The Ground Floor: Eastern Iowa portal designed to help, one cause at a time

Ed Luebe said his new business aims to help each of what he calls the three pillars of the community - individuals and not-for-profit and for-profit businesses.

Luebe is the founder and president of Empowering Our Community, or EOC. The business offers a crowdfunding platform for individuals to support their favorite not-for-profit organizations or causes.

In exchange for their donations, individuals receive discounts and other incentives from local businesses. The businesses providing those incentives benefit by receiving free advertising and more customers.

'Everyone is giving and getting something in return,” Luebe said. 'It's a way to build critical mass to help out nonprofits.”

Luebe, a longtime resident of the Cedar Rapids metro area and an executive at a Corridor brokerage firm, said his business was inspired by his observations of how a community responds in times of crisis.

'Think of the floods of 2008 and 2016, for example,” he said. 'I saw all three (pillars of the community) come together for a common goal, the well-being of the community. It's like three rivers coming together - the confluence is very, very strong.”

After coming up with the basic idea behind EOC, Luebe worked the Iowa Entrepreneurial and Small Business Development Center to fine-tune his business plan. He formed a limited liability company in June 2016 and worked with a local business, Informatics, on web design and development.

He launched the Empowering Our Community website in September 2016.

Here's how it works: Individuals become EOC members by making a donation of $25 to $100 to an existing campaign via the EOC web portal. For example, one current campaign relates to hurricane relief efforts in Texas and Florida. Members receive an EOC discount card entitling them to discounts on a wide-range of goods and services, from food to home roofing and remodeling, for the next year.

'The savings and discounts can far exceed what the person actually gave,” Luebe said. 'For families that are strapped financially, it incentivizes them to give to get savings on stuff they are buying anyway.”

Thirty-five local businesses currently participate in the EOC discount program and receive free advertising on the EOC website.

Not-for-profits receive 90 percent of donations made through the EOC web portal. They also may raise funds for their organizations by selling EOC discount cards to their supporters at a cost of $20 per card. In that case they retain 95 percent of the proceeds.

'The organizations that will really benefit are the smaller organizations like schools and sports clubs,” Luebe said.

As a full-time brokerage executive, Luebe said he has had to spend his evenings and weekends working on EOC. But he doesn't mind.

'It's the most challenging thing I've ever done, but it's provided great fulfillment,” he said. 'We are empowering the three pillars of the community one person, one nonprofit and one business at a time.”

At a Glance

Owner: Ed Luebe

Business: Empowering Our Community, LLC

Telephone: (319) 775-5255

Email: EmpoweringOC@gmail.com

Website: www.eoc.team

l Know a business in operation for less than a year that would make for a good 'Ground Floor”? contact michaelchevy.castranova@thegazette.com.