Blacktie-Colorado.com: centralized info source clicks with charities.

• Author: Schmidt, Donna
• Position: Company overview

Blacktie-Colorado is where Colorado gets together online for charity. The website www.blacktie-colorado.com is the state's only combination online event calendar and fundraising vehicle. It allows clients to promote charity events, sell tickets online, showcase auction items before the event and spotlight group photos afterwards.

"We don't want to be just a technology company. We want to be a source service for philanthropy," says Kenton Kuhn, president and CEO of Blacktie-Colorado.

Kuhn and Blacktie-Colorado founder Georgia Imhoff have created a centralized online event date book for charity events. Imhoff wanted to integrate Colorado's charity social schedule so that similar charities would not host their events on the same dates. "It's important not to have a conflict," Kuhn says. "Denver is a very busy social town.

"Georgia has been very instrumental in getting us off the ground," said Kuhn, who is a longtime veteran of the Colorado Internet-provider and Web-design industry. Imhoff, whose husband Walt Imhoff is prominent in the Colorado investment community, was able to talk to many of her friends and colleagues in the philanthropy community, marketing the role of Blacktie-Colorado through word of mouth. No advertising budget was needed.

Kuhn says that he and Imhoff actually created the market for their online business. Imhoff and Kuhn met in June 2000, while Kuhn was already immersed in the Internet and technology sector.

Seven months after they began working together, the website www.Blacktie-Colorado.com debuted on March 17, 2001. The goals were to provide event information, sell charity-event tickets online, give philanthropists a central location for donations and spotlight charity events and auctions.

"Blacktie-Colorado gives people guidance in planning an event. They can check dates, or, say, check ticket prices," Kuhn says. "Our website gives event planners planning tools and centralizes the information."

Blacktie-Colorado meets those goals while making a profit.

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Participating nonprofit organizations pay an annual fee, ranging from $300 to $1,500, based on their own annual operating budget. Individuals can become members for $150 a year. Members can pull free event e-photos from the website, they can use the Blacktie software tools to arrange and promote their own events, and have access to the Blacktie e-mail list through the system.

Blacktie has 250 individual members. "Our members are very active in the...