-a-Thon as a literacy-based fundraising platform that helped students raise money while boosting education. Their easy platform and simple fundraising approach created amazing results. The Read-a-Thon business grew steadily and profitably without any outside funding.

Their relentless focus on elementary school fundraising and their culture of continuous improvement helped them grow faster and create a much bigger impact. In 2022, Read-a-Thon helped thousands of schools and students to raise over $30 million in donations. Their platform has tracked over 30 billion reading minutes by students who have used the platform to earn donations.  

In this episode, Howard explains:

• How Read-a-Thon has impacted literacy in the US in a material way as they reach more schools, students, and donors
• Why they changed their business model from pledge-based to one-time fundraising
• How he experimented with many business models in school fundraising before starting Read-a-Thon
• Why he didn’t sell the company to a private equity buyer that had an offer on the table
• The power of specialized focus on elementary school fundraising vs. being a generalized platform for any type of fundraising
• Why he is constantly testing, improving, and optimizing everything inside the business and in the customer experience
• What he learned from the previous 6 companies he created and sold before starting Read-a-Thon

For more details and the full interview transcript, go to practicalfounders.com/podcast.