BotProof Donates to Community Foundation of Utah

02 March 2010

Gayla Schaefer, Director, Media Relations
Gayla@BotProof.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NAPERVILLE, Ill. – When Tim Brown started looking for ways to get his company, BotProof.com, more involved in the Utah philanthropic community, he was pleased to learn that his company had options.

In fact, it was the hi-tech startup’s stock options that interested Fraser Nelson, Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Utah.

"This is the first gift of this kind and we are very hopeful that others will follow," explains Nelson. "Our theory at the Community Foundation is to ‘engage your giving mind.’ We see the donation of stock options as a great way for new entrepreneurs to say to the state and the community that they are committed to the development of a thriving nonprofit sector."

Brown, Chief Operating Officer with BotProof, was thrilled to provide the initial donation of stock options and serve as a role model for other entrepreneurs. He also volunteers his time with the foundation and sees the volunteer work as an important addition to his role as COO for the blossoming Internet security and advertising company with offices in Salt Lake City, Chicago and Gainesville, Fla.

"The BotProof management team has been committed to establishing an ethos of corporate giving, and Utah’s Community Foundation was a great fit," says Brown. "The Foundation has the right combination of a mission we support, energetic leadership we believe in, and creative ways for our company to make meaningful contributions."

The Utah Community Foundation is one of the newest community foundations in the United States. Utah has never had one before but there are more than 700 nationwide. Nelson had been looking to start a stock options donation program similar to a successful one implemented by the Boulder Community Foundation.

"We want to bring people together to address community issues and problems and are looking for ways like this to engage a new generation of philanthropists and engage their minds to solve complex social problems by adding new energy, interest, and smarts to some issues we are grappling with as a community," explains Nelson.

While the strategy is designed to encourage young entrepreneurs and start-up companies to establish their giving behaviors early, it is also a useful tactic at a time when nonprofits worldwide are suffering from a significant shortfall in giving.

"We are a new philanthropic resource and as a nonprofit corporation, we can hold assets on behalf of companies and nonprofits," says Nelson. "We give grants out of the various funds but the idea is to build an endowment that will benefit Utah for generations to come so that the next time there is a financial crisis, the nonprofit community will have some reserves to draw on."

Nelson sees the stock donation alternative as one more way to engage new business people to become involved in philanthropy.

"We think entrepreneurs have a lot to give nonprofits in terms of not just financial capital but intellectual capital," she says. "We are trying to engage them to not just go to galas but to access their knowledge. People building here now want to see good nonprofit sector, a good arts community, good schools, etc. New entrepreneurs may not have a lot of financial capital while they are building their businesses, but they can participate in volunteer events, or, like Tim Brown and BotProof, they can make a long term investment to the community by giving stock options; instilling a philanthropic mindset right from beginning of their company."

Nelson says that early donations by young companies are a way of saying to the state, "We are investing so that Utah has what it needs to be a really strong state."

"Community Foundations are mean and lean, just like a new businesses," she says. "Entrepreneurs appreciate that. We operate like them, on a bootstrap budget, just like start-ups. We are attractive to entrepreneurs because we are a leverager. People give through us and we work for the donors as fund managers."

For Tim Brown and BotProof, the stock options donation was a no-brainer.

"We wanted to support the foundation and this was the best way we could pledge our support right now."

For more information on the Utah Community Foundation or to make a donation, contact Fraser Nelson, at (801) 559-3005 or visit http://www.utahcf.org/. For more information on BotProof, visit www.BotProof.com

About BotProof

BotProof is the leading provider of innovative ad display technologies that simultaneously protect publishers and advertisers from bot-initiated fraud. With its patent-pending technology, BotProof can display information that only humans can read – and use this technology to drive incremental value for publishers and advertisers alike.

BotProof has operations in Naperville, IL, Gainesville, FL, Denver, CO, and Salt Lake City, UT.

For more information visit: http://www.BotProof.com