People sometimes start companies for very personal reasons.
For Beverley Pomeroy, 39, PincGiving was started as a living legacy to her daughter Sophia, who was born with a life-limiting illness in 2000. Her company developed an online donation platform to help not-for-profit organizations and corporations achieve their philanthropic goals.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and for Pomeroy the desire of her extended family to lend a hand led to PincGiving.
“My family wanted to be able to help but they couldn’t all come here because they have their own families,” said Pomeroy, who also has two sons, including a teenager with autism.
She found there wasn’t an online platform that accepted donations in different currencies or allowed people to create cause-related fundraising initiatives in their own communities. Her experience encouraged her, after extensive soul-searching, to find a sense of purpose. Building on her technical background as a certified lab assistant with MDS Inc., she began brainstorming the structure of what became PincGiving and the Life on Purpose Network.
She wanted to create a strong business model that had a revenue stream that allowed her to remain affordable for smaller to mid-sized non-profits. Founded in 2007, PincGiving went from being about peer-to-peer fundraising to a “charity house,” where Pomeroy assists organizations with their overall corporate citizenship initiatives and donor-centric campaigns.
Supporting community through volunteerism is part of her life, whether it is her involvement with Reach Child and Youth Development Society, Canuck Place Children’s Hospice and BC Children’s Hospital, Pomeroy’s purpose is to help other families like her own through her business ventures and community involvement.
“To be named a Forty under 40 for doing good is probably one of the biggest compliments,” she said. “It is also a positive example of where the world is going and a shift in our community that it’s OK to do good and have a business.” •
