From student project to nonprofit business

A year ago, three students went online with a cross-cultural project. When they graduated in May, the project became their full-time job. Take a look at how the three are working to maintain the mission of their fledgling foundation, called Glimpse, while paying rent and meeting payroll.

by Kristen Cole

In June, three new Brown graduates moved operations for their fledgling foundation, called Glimpse, from a Brook Street rental to a 4,300-square-foot loft in Pawtucket. That same month, they also paid themselves for the first time in two years.

It’s a far cry from the tiny apartment dining room where Glimpse was launched as an undergraduate project.

The foundation’s stated mission is “to promote cross-cultural dialogue and education by connecting the people, places, and ideas of the world.”

It plans to accomplish its mission through an online magazine of articles written by Americans – primarily college students – about living abroad, including a recent piece about a young woman’s experience in an Afghan refugee camp.

Although the trio went online with their foundation and its magazine more than a year ago when they were full-time students, the struggle to maintain their venture began when it became their full-time job after Commencement.

“It’s definitely going to be a challenge,” said Nicholas Fitzhugh ’02, president of Glimpse (at left, with colleague Kerala Goodkin). “It’s a difficult time to start a company, but in terms of our futures there is nothing that gives better experience than this.”

The idea for the venture began with Fitzhugh, who deferred acceptance to Brown for a year to live in France, Switzerland and Italy.

Originally planned as a for-profit company, Glimpse quickly became a nonprofit foundation. With the transition, it no longer needed a slew of investors to provide capital. But the foundation still needs revenue to pay the rent, utilities and salaries, and to initiate programs.

One of the biggest hurdles in transitioning from a student organization to the working world is going from a dorm, where utilities, rent and living expenses are covered, to a venture with its own expenses as well as the employees’ personal expenses, according to Barrett Hazeltine, professor emeritus of engineering and a member of the Glimpse board of directors.

“The cash flow nightmare barely exists for students but is all-encompassing for a startup,” said Hazeltine. “Life is much more scary when other people depend on you.”

To raise revenue, the foundation plans to syndicate its articles and sell them to newspapers, in-flight magazines and travel agency publications, according to Fitzhugh. Donations and grants will supply additional funding.

Glimpse also plans to sell advertising, build sponsorship-based relationships with corporations, and offer memberships that provide online access to its articles. Specifically, Glimpse will market memberships to colleges and universities that, in turn, may provide students willing to write about their experiences abroad.

Fitzhugh’s own account of a walking picnic in Italy is on the Glimpse Web site.

“I wanted to try to develop and bring to life these other types of experiences which are really telling…about life,” said Fitzhugh. “I wanted a way for Americans to vicariously re-experience other peoples’ experiences.”

Fitzhugh and the other full-time Glimpse staff, Kerala Goodkin ’02, and Ran Nussbacher ’02, along with Brown senior Yaniv Gelnik, spent the summer brainstorming ways to meet their goals.

Admittedly they have a difficult road ahead, according to Josef Mittlemann, a member of the Division of Engineering’s faculty and a member of the Glimpse board of directors.

As a foundation, Glimpse must compete for philanthropic dollars, those that typically go to causes that either have a sense of urgency or have a personal connection to the giver, he said.

“I had lived in Europe for several years so I could understand a lot of what they were trying to convey and I thought it was valid,” said Mittlemann.

Mittlemann is not alone. Glimpse has received accolades from staff at several news outlets including the BBC, Harper’s magazine and "Frontline," and financial assistance in the form of a $15,000 grant from National Geographic Society.

The organization also assembled a15-member board of directors that includes Brown faculty, members of the media, and businessmen such as Charlie Terry, whose COMTEX News Network gathers and redistributes wire service news stories from all over the world.

Glimpse “is a unique idea both in terms of the mission and its execution,” said Terry. “Also, this is the right time with all that is going on in the world…good and bad.”

“So far we’ve been either lucky or good – we were able to get a lot of high-powered people involved,” said Fitzhugh.

And, as its Web site notes, the dedication of the staff is unshaken even after two years of unpaid commitment to the venture. The paychecks they began collecting every two weeks in June were scaled back to a single paycheck in August.

Fitzhugh said his mother is a realist about the difficulties facing Glimpse’s long-term success, but trusts that he will be able to reap the benefits of the experience no matter the outcome.

“It’s not anything anyone wants to give up,” Fitzhugh said.