Maya Thakore is a high school senior at Milton Academy. She had actively volunteered for various charities which gave her an idea for a start up in that space.  

 Maya is a co-founder of the New England Youth Chapter of AIF.  In that role, she helped raise money for the AIF Lamp Program (Schooling for children of migrant farm workers).  She was named a top fund raiser but realized that traditional fund raising means had limitations, there are so many good causes and requests for donations and many people have limited means to help.  This prompted the idea to start Pause For Your Cause, which drives charitable giving through everyday activities.  The cite incentivizes individuals (on their own or through charities) to visit the site and then route to traditional retailers and gaming sites they already interact with.  Retailers value these customers and pay Pause For Your Cause a % of the revenues generated by the customer (this is called affiliate marketing).  100% of proceeds are donated to charity.

How did you go about getting this started?

 I researched affiliate marketing, how charities would view my site and set about writing a business plan.  I attended a Seed Spot entrepreneurship camp as part of this.  I used free time to build the site, form the affiliate relationships and interact with charities.

How much money did you raise with the first charity?

 $20,000

 Did you learn something extra to create this website?

 I had to understand how affiliate marketing works and how to strike deals with retailers and affiliate networks.  I had to become familiar with programming as there are were no off the shelf solutions to solve the problem of tracking an iindividual entering the site, routing to the retailer and tracking revenue earned by that specific customer and routing it to the appropriate charity.  After much effort, this programming challenge has recently been overcome.

Can you explain how it works?

 The cite incentivizes individuals (on their own or through charities) to visit the site and then route to traditional retailers and gaming sites they already interact with.  Retailers value these customers and pay Pause For Your Cause a % of the revenues generated by the customer (this is called affiliate marketing).  100% of proceeds are donated to charity.

 What is your end goal

The goal is build a robust business that raises over $1m for charities.  This is a business that is now entering a virtuous cycle.  Success raising money and overcoming the technical challenges should allow us to have other charities do charitable campaigns, which will drive affiliate deals with more retailers and make the experience better.

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