The App I'm Most Proud to Have Built

I've built a number of applications during my journey as a technology founder. Some have worked better than others. Some taught me what to do next. Others taught me what not to do.

But the application I'm most proud of didn't begin with a market opportunity.

It began with my daughter, Naomi.

Naomi is a pediatric stroke survivor living with hemiplegic cerebral palsy. From the beginning, our family learned what it means to live with uncertainty. We learned about therapy, medical appointments, insurance, finding the right services, advocating for your child, and the exhaustion that can come with carrying a responsibility you would never trade but can never put down.

We were also fortunate.

We had resources. We had access to services. We had people around us who helped. We found community.

Over the years, I became increasingly aware that many families raising children with disabilities face the same fears and responsibilities without those advantages.

For many of them, nonprofit and charitable organizations help fill the gap.

That stayed with me.

A question I couldn't shake

As I began building technology through Empowered Solutions, I kept coming back to a question:

How could the skills I was developing as a technology founder give something back to the communities that had given so much to families like mine?

That question eventually collided with another problem I had been thinking about for years: trust in charitable giving.

People want to help.

But many hesitate.

They wonder where their money actually goes. They wonder how much reaches the people or programs they intended to support. They see an appeal, make a contribution, receive a thank-you email, and often hear very little until the organization asks them to give again.

At the same time, I don't believe most nonprofits lack transparency because they have something to hide.

Many smaller organizations simply don't have the technology, staff, or budget to provide the level of continuous reporting and engagement that today's donors increasingly expect.

I started wondering:

What if technology could help close that gap?

Not by creating another payment processor.

Not by taking control away from nonprofit organizations.

Not by adding another expensive software subscription.

But by giving organizations a way to demonstrate stewardship continuously and allowing the people who support them to become participants rather than simply donors.

That idea became Inclusion Forward Initiative.

From giving to belonging

Inclusion Forward is built around five principles:

Stewardship. Transparency. Reporting. Impact. Participation.

An organization continues using the financial systems and payment processors it already trusts. Inclusion Forward sits alongside those systems as a transparency and participation layer.

The goal is to create a visible chain between a contribution, how resources are allocated, what happens as a result, and how that outcome is reported.

Instead of asking donors simply to trust that their contribution made a difference, organizations can show them.

Instead of rebuilding reports from scattered records when a board member, grantmaker, donor, or stakeholder asks a question, the underlying record is designed to be readily available.

And instead of treating supporters as people who receive a receipt and wait for the next fundraising appeal, Inclusion Forward can give them a meaningful voice in the community and in future initiatives.

I call it radical transparency, but the idea behind it is actually very simple:

If people can see the good their contribution helped create, they have a reason to believe, participate, and give again.

Why we're making the platform free

There was one decision I felt strongly about from the beginning.

The organizations that could benefit most from better transparency shouldn't be excluded because they can't afford another software license.

That's why Empowered Solutions is making the core Inclusion Forward platform available under a free Community License for qualified organizations.

Not a stripped-down trial.

Not a free version designed primarily to push organizations into a paid subscription.

The core transparency platform is free.

Organizations that have their own technical resources can operate it themselves. Those that want implementation, integrations, customization, or ongoing technical support can obtain those services separately. We are also developing ways for corporate and philanthropic sponsors to help cover support costs for organizations that need assistance.

The principle remains the same:

Technology should help organizations serve their communities. A lack of technology budget shouldn't prevent them from doing it well.

Technology can be personal

Inclusion Forward is different from the other products I've built because I know exactly why this one exists.

It exists because I remember being a father wondering what the future would hold for my daughter.

It exists because I remember the people and organizations that helped our family navigate that uncertainty.

It exists because I've seen what community can mean when a family needs one.

And it exists because somewhere there is another parent sitting in a hospital, therapy center, school meeting, or living room trying to figure out what comes next.

There are organizations trying to help that family.

If something I've learned during my journey as a founder can make one of those organizations stronger, help it earn greater trust, attract more support, spend less time struggling with reporting, and ultimately reach more people, then this technology has accomplished something that matters to me far beyond building another successful application.

That's why Inclusion Forward is the application I'm most proud to have built.

It isn't just another product in the Empowered Solutions portfolio.

It's my opportunity to pay something forward.

And in many ways, it started with Naomi.