Purpose Prize

Marc Freedman Portrait

The Latest from CoGenerate

5 Ways to Make Your Collaboration with Teens a Success

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Our task, as we understood it, was to get teen leaders involved in Citizen University’s Youth Collaboratory excited about working alongside adults to create change — what we call cogeneration. As it turns out, teens in the program were already excited about...

Want to Jumpstart a Conversation About Collaborating With Teens?

Want to Jumpstart a Conversation About Collaborating With Teens?

When CoGenerate and Citizen University launched a project to deepen cogenerational ties, our goal was to get teens excited about working alongside older adults to create change.  What we discovered surprised us. Teens didn’t need convincing to work across generations....

Reinventing the American University for a Multigenerational Future

Reinventing the American University for a Multigenerational Future

In an episode of this season of Hacks, the Emmy-winning intergenerational comedy, the older comedian Deborah Vance returns to her alma mater (UC Berkeley) to receive an honorary degree. Shortly after arriving, a video containing offensive jokes she delivered early in...

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Ronald Stebenne

FundOurCommunity
Purpose Prize Fellow 2014

This educator turned social entrepreneur built an online platform to crowdfund community improvement.

In 2010, I was 62 years old and homeless, living in a windowless storage closet of my company warehouse. The company I had founded to sell eco-friendly skateboards was not yet turning a profit, and when the economy crashed in 2008, I was downsized from my second job as a youth pastor in San Diego.

That’s when I left San Diego for Kennesaw, Georgia, where my sister lived. It was one of the most difficult decisions in my life, but it proved to be the right move. I had 30 years of experience working with sports – especially action sports – and in youth ministry, nonprofits and business. After six months, I was able to find work as a consultant helping to build a $1.8 million public skate park.

On a trip to California seeking corporate sponsors for the skate park project, I was introduced to the idea of crowdfunding. Since I was always hunting for funds to help a cause, I knew so many other community projects never saw the light of day because of lack of money. That’s when FundOurCommunity – and my encore career – was born.


  • 30 projects funded for $30,000
  • 70 more projects in the pipeline

FundOurCommunity.com is an online platform that launched in 2013 to support community-oriented campaigns. We hope to fill an enormous gap in funding for civic projects.

In less than a year we’ve been able to partially or fully fund 30 good causes for over $30,000 collectively. We have more than 70 additional projects in the pipeline.

An ambitious math student in Georgia will now benefit from a $2,500 scholarship named after a young math whiz and athlete named Lizzy who was killed in a car accident. An Episcopal reverend in San Francisco can now spend a few more weeks helping the homeless at night. And one more underprivileged kid in East Providence, Rhode Island, will be able to attend summer sports camp.

I hope to continue to mentor young entrepreneurs through FundOurCommunity. I love their energy and their willingness to be part of something that helps others. That’s the legacy I hope to leave behind.