People Inspired By Purpose - Purposely Podcast

Lisa King joined Purposely Podcast to share her founder story with Eat My Lunch Lisa and her business partner Michael Meredith’s mission started in 2015 with a plan to ensure that no New Zealand school child goes hungry and  this continues to be their mission today. They have just celebrated their 6th birthday and they are proud to have given away over 1.6 million lunches to Kiwi kids in need. Sadly there is still a waiting list with many schools in Auckland and Wellington needing their help. Lisa was inspired by a news article she read outlining the damaging effects of food poverty on children in New Zealand at the same time she reflected on a pair of Toms Shoes she was wearing, where she had bought a pair of Tom’s shoes and she had gifted pair of shoes at the same time. Eat My Lunch was born using the same, buy one gift one model. You will hear how an urgent start-up phase orchestrated from Lisa’s home kitchen was soon followed by a quickly scaled team and operation including a commercial kitchen and urgency to deliver on the need that was evident across New Zealand. In this episode she talks about her previous career as a corporate marketeer and brand expert and how she used this experience and the commercial skills she had gained to start, scale and grow Eat My Lunch. The episode also explores her early years, having been born in Hong Kong her parents moved Lisa and her siblings to New Zealand to start a new life. A new life built on some traditional values and views as well as some exceptional hard work where her family invested their energy into running a successful Chinese restaurant. Lisa expands on growing up on New Zealand as an Asian migrant and how her Hong Kong background and New Zealand experience has shaped who she is today. www.eatmylunch.co.nz

Philanthropy Advisor Emma Beeston joined Purposely Podcast to share insights into her career, her approach and what it takes to successfully advise people on giving.  Emma advises foundations, grant-makers and families on creating and implementing giving strategies. She facilitates strategy and learning sessions for teams and families. How did you get your job? ‘I worked for a number large foundations, initially giving grants to individuals for things like paying for cookers and writing off debt. I ended up working at BBC Children In Need, and then Lloyds Bank Foundation managing their grant programs and I really enjoy that side of things. You get to visit different charities and it's really interesting work. I left because I wanted to challenge myself and I felt I was getting a little bit too comfortable and I wanted to stretch myself. I decided to go freelance although there wasn't really a plan, you could say there still isn't really a plan.  I'm in a very nice position now of being a consultant philanthropy advisor’ What have been the biggest changes in grant making practice? ‘The changes to grant making practice have really been amplified by events of the last year. For so long now fundraisers have quite rightly been complaining about the hoops they have to jump through and the power imbalance where a funder can ask them to do whatever they need them to do to provide whatever information they require. It's really good to see that shift recently and the changes have gained momentum and increased rapidly over the last. Best practice is much more focused on a partnership approach and trust based philanthropy.  Participatory approaches and models are also coming through and all these changes have had a direct and positive impact on philanthropic decisions.’ Emma co-created the Advising Donors module for the University of Kent’s Masters in Philanthropic Giving, lectures on CASS Business School’s Charity Masters Programme and delivers training for the Association of Charitable Foundation’s Professional Development programme. She is a co-founder of a giving circle, Bath Women’s Fund.

Danny Witter joined Purposely Podcast to share his co-founder story with Work for Good Danny spent 25 years in the City of London, including 17 years at Deutsche Bank where he worked with a range of FTSE100 corporate clients, to being the Chair of the UK Corporate Citizenship Committee to his non-executive directorships including Shakespeare’s Globe, The Microloan Foundation, Shape History and Ivy House Learning. Danny’s philanthropic work has led him to co-found Work for Good and is now on mission to change the face of business giving. Work for Good’s mission is to help charities raise funds from purpose driven small businesses. They enable small businesses to give to good causes at the same time including their giving into their brand story. It can seem overwhelming for businesses researching how to work with a charity and that is where Work For Good comes in, not only do they do the matching they also take care of the legal stuff and facilitate the giving transactions. Danny explain’s how Work for Good is actually the brainchild of Danny’s Co-founder Rupert Pick, who was inspired to give back to the amazing hospital staff who care for his daughter Ottie. Ottie was born 10 weeks premature, weighing less than 3lbs and with two rare genetic conditions that affect both her bones and her heart. When Rupert decided to donate the fees from his next workshop to the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, it made him wonder about all the wonderful things that could happen if only more businesses chose to give through their work. Work for Good was then formed to help businesses give and Danny joined offering seed funding as well as his time and expertise to get the platform built. 5 years on they have engaged thousands of businesses and good causes and on their way to creating a sustainable businesses doing good. https://workforgood.co.uk/

