Technology Loft

Susanville, Technology Loft, Nonprofits & Toastmasters

I, Susan Cannon registered the Technology Loft domain when I began working as a consultant in 2003.  I continued working as a consultant off and on until 2014. 

• Security Architect, Program Manager and Engineering Manger for Gridata building a data management center for Intel's Home Energy Management System. 
• Digital Rights Management (DRM) Architect  for Hewlett-Packard Corporation where she designed DRM integration for Starbuck’s Hear Music Media Bar 3.0 system. Incorporated Microsoft’s DRM subscription licensing into the system by forwarding in-store license requests through a back-end web service to a MS License Server by inserting a web service in the license request process.
• Software Engineer for LightSurf, Inc. where she developed Java based SOAP service utilizing J2EE and Resin using Eclipse.

I became a board member for India Partners between consulting for Gridata and served there for 9 years helping to grew funding from 1/2 million to over 1 million.  It was through that experience that I became aware of the administrative side of philanthropy and became convinced to apply my technology experience to the task of releasing the joy of giving in individuals who contribute to worthy organizations.

In 2014, I participated in TechRaising where I first shared my vision to create a giving platform that enabled individuals to give to specific individuals the way that Kiva enables micro-funding.  That year, I built a team of co-horts for Susanville.  We  were accepted in the National Science I-CORP Lean Startup Program.   After interviewing over 100 nonprofits and donors, I realized the pitfalls in that vision and pivoted.  I left the program intent on building a mobile application to enable spontaneous micro-donations.   I was unsure how to legally enable individuals to donate to qualify for tax deductions when donating to a nonprofit through a for profit business. 

The following year, I completed the PROPEL program.  I was stuck on the question of how to grow a business when the transaction fee of a micro donation was so small and the cost of customer acquisition was so high.

I has continued to refining my vision and working to innovate nonprofits fundraising for the past four years as a member of Santa Cruz Toastmasters club.  The club members have provided valuable feedback through the over thirty projects I  completed for her Advanced Communicator Silver award at the club. The majority of the projects were directly related to Susanville and nonprofit fundraising.  Projects such as this one completed in April of 2018 when preparing for the Monterey Startup Challenge.

Last year, Susanville pivoted from the vision presented in that speech after a trip to visit the Gates Foundation in Seattle and learning about the mobile giving platforms they used. I called the company and finally admitted the overwhelming challenges a mobile giving application would face.   I'd known that onboarding users to install and use a mobile application would be challenging.   Rather than initially building a mobile giving application, I decided to initially build an online giving service.