If you’ve ever coordinated a volunteering event, alumni function, reunion or fundraiser and you’re not an organizer extraordinaire, then you know how overwhelming it can be to keep track of invites, RSVPs, vendors, schedules and more — all while providing updates along the way to everyone involved in the event.
A new local startup that soft launched on Thursday wants to help volunteer coordinators by offering a free, centralized platform for community engagement and event coordinating of volunteer-driven communities.
"myRollCall wears the many hats a volunteer organizer currently has to wear, including the promoter, ticket agent, fundraiser, custodial banker and bookkeeper," said CEO Brian Kurth.
The company’s co-founder, Lorie DuPont, has an extensive history of volunteering for Austin schools and nonprofit organizations since the 90s, as well as serving on the Board of Directors of The 100 Club of Central Texas, a nonprofit dedicated to providing immediate financial and emotional assistance to injured or killed first responders and their families.
The idea for myRollCall stems from DuPont’s unsuccessful attempt to find a single tool to organize and manage event details all in one place. When she couldn’t find one, she teamed up with her friend Rudy Prince, myRollCall’s current COO, to create one that allows for a universal online platform for planning. In addition to those organizational features, it also has a networking section for members to keep in touch.
Prince and DuPont then recruited the expertise of Kurth, the founder of Revere Software who now sits as CEO, and CTO Mike Makuch, one of the founding engineers of Vignette Corporation, to help launch myRollCall.
Last night marked the first event powered by myRollCall, a Boy Scouts event centered on creating future stem leaders. It featured astronaut Greg Johnson and was held at the Google Fiber space downtown.
“We’ve been looking for a way to bring together Eagle Scouts and local tech and education leaders to support our STEM Scouts initiative here in Austin,” said Drew Glassford, director of strategic initiatives at the Boy Scouts of America National Foundation in Chicago. “myRollCall made it easy to build and engage with the community, manage the details of the event and ensured everyone was able to communicate seamlessly.”
Kurth said the myRollCall team will continue to work on platform enhancements over the next year and hire on an as-needed basis as the user base increases.
Image provided by Ben Porter Photography
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