cupertino california usa november 14 2006 headquarters cupertino california usa key people melissa dyrdahl ceo drew mcmanus president website www.bringlight.com bring light inc. is an american company that runs an online web service which helps charities reach new donors and raise funds . it is also a social network for donors to find charitable projects to support and to help those donors make a bigger difference by getting others involved . contents 1 origins 2 services 2.1 charities 2.2 projects 2.3 giving groups 2.4 donor accounts 3 business model 4 funding 5 recognition 6 references origins edit bring light was founded in november 2006 by two former executives of adobe systems inc. 1 melissa dyrdahl was previously senior vice president of corporate marketing and communications . drew mcmanus was director of corporate product management . they co founded bring light out of a desire to help non profits better market themselves . the site opened to beta testers in early may 2007 . the service officially launched at the netsquared conference in san jose california on may 29 2007 . 2 services edit bring light s customers include both charities and the donors that support them . charities edit unlike many other charitable giving services bring light does not rely on the guidestar database . 3 all charities on the bring light website have been individually screened after completing an application to establish presence on the site . charities have access to a special charity resource center with tools to manage their fundraising and to interact with donors on the site . projects edit rather than giving to a charity s general fund donors can direct how their dollars are used by giving to a specific project . giving groups edit donors can form giving groups to sponsor specific charities or projects . giving groups can track their donations to see the aggregated results of their giving . donor accounts edit through a partnership with the american endowment foundation bring light delivers the benefits of a donor advised fund to donors who might not otherwise qualify . this enables donors to deposit funds for later donation while getting the immediate tax benefit . most donor advised funds have minimum deposit requirements of 10 000 or more while bring light s minimum is only 5 . business model edit bring light charges charities a service fee for their use of the site for fundraising . there are no upfront fees but charities pay based on the amount of funds raised . the service fee is determined on a sliding scale with the largest service fee being 10 % of funds raised . 4 funding edit bring light was initially self funded by the co founders . 4 later they took on several angel investors including ron conway and bruce chizen . the company remains privately held . recognition edit melissa dyrdahl and drew mcmanus are featured in the book we are the new radicals a manifesto for reinventing yourself and saving the world by julia moulden . references edit bring light about . bring light . retrieved 2007 07 02 . netsquared conference agenda . archived from the original on june 26 2007 . retrieved 2007 07 02 . bring light charity help . bring light . retrieved 2007 07 02 . a b san jose mercury news tapping the internet to help non profits . retrieved on 2007 07 02 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title bring light & oldid 642456416 categories companies based in cupertino californiasocial networking servicesbusiness services companies established in 20062006 establishments in californiahidden categories use mdy dates from june 2013 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 14 january 2015 at 14 20 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view