At Raleigh Founded, we celebrate a Member of the Month for their outstanding dedication to our core values. These members are not only successful entrepreneurs and business leaders but are recognized for their positivity, kindness, and the meaningful ways they uplift our community. They go above and beyond, supporting fellow members and contributing to the collaborative spirit that defines Raleigh Founded.

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In this series, we’re excited to chat with each of our Members of the Month to hear what they love most about Founded and what makes this community so special to them!

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We had the opportunity to chat with Chip Kennedy, Founder of CivicReach.AI, co-organizer of Triangle Tech Night, and long-term member about his work and dedication to community building here at Raleigh Founded.

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Which core value resonates with you the most?

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Chip resonates most with  ‘Drive Forward With Purpose,’ of all the Raleigh Founded core values because it closely aligns with his mission. 

 “My personal mission is to find kind, hard-working people and bring them along in the journey to build things bigger than ourselves to help people, communities, and society.”

Chip believes that driving forward with purpose encourages startups to act purposefully while emphasizing that “ambition and scale are not antithetical to making the world a better place.” 

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What is a win you are proud of this year?

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Of all his wins this year, starting his new company, CivicReach.AI, was one of Chip’s largest. Chip notes that CivicReach.AI really got started at Founded’s annual pitch competition, Pitch Please, which he won in 2023! 

“It gave me the confidence to go talk to investors and customers and turn it into a real start-up!”

Through Raleigh Founded, Chip gathered the CivicReach.AI team, including his lawyer-turned-COO,

founding Head of Government, and many advisors to helpwith pitching, product building and creating a new startup. He’s met with several accountants, half of whom were referred to him through the Raleigh Founded Slack.

“I could go on and on but all pieces of the company were augmented by or largely supported by the Raleigh Founded network.”

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What community cause or charities have you been involved in lately (this can be here at Founded or beyond!)

Chip is involved in multiple causes here in Raleigh, up north in Boston, and in New York. 

One he especially admires is the Western Carolina Emergency Network and the group of Triangle investors and entrepreneurs (including Green Places and Scot Wingo) who pulled together to run a Western North Carolina Supply Drive, with supplies dropped off at Raleigh Founded’s North Street location. Chip was able to support through food, kitchen, and camping supply donations. He admires that it’s not a group of Raleigh-based entrepreneurs just saying they need to help - there’s real action.

“It’s donating supplies, collecting the supplies, and doing all the logistics and supply chain management. It’s fascinating. How cool is it that the people in our community can put their heads together and create a complex and critical supply chain at this scale so quickly!”

Chip has also been involved with Five One Labs, founded by Raleigh Founded member, Alice Bosley. Chip previously volunteered as a mentor to their cohorts in past sessions, and was asked to speak this year to a group of students from Iraq. 

“I think it’s just a really cool international plurality building, innovation building, and interesting thing that Alice has poured her life’s work into.” 

Around this time of the year, Chip also helps direct a non-profit called Christmas in the City, which organizes large-scale holiday parties for families living in homeless shelters in Boston and New York. 

“My parents started [the non-profit] 30 years ago. So I’ve been involved with it since I was born but in the last four years or so I’ve helped run the organization.”

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Name one thing about the Founded community that you appreciate!

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Chip appreciates the dichotomy of Founded’s community - members are always ready to help one another, while simultaneously being busy, driven, and ambitious.  To Chip, it all ties back to driving forward with purpose. 

“ I love that balance we’ve created as a community where we all want to take a step out to help, support, listen, and get a coffee but we’re all still shooting high.” 

He points out that the people here at Founded are all aiming “for really ambitious goals, shooting to make big companies, to make a lot of money, to help the world in a lot of ways,” while maintaining a community defined by its kindness and giving nature. 

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Who would you nominate next for Member of the Month?

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Chip’s nomination for the next Member of the Month is Haley Huie for her long-standing contributions to Raleigh Founded through her work with the Andrews Launch Accelerator and NC State Entrepreneurship. 

Haley’s efforts in the Triangle also extend to her involvement in Raleigh-Durham Startup Week, where Chip had the chance to work with her. 

“I’m even more impressed somehow than I already was with how dedicated she is to community building, especially here.”