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Meet Ethan Turner of GLIMPSE Global in Central

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Ethan Turner.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Ethan. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Five years ago, a few guys got together in a garage and put together an idea to change the world through panoramic video, before it even existed. Two years later three of those guys remained together to have the pivot of their lives. Emeka and Ethan were arguing the inefficiencies of solving global issues. “The problem is that problems are getting solved, you’ve seen the TED Talks, global crime is at the lowest it has ever been,” Emeka explained to Ethan, “but people just don’t see it.” Ethan fired back, “Its an issue, where, every time I see the news, I want to help, but there is no follow up. Well if we’re building this app already to show people the world, how can we take it further?” They pondered for a second. “We’re going to revolutionize the giving process. With GLIMPSE! Our app will no longer be about just seeing things going on around the world, it will be about taking action.” With that statement Johnathan, Emeka, and Ethan put together an idea called GLIMPSE, A New Perspective where charities could showcase the work they were doing, and people could begin to take action on the news happening around the world.

While still at different Universities, the app’s idea caught fire and they were invited to the Forbes Under 30 Summit, won several competitions for the idea, and even managed to raise a small amount of capital to build out the application. They were published in local news articles in Iowa and Pittsburgh helping them garner momentum.

In the summer of 2016, they were introduced to Leib Bolel, a rock solid and experienced global businessman who saw the passion these three carried for changing the world. It was the soft skills, the many languages they spoke, the people they aspired to be, the dream of making GLIMPSE the next revolutionary technology that drove him to join these three on their mission. With Leib on the team, The fire was burning, and momentum started to catch again. It was non-stop calling to charities, setting up an advisory board, finding personal mentors, and the aggressive desire to solve global issues which led the team to build a finalized application. He brought the business experience the team needed to take this from idea to product. It was this energy that helped them realize, they had to leave Iowa and adventure to a larger tech space in Phoenix, Arizona.

The move was tough. Two college students, because Emeka had one more year, moving with no more than a few hundred dollars, to a state 1000’s of miles from their nearest family members. During the first hours of the trip, Johnathan’s car caught fire, but the team persisted, found a rental and kept moving forward. They went through mountains and valleys, seeing the glorious wild west and its beauty but also its danger. After a three day drive, the GLIMPSE Team arrived in their new home, where they set up their new headquarters.

A year later, after adjusting to the new climate and business environment the team began getting involved in the Arizona Non-profit space and went through the SEEDSpot Accelerator Program. During this program, they completed intensive market research for the application and learned that there was a calling for a lower tech version of what they had previously built. To answer the call the GLIMPSE Team built Volunetix, a mobile application that is helping standardize the data collection process for non-profits to help their volunteers and donors make better investments of their time, talent, and treasure. Volunetix quickly began to pick up momentum gaining interest from Maricopa County’s Community Restitution Program, the Co+Hoots Foundation, and several other local non-profits.

Currently, Volunetix is available on the iOS app store and is being developed for web and android. The iOS app can be found here: https://apps.apple.com/pa/app/volunetix-by-glimpse/id1468432680?l=en

Has it been a smooth road?
It has not. Running a business while being a college student-athlete, moving to a new state, under the age of 30, with low cash and high debt, frequent car problems, and a restaurant job to support all of the business and personal expenses. We’ve had issues with finding the best team to build the product, whether internal or external. Personal feuds between co-founders, and missed opportunities for networking because of low-cash even to the point of not being able to afford T-shirts at first.

Tell us more about your organization.
We are changing the world by helping non-profits, government institutions and churches standardize their data collection processes. We have built a mobile application called Volunetix that allows these institutions to collect live data and share it with their volunteers and donors. The non-profits can use our data reports to save time in grant writing, make effective strategic decisions, and produce informative reports for marketing or donor retention. As a company, we are most proud of our ability to stay on the cutting edge of technology, while still providing a simple and understanding product for the Non-profit market. What sets us apart is that our product not only helps institutions but also has a volunteer aspect for tracking your personal goals, community restitution hours, or other required volunteer hours for organizations such as girl/boy scouts, sororities/fraternities, or Honors Societies. Internally, we are modern, innovative, and constantly seeking ways to excel as a team.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
We want to be a big shift. We see the non-profit industry moving to a stock-market model. Where you can constantly track shifts in impact value for a non-profit life. As volunteers and donors, we can all invest in non-profits based on impact per hour or impact per dollar to effectively create change. The non-profit sector will largely move away from government grants, as we see starting now, and more to individual donors. This will require new models for understanding the operations, financing, and effectiveness of non-profits because of the constantly shifting desires of individual donors compared to those of government or private institutions.

Pricing:

  • Silver Membership is Free (For the Beginner data collector: Collect important data for free, with no reports)
  • Gold Membership is $30/mo (For the Novice data collector: Collect important data, recieve reports)
  • Purple Membership is $75/mo (For the Intermediate data collector: Collect important and detailed data, receive reports)
  • Platinum Membership is $120/mo (For the Advanced data collector: Collect important, detailed, and historical data, receive reports)

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