Welcome to episode 49 with Marcus Exall A really nice guy, angel investor, business founder and charity trustee. We talk about how starting and eventually selling a digital agency in London (Blue Barracuda sold to Draftfcb in 2013) changed his life. The conversation starts with his current business helping start-up founders Up and to the right and then he shares hisfounder story, the successful exit, the freedom that brings and some of the investments he has made. This is a good episode for people wanting to understand how an Angel Investor thinks or wants to understand how a quality funding relationship should work. His colleagues describe him as a ‘master networker and if he can’t solve your problems he knows someone who can’ He has played a leading role at stellar start-ups such as Monese and Mendi. He is on a mission to make life easier for founders. ‘I am focused on backing the person first and foremost? Mainly businesses ideas change through the process of building them. Most certainly a large part of it for me when I consider an investment is asking myself the questions, do I want to go on a journey with this person. What are their values? that's always a very important bit to me. ‘I'm constantly surprised about the capabilities, the amazing capabilities of the people that I'm fortunate enough to get involved with and most of what interests me about the business is the people themselves. I'm excited in those first interactions, there's a spark to the conversation and maybe they’re challenging challenging me and my ideas.’ Marcus talks about investing in Clim8 Invest and Fairwill, two exciting companies disrupting their respective industry’s (investment and will writing). Up and 2 the Right - https://u2r.co/ Fairwill - https://farewill.com/ Clim8 Invest - https://clim8invest.com/

Episode #48 with Fairshot Café founder Bianca Tavella In her mid twenties Bianca Tavella has overcome significant barriers including funding, COVID-19 and her age to ensure her dream of a social enterprise café becomes a reality and she is almost there having raised thousands of pounds to help launch her enterprise. Fair Shot Cafe is a unique start-up social enterprise cafe that will bring training and future employment to disabled young adults in West London UK in the setting of a high-end stylish coffee shop. Fair Shot cafes offer Traineeships to help young people transition to Apprenticeships and finally to permanent paid employment. The Fair Shot cafe focuses on 16-24 year olds who have mild to moderate learning disabilities. This group are very capable, needing only a little support and are the most likely to find sustainable employment. 50% of the Fair Shot Cafe workforce have disabilities. ‘I would like for people to see our unique employability model and know that they can replicate it elsewhere to help other people with learning disabilities. They get involved in  food prep, there’s working on the till, customer service and food hygiene… all of these skills quite naturally for them.’ https://www.fairshot.co.uk/

Proud Irishman and Radio Host Takes TEDx Talks To The Bottom of the World Leon Hartnett, founder Greenlight Innovations Proud Irishman Leon Hartnett is the founder of the charity Greenlight Innovations, a volunteer led charity focused on bringing people together and encouraging a sense of belonging and community. Leon is also a radio host and an event organiser responsible for starting a St Patrick’s day festival and popular comic book event for local children. You will also hear how he has taken TEDx Talks to one of the very southern parts of the globe, Invercargill, a city he calls home having moved there from Dublin a decade ago with his wife and young family. So what is the purpose of Greenlight Innovations? ‘In simple terms it's focused on connecting people and bringing smiles to people's face - create happiness, share ideas and strengthen the community. Sometimes it's a fairly simple things, isn't it? You know like enjoying a nice day or having an ice cream or jumping in a bouncy castle. Yeah, just the simple things of gathering people together. We are volunteer led and we organise events all focused on community building’ You are responsible for taking TEDx to your home town in Invercargill? ‘Yes that’s right. TEDx actually stands for technology, education design and as a global charity that uses the tagline of ideas worth sharing. I've watched TED talks for many years and I thought it would be really good for the community once again it's  all about connecting people. It's also about sharing ideas, and it's getting people together to contemplate ideas. So I thought it would be really good to get this down here, you know, in a place like Invercargill’ ‘Incredibly our talks have reached 40,000 people worldwide.’ I understand that it was a medical emergency that actually brought you closer to the local community? ‘Yes when my son Finn was three years of age he developed pneumonia and he got to a viral infection at the same time and experienced massive weight loss. He ended up in intensive care. We were really concerned at the time, but one thing I remember is the reaction of local people and we were amazed that people at my work and in the community were just reaching out to check that we were okay’

‘Philanthropy is love for humankind, it’s not just about money’ Chris Belmont joined Purposely Podcast to share his founder story with Youth Philanthropy New Zealand. Originally from the US, he grew up in Queenstown, where he developed a passion for philanthropy. With some friends, and support from the Wakatipu Community Foundation, they established Youth Philanthropy NZ as well as Generation Give a programme focused on providing young people an education in positive philanthropy. Originally modelled after successful Youth Philanthropy programmes in North America and Europe, Generation Give has evolved to serve a uniquely Kiwi audience since 2019. The programme appoints high school students to a simulated non-profit board, and over the course of 20 weeks, they are guided through essential skills required in the philanthropic process. At the end of the programme, Generation Give students will apply these learned skills in the process of giving at least $10,000 away to worthy causes of their choice in their community How did Youth Philanthropy and Generation Give get started? ‘It all begin with this one after school program at high school where we brought 20 students together to cover 20 topics over 20 weeks. They were guided through essential skills required in the philanthropic process. They became qualified to make philanthropic decisions on behalf of the community around them. We actually ended up raising $10,000 and we said give it away to wherever you want’ How much have you raised and donated? ‘We've facilitated giving over $40,000 in the last in the last two years of the program, but what I always like to say is that's actually only 5% of our impact, or even less! The majority of our impact comes from the students we educate….these young people become philanthropists and they have a positive impact on their communities. Positive impact that they're going to have for the rest of their lives and  what we've done essentially is jump started their philanthropic careers, that's our goal from this programme’ Tell us about your past and what motivated you to get involved in Philanthropy? ‘I'm from the States originally and some would say that modern philanthropy comes from comes from the United States. Obviously, New Zealand has a fantastic spin on a lot of stuff that the US does, but there's still some lessons to be learned from from how the US operates. Anyway, wherever we moved my mum always started a Community Foundation and for that reason alone I was always involved with charities and from a very young age.’ www.ypnz.org

