Passport for Good was in crisis in March 2020.
The software startup’s founder, Gayle Farman, had just died. And shortly before the service was set for a public launch, the pandemic eliminated the need for it.
Passport For Good is a web-based platform meant to more easily keep a record of volunteer service hours and other community engagement, primarily for K-12 students. The software aggregates this data into a non-academic transcript students can then use for college and job applications.
Without in-person meetings for the next two years, students wouldn't have much to track.
Steve Gonick, an investor and co-founder, had mostly stayed out of day-to-day operations until then. He made a call to investors when he realized the startup was in trouble.
He acknowledges it would have been far easier to shut down Passport For Good, but he did not want to do that.
“I personally invest in social mission companies that are doing good, and it would be a bummer to not come through for those school districts and those kids and everything," Gonick said.
The startup has raised more than $2 million, at least half since the start of the pandemic, he said. The company is now about $450,000 into another fundraise of $750,000.
“We do have some prominent businesspeople in the Capital District who are investors in Passport For Good, who step up because they are mission driven," he said. "They love the mission of the company and everything, and they want to keep this alive.”
With some success following a BOCES contract that has allowed Passport For Good to sell to about 400 schools in the state, the startup has a revenue target of $1 million this year.
It has roughly 35 school clients right now and would need about 100 more to hit that goal. But with a retention rate above 90%, Gonick thinks that’s a good sign for how things could go.
“That's what gives us real hope that we're onto something," he said. "Everyone who uses the product loves it. Clearly, the sales effort was hindered by the pandemic, and we're coming out of that. I think it really is conceivable that we can hit that number by the midyear.”
He thinks that'll be done by highlighting the software's newest capability. It lays out and tracks requirements for the state’s Seal of Civic Readiness program, which gives students formal recognition for developing civic skills. The effort necessary to track those requirements manually will be burdensome for schools, Gonick said, but many of them will want to participate anyway because of its benefit to students, especially as more schools are getting away from standardized testing.
“We are getting a real feeling that there are a lot of schools that are going for it, and we are marketing directly to those schools that are signing up to it," Gonick said.
One of the Passport For Good's clients is Sachem Central School District on Long Island, one of the largest districts in the state. The high school has two buildings, and the students at one had access to the software before students at the other.
That gave the school a good way to see the software’s effectiveness, said Steve Cina, a consultant who has the COO role for Passport for Good.
“What they realized was that students were able to really document and capture way more of their experiences that allowed them to qualify for more scholarships, as opposed to the other high school building that did not use Passport for Good until the following year,” Cina said.
Passport For Good recently added a corporate client that's using the platform to highlight employee community involvement, as well as a collegiate client, the University of Illinois. Long term, the business would like to expand its client base in those sectors, Cina said.
Despite being “mission driven,” the startup's investors still want to make money, Gonick added – and he thinks they will.
“I believe we're all going to make a handsome profit at the end of this.”
