How the Lift Up Local Fund Works

Every community has them: good local businesses run by good people, quietly struggling to be found. Not because the work isn't there — because the tools, systems, and marketing that would actually get them noticed are out of reach for the businesses that need them most.

The Lift Up Local Fund exists to close that gap. It's a community-backed way to grow the local businesses that can't afford that help on their own. Not a charity — a neighbor. The community decides who gets lifted, and everyone can see exactly where the money goes.

Here's how it works.

Why it exists

I build the systems that make growth repeatable for small businesses.

Most run on a pile of tools that don't talk to each other — a booking app, a mailer, an ad account, a spreadsheet — with marketing money going out and no way to tell what's actually working. That's not a discipline problem. It's a systems problem. I fix it: one foundation that turns scattered effort into something an owner can measure, repeat, and build on.

A handful of local owners, I do this for free — because they're good people, and I know it works. But a few is never enough. The businesses that need this most are exactly the ones who can't afford it. This fund is how we reach more of them, together.

What it looks like in practice

Take one business already in the middle of this — a local salon and spa. (It could be any business, in any town.) Good work, loyal regulars — but the systems underneath had drifted. Two websites were fighting each other. The business's own information disagreed across 20+ online listings, and Apple Maps was quietly sending new customers to an address it had already left. A booking app was over-messaging clients to the point people noticed.

None of that means the business is failing. It means no one ever built the foundation underneath it — or pulled it into a single source of truth. That's the work: find what's broken, fix it, and hand back something the owner can actually run. Full results publish when the work closes.

The loop

The fund runs on a simple, repeating loop — and the community drives every step.

Nominate.

Anyone can put forward a local business they believe in. Just share the business name and city. Nominations stay open, round after round.

Back and vote.

Contribute to the fund — one time, or monthly. Every backer gets a vote on who we lift next. The more the community backs, the more businesses we can lift at once.

We lift the ones who rise.

Each round, we do the real work for the chosen businesses — the brand, the marketing, and the system to run it — the kind of growth infrastructure usually reserved for businesses with much bigger budgets.

We report back.

Publicly, on every dollar. More on that below.

How we choose

Backer votes decide who rises — but a popularity contest would just reward whoever has the biggest network, not the business that needs it most. So votes are weighed against a growth diagnostic that measures how much of a difference the help would actually make.

In plain terms: community support, weighed against real need. The loudest network doesn't automatically win — the business positioned to gain the most from a lift gets a fair shot.

What "getting lifted" means

A lifted business gets a Growth Sprint — a focused, hands-on push to fix what's holding their growth back, plus early months of support. Depending on the business, that can include:

A clear, professional brand identity
Google Business Profile and online listings cleaned up and made consistent, so people searching nearby actually find you
Marketing and campaigns that bring the right people through the door
The tools and system to run it all — with a dashboard that shows what's working, so growth is something you can repeat, not guess at
The controls handed to the owner, so the system doesn't depend on me

It's the same caliber of work that usually comes at a price most small businesses can't reach — delivered at no cost to them, paid for by the community.

How we report back

A fund only earns trust if it's transparent, so this part isn't optional:

Every month, we publish a running tally of every dollar contributed.
Each round, we announce which businesses we lifted and why.
For every business we lift, we publish a real before-and-after once results are in — with the owner's blessing.

We're early. Our first business is already underway, and its story is just beginning — no headline numbers yet. If you back the fund now, you're part of that story from the start.

How to take part

Nominate a business you believe in — share the name and city.
Back the fund — give once, or become a monthly backer from $10. Every backer gets a vote.
Share it — a single share lifts more businesses than you'd think.

Note: the fund runs through Zipline Creative, a local business — so contributions are not tax-deductible. Every dollar is accounted for by a fractional CFO.