Although not formally organized until January of 2008, CarShare Vermont has been in the making since 2002, when a group of Burlington residents caught wind of “car-sharing,” a new transportation innovation that was becoming popular in a handful of cities across the country. Interested in bringing car-sharing to Burlington, the group—which included folks from a number of Burlington nonprofits and City departments (see Our Partners)—reached out to the San Francisco Bay Area’s City CarShare to learn how it could be done. As the first nonprofit car-sharing organization in the country, City CarShare had developed the model for community-based, mission-driven car-sharing that has since been replicated by a number of communities throughout North America.

By chance, Vermont native Annie Bourdon was working at City CarShare at the time and happened to answer the phone. As one of City CarShare’s first employees, she had helped her two friends Elizabeth Sullivan and Kate White (co-founders of City CarShare) launch car-sharing in San Francisco in early 2001 and then expand it throughout the Bay Area with great success (today City CarShare has more than 15,000 members sharing 300 cars!).

Excited to help bring car-sharing to Vermont, Annie offered to provide the Burlington folks with as much information and advice as she could. Over the next 18 months they exchanged emails and phone calls, and eventually met in person at City CarShare’s San Francisco headquarters. In 2003 the Burlington City Council passed a resolution in support of car-sharing, recognizing it as an important piece of the City’s long-term Transportation Plan. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts at luring existing car-sharing providers to expand their services to Burlington, the car-sharing committee lost a little steam, but not hope.

By 2006 car-sharing had become a way of life for almost 200,000 urban residents in the U.S. There were a dozen or so car-sharing operators nationwide serving not only large cities, but medium-sized ones too, as well as college campuses in small towns. And quite by coincidence, City CarShare’s Annie Bourdon had moved to Burlington. She got connected with the Burlington car-sharing committee, which had recently regrouped to explore ways of making car-sharing a reality once and for all in Burlington. The timing was perfect.

Annie proposed to the group that they start their own grassroots organization based on her experience at City CarShare. She volunteered to take the lead on organizing, developing a business plan, and conducting outreach. By fall of 2007 the ad hoc car-sharing committee became Green Mountain CarShare and attracted a number of highly skilled and passionate volunteers who would become our founding board members, along with dozens of supporters and organizational partners.

In January 2008 the local law firm of Shems Dunkiel Kassel & Saunders became champions of our effort and generously donated legal services and support to help us formally organize as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Between February and April we raised about $30,000. This money would allow us to develop our logo and website (many thanks to Place Creative and Legitify, respectively) and establish a presence for Green Mountain CarShare in the community. Along the way, we decided to change our name to CarShare Vermont!

After volunteering for more than a year, Annie became CarShare Vermont’s founding executive director in June of 2008. With a sound business plan, new name, website, some seed money, and a staff person, we were ready to launch! And that’s just what did in December 2008 with help from our partners, supporters, and with encouragement from our potential members who have been cheering us on the entire time. Thank you!