Ty DeLong

Most of my career has been spent building software for nonprofits. I joined donor management system Kindful in its early days and stayed through our acquisition by Bloomerang about seven years later. It's a line of work that has suited me well, and I have a lot of respect for the people who do nonprofit work for a living.

After the acquisition I continued my software engineering career in other sectors, but over time I realized that I missed building tools for nonprofits. 501(see) is what I started working on.

Why this

I support a number of organizations whose missions I care about. Donating is meaningful, but it has its limits. There's only so much one person can give, and I kept coming back to the question of how I could make a bigger impact.

At the same time, as my career has gone on, I've gotten to know more people on the funding side of that equation - founders, investors, individuals giving substantial amounts through private foundations of their own. The funding for good nonprofit work is out there. The challenge is the matchmaking.

Helping smaller organizations find those funders seemed like a place I could help. The data to do that already exists; the IRS makes most of it public. Yet somehow the tools to easily access it have ended up costing thousands of dollars a year, putting them out of reach of the organizations that probably need them most. That always felt backwards to me. 501(see) is my attempt at fixing it. Search is free for anyone who needs it. The paid plans add automation on top at prices a small nonprofit can actually afford.

Get in touch

If you're working at a nonprofit and want to talk about how 501(see) can help, or if you have feedback on the product, I'd love to hear from you. Email me directly at ty [at] 501see [dot] app.