Inside of Square s public offering filing on Wednesday was the announcement of the birth of a new charitable organization founded by Jack Dorsey, Square s CEO.
Square, founded in 2009, is valued at about $6 billion, writes Queenie Wong in the Mercury News. Dorsey has a 26 percent stake in the company, according to the New York Times.
The new charity, The Start Small Foundation, was created to meaningfully invest in the folks who inspire us, Dorsey wrote in the S1 filing.
Specifically, the foundation will support artists, musicians, and local businesses, with a special focus on underserved communities around the world.
Over the past two years, Dorsey said he has given more than 15 million of his own shares, about 20 percent of his equity, to both Square and the foundation. He described the financial arrangement:
The shares being made available for the directed share program in this offering are being sold by the Start Small Foundation, giving Square customers the ability to buy equity to support the Foundation. I have also committed to give 40 million more of my shares, an additional 10% of the company, to invest in this cause. I d rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small.
Dorsey has been known for some of his philanthropic work in recent years. He helped to organize funding for Build, which helps disadvantaged students become entrepreneurs, according to a 2012 Wall Street Journal article. In 2014, Inside Philanthropy said:
Dorsey s record of charitable contributions so far has been small, but he has been known to use his social media power to raise funds for charity:water, and auction off time with himself to support entrepreneurship and education.
Above: Jack Dorsey at Twitter s IPO. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
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