Empact Showcase List

Ethan is the co-founder of GiveForward, the world's #1 medical crowdfunding platform. Since 2008 GiveForward has helped thousands of families raise more nearly $56 million for out-of-pocket medical expenses. In 2012 the company won the Edison Gold award as the best new social innovation in the US and was listed on INC's 30 under 30.

• Age: 42

Desiree Vargas Wrigley started her company reluctantly. After graduating from Yale in 2004, she worked at the Kauffman Foundation, helping to support other entrepreneurs. Then came Hurricane Katrina. As New Orleans residents struggled to find aid, Wrigley wondered why there was not a reliable platform for donating directly to people in need. The same question nagged her six months later, when she spotted a donation jar in a café for a couple seeking a heart transplant for their child. For a while, it seemed that others had already taken up the cause: Change.org, Kickstarter, The Point (which eventually became Groupon). But none of those sites offered what she had in mind. Two years later, she decided to take on the idea herself. “I woke up to this little voice inside my head that said, ‘Get started,’” she says.

• Age: 42