Sam Stubbs is the founder of non profit KiwiSaver fund Simplicity. A reformed investment banker and stockbroker his career also spans politics, philosophy and technology. His mission is to make the finance industry a force for good as a source of profit which he thinks can be achieved by companies embracing long term thinking, sustainability and full diversity. Sam Stubbs joined Purposely Podcast to share his founder story: What is Simplicity and what is its mission and vision? ‘We're a nonprofit fund manager. If you're overseas you might have heard of Vanguard… the vanguard of New Zealand… wouldn't be too far wrong. Our main aim is to give people dignity in retirement and how we do that is we give them choices. People who have choices in life have dignity. We run as a nonprofit fund manager, which charges the lowest fees and making people richer. Simplicity is a charity, a social enterprise, a nonprofit, a whole lot of things! We give 15% of the fees we do earn to charity. We've been running for almost five years now and we manage about $3 billion on behalf of over 60,000 members, in total we're giving away about $100,000 a month to charity, and making extremely good returns.’ The Kiwisaver scheme was the New Zealand waking up to the fact that its people owed more in debt than they had saved? ‘So it's about 14 years old now and when it started out and they didn't think it was going to be that popular. However it turned out to be wildly popular because the government gave everyone who joined $1,000 straight into their account. The vast majority of the population have now signed up to kiwisaver (voluntary pension scheme). In the first 14 years it's accumulated almost $80 billion, which for New Zealand is a lot of money. It will carry on growing and growing.’ Simplicity appears to run incredibly leanly, tell us about your set-up? ‘Yeah that’s correct, we have what we call a starvation mentality. So we never get used to having very much money because as soon as we are in danger of making money we lower our fees and we keep it really tight. Now that doesn't mean that we go stupid with it but it does mean that we have a really heavy emphasis on technology. So we spend a lot of money on that so we can automate as much as we can. We have 63 volunteers as well, people like lawyers, PR accountants, whole bunch of people who help us out because we're disrupting the financial services industry here. And also, you know, we're giving so much to charity, and we've given away over $2 million in their first five years’

Edward Suttleworth joined Purposely Podcast to share his founder story  With his wife Kate, Ed founded SeeBeyondBorders in 2009. He is committed to providing Cambodian children with access to quality education SeeBeyondBorders’ mission is to help children in Cambodia get to school while improving the teaching and learning that happens there. Their vision is for children in Cambodia to have choices for their future because of a better education and they achieve this by motivating a support base to contribute time, skills and financial resources to initiatives run in collaboration with local communities and with other sponsors. They invite people to see the situation for themselves, participate directly in our programs, and determine how they can continue supporting the people they have visited. Their programs are informed by Millennium Development Goal No 2 and the Royal Cambodian Government's 'Child Friendly Schools' initiative, focusing on accessibility and quality of education. 'Accessibility' considers family needs and school infrastructure, while 'Quality' relates to the continuing professional development of teachers - teacher training and teaching resources. https://www.seebeyondborders.org/

Guillaume Dehan joins Purposely Podcast to share his founder story with fintech for good company, 'Fund A Future'. Guillaume is a French man who lives in New Zealand, from an early age he wanted to explore the world and was not afraid to try new things and exciting places.  This led to a time working in China as well the UK where he worked for almost a decade in asset management. In 2017 he emigrated to New Zealand to be with his children, in this episode he talks about the importance of his culture, ensuring that his children understand their French heritage as well as speaking the language. ‘I refer to my children as friwi’s, they are mixture of French and Kiwi and I make sure we speak French in the home’. In New Zealand he bridged a gap between his asset management career and social entrepreneurship. Guillaume founded 'Fund a Future' in 2019 to help boost generosity globally, he stumbled across the idea while completing an M.A. in Tech (with Tech Futures Lab). ‘Our aim is to increase generosity worldwide. That is the inspiration… we all have in our minds. How far can we go to support organisations and create this long lasting, positive impact’ Utilising tech, 'Fund a Future' is keeping track of individual donations, claiming back any eligable tax rebates. They either provide personal refunds or funnel back the rebate to the individual's chosen charity. Their aim to make this as simple as possible. ‘We could see millions of dollars going unclaimed (from IRD) and in New Zealand we can claim back rebates for the past four years. So quickly we realised the size of the opportunity in front of us… up to a billion dollars of donation tax rebates that have never been claimed.’ ‘So we want to make it as efficient as possible to give an option for these donation tax rebates to go back to the charities in the first place.’ www.fundafuture.co.nz