Issue date: July 28, 1999
By MARJORIE MADER
Shop at home and give a percent of the purchase price to a school of your choice is the concept behind a number of Internet startups, including Menlo Park's Schoolpop.com.
Another is Shopforschool.com, a Minneapolis-based company that plans to launch its Web site in August. That company is backed by the Menlo Park venture capital firm Delphi Ventures. Donald Lothrup, a partner with Delphi, was named to the Shopforschool.com board.
Some 100 merchants have signed up with Schoolpop.com, says Rae Callender of Menlo Park, a founder and CEO. Merchants include J. Crew, Amazon.com and OfficeMax.
Customers pay the same price as retail, and a percentage is donated to a K-12 school of the customer's choice, Mr. Callender says. The amount that goes to the school depends on the arrangement with the individual vendor, and ranges from 1 to 20 percent, he says. The school receives 75 percent of the rebate while Schoolpop.com, a for-profit firm, takes 25 percent.
"We're helping local fund-raisers harness the community's purchasing power," Mr. Callender says.
Some 1,000 schools in 20 states are participating, he says, including many local schools: Menlo-Atherton and Woodside high schools; the Menlo Park district's Laurel, Encinal, Oak Knoll and Hillview schools; Las Lomitas and La Entrada; Sacred Heart Prep; St. Joseph's School; Nativity; Woodside Elementary; and Woodside Priory School.
In some cases, a PTA, school foundation or booster group lists a school on the Schoolpop.com site, and in other cases, individuals do.
Continual fund-raising has become a way of life for many school organizations, eating up an inordinate amount of volunteer time, energy and money, says Mr. Callender. The Internet, he says, offers an alternative to kids going door-to-door selling magazines, wrapping paper and candy.
He cites a study by Jupiter Communications, which projects that more than 26 million people will spend $12 billion shopping on the Internet in 1999.
Schoolpop.com was founded by a trio of entrepreneurs over a handshake at Buck's restaurant in Woodside and financed over a cup of coffee at Peet's in Menlo Park last February.
The founders are:
**W. Gordon Kruberg, M.D., of Portola Valley, is chairman. He invested in and managed two dozen high-tech and medical startups before founding a venture-backed medical software company, Nightingale Corp.
**Rae Callender of Menlo Park, who taught science and geology at Ojai Valley School, took time off to learn about computer technology. He built and later sold Animated Systems, an Internet media company, and served as interim president and CEO of SERA Learning Technologies in Mountain View before founding Schoolpop.
**Jim Gibbons of Palo Alto, former dean of engineering at Stanford University, invented the Tutored Video Instruction technique for in-plant education of engineers. He served on the board of a number of companies, including Cisco, Centigram, Lockheed Martin and Raychem.
Shopping through Schoolpop's site doesn't involve any extra money, such as a registration fee or advance outlay of funds, as required when school groups purchase scrip to sell to parents, Mr. Callender says.
Why did the founders choose the name Schoolpop.com?
"We wanted a name nobody could forget," says Dr. Kruberg. "It sticks in people's minds. And it's fun."
For information, call 323-5670 or visit the Web site: wwwschoolpop.com. The company is located at 115 Constitution Ave. in Menlo Park.
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