It is a crowd-funded, donation-based program we've created that is aimed at helping beleaguered small restaurants, bakeries, etc. who are struggling from the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our program is focused on building a solution that quickly and effectively allows restaurants who didn't previously have a website, or have one but can't take orders on it get a website for free by leveraging the power of the Shopify platform and the will of our small, and incredibly dedicated team.
If a lot of people are willing to lend a hand with a small donation, we can make a giant difference in the lives of many small business owners, their families, and their employees.
The program goal is to help these restaurants diversify their order sources by allowing people to easily order online with the added bonus of reaching new audiences who might otherwise not know about them. Restaurants who have their own sites can help keep the cost of ordering lower for their customers by removing the premiums attached to ordering with delivery services such as GrubHub and DoorDash, as well as removing unnecessary "convenience fees" if a restaurant does have ordering online processed by another service.
Additionally, there's a whole demographic of people out there who refuse to call in to a restaurant to order, and a whole other demographic out there who refuse to pay those premiums to use delivery services like GrubHub, Door Dash, Uber Eats, etc. Our goal is to help small restaurants reach those people and keep costs lower for both customers and restaurants.
We're building the COVID-19 Restaurant Recovery Program as a way to help the struggling restaurant industry not only survive, but begin to recover from economic impacts from customers self-isolating or government imposed lockdowns that have prevented restaurants from allowing inside dining or otherwise operating as safely and closely to full-capacity as possible.
While we hope to receive small-dollar donations from a large number of people, we will also soon be offering a corporate sponsorship package for businesses looking to also lend a helping hand. Business sponsorships will come with blog articles containing backlinks to your business website.
Here are some of the first recipients of the program benefits. Sites may still under construction.
Some recipients are from industries other than restaurant / food services and were included at our discretion due to the nature of their organization (ie: charity, small grocer, etc...).
Located in Dearborn Heights, Michigan and serving broasted chicken, ribs, fish, and sides for over 50 years.
In Syracuse, New York Crave Owner Tykemia Carman creates edible art that's almost too pretty to eat. ALMOST.
Located in Syros Greece, GLP is a sanctuary caring for the island's huge number of sick, discarded, & ferral cats.
Like the businesses our program is designed to help, we are also a small business. We have huge goals and dreams for everyone, but we have very limited resources. We can't do this alone. That's where you come in. We're turning to you, the general public for help. As many of you already know, government programs like PPP and EIDL loans in the U.S. quickly ran dry - hundreds of thousands of businesses missed out, and will likely miss out again with the newest round of funding from Congress. We couldn't even get assistance ourselves. Waiting around for government assistance that may or may not come is costing us thousands of small businesses, and millions of jobs along with them. We need real people to take real action.
Because of our limited resources to start, this program will initially only be available to small restaurants (think small diners, local dives, or your favorite take-out places and even local bakeries!), with either single or multiple locations. With your help, we can expand our offering to larger restaurants, as well as expand our free service levels to include more benefits for our fellow humans in need.
Applying targeted assistance to a struggling industry.
By giving small restaurant owners a website to take orders from, we're providing another tool to use to not just survive the pandemic effects, but recover and thrive in to the future.
Implementing A Tool As A Preventative Measure.
These businesses are in an industry that relies heavily (if not exclusively) on in-person interactions. If anything preventing in-restaurant dining happens again in the future, our friends in this industry will have a way to make sure they won't be caught flat-footed again.
Have a downstream effect.
By helping keep as many restaurants open as we can, it won't be just those restaurants that benefit. We'll have a downstream effect on the supply-chain. From those that supply the ingredients (such as local growers) to those that supply the equipment, and everything in-between - our goal is to protect jobs now and allow job growth in the future.
Real action costs real money.
(If you can't donate, we understand completely - perhaps you'd be willing to share this page link to your social media?)
For those that do choose to donate - thank you!
From the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU!
We will apply funds from donations the following internal needs.
We're not quite done building our solution. Our target completion date is too far out for comfort. Your assistance will ensure our team can focus on finishing the development of our solution faster so we can start helping others by delivering websites to restaurants in need quicker.
As the program expands we'll need to expand our team to keep up with program growth. Our team members will be trained and paid rather than relying on volunteer support as this ensures we deliver a quality product to program beneficiaries with as little friction as possible.
Each new tier of fundraising we reach is like rocket fuel allowing us to accomplish more for program beneficiaries. If fully funded, we can confidently and effectively expand the program to include add-on services, or expanding the program to larger businesses and other industries.
Funding Tier 1 Goal
$2,500,000
Funding our tier 1 goal means we can fully concentrate on:
Funding Tier 2 Goal
$5,000,000
Funding our tier 2 goal would secure our ability to move from the pilot phase of the program to and be able to quickly scale our team up to meet new increases demand.
Funding Tier 3 Goal
$8,000,000
Funding our tier 3 goal would enable us to enter an initial phase of expansion that allows us to be able to offer program beneficiaries extremely valuable foundational SEO and brand enhancement services.
Funding Tier 4 Goal
$10,000,000
Funding our tier 4 goal would allow for a secondary expansion phase of the program concentrated on building valuable add-on services specific to the needs of restaurants. These add-ons would not be required to be successful, but may be features requested from restaurants that could help make their lives even easier.
Funding Tier 5 Goal
$20,000,000
We would consider the program fully funded and self-sustainable at this level of capitalization. Funding our tier 5 would allow for a third phase of expansion which includes modifying the turnkey solution to begin offering it to businesses in other industries. We'd also be developing new program add-ons that allow our program beneficiaries to get the most out of their websites and aid in their economic recovery.
We're sure you're wondering:
If we're giving away the websites, how does the program sustain itself?
The Plan:
While the donations program will pay the up-front costs of website development for program beneficiaries, our plan for program self-sustainability involves collecting a fair, low-cost, monthly fee for all websites developed. We have not currently settled on a cost, but expect it to be between $20 and $50 per month.
Additionally, as expansion phases are reached, new brand enhancement and value-added initiatives will also bring in fair, low-cost, monthly fees. When thousands of restaurants are signed up for the program, we expect the program to become self-sustaining. We won't rule out new rounds of fundraising, however we don't expect to need them with a fully-funded program.