Civic Champs Raises $615,000 in Funding

Bloomington, Ind. (June 15, 2022) – Civic Champs, a volunteer management platform, announced today that it raised $615,000 in its pre-seed round. The round included participation from Elevate Ventures, Flywheel Fund, Innovation Works, IU Angels, The Richard King Mellon Foundation and various angel investors including Jay Love, founder of Bloomerang. Love is excited by the vision Civic Champs has for the future of volunteer management:  

“Having co-founded and built multiple software companies serving nonprofits, I am excited by Civic Champs, as they have created a top-notch volunteer management solution.  Nonprofits really rely on two main resources—donations and volunteers, so creating a platform that greatly expands the capacity of nonprofits through their volunteers has the potential to make a big impact on our communities”  

Civic Champs is a web-based and mobile platform that automates volunteer management for nonprofit organizations. The company was founded in 2019 with the mission of helping nonprofits eliminate manual data entry and other time-consuming tasks to focus on their core missions. By automating volunteer management, nonprofits can generate donations from volunteers and track the impact of their work. 

“We are excited to invest in Civic Champs as they have a passionate team that is solving a real problem for nonprofits,” said Cy Megnin, Elevate Ventures’ entrepreneur-in-residence serving Velocities, a partnership that supports startups in south-central Indiana. “The company has made great progress in a short period of time and we believe they are well-positioned for continued success.” 

Civic Champs will use the funding to secure several main initiatives by the year’s end, the first being the launch of a self-service version of its core volunteer management platform for smaller nonprofits. A portion of the funding will also go toward a new product module called Mentoring Works, which supports mentoring programs for opportunity youth ages 16-24. Civic Champs plans to work with several local nonprofits on pilot programs throughout the summer and fall as it continues to develop and launch the “Mentoring Works” brand. 

In addition, Civic Champs is working on an integration initiative with Blackbaud, the world’s leading cloud software provider powering social good, as part of the Blackbaud Social Good Startup Program. Civic Champs will deploy its offerings to Blackbaud’s customers through the program and an integration with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®. 

“Volunteerism not only powers countless nonprofits and the causes they support, it also brings our communities together—something sorely needed as we continue to grapple with divisions of all kinds that push us apart and alienate us from one another,” said Geng Wang, CEO of Civic Champs. “We are incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to continue building a product that helps nonprofits grow their volunteering programs. This wouldn’t be possible without the support of our investors including Elevate Ventures, Innovation Works, Flywheel Fund, and the RK Mellon Foundation who continue to believe in our vision.” 

Civic Champs received an $80,000 seed investment from the Elevate Nexus Regional Pitch Competition in 2020. The company also announced the growth of its sales and engineering team in 2021.