People Inspired By Purpose - Purposely Podcast

Beth Breeze joins Purposely Podcast to discuss the launch of her book ‘In Defence of Philanthropy’. She is passionate about giving and fundraising and has championed adding academic rigour to the discipline, shining a light on the positive elements of philanthropy. Beth worked as a fundraiser and charity manager for a decade before founding the Centre for Philanthropy at the University of Kent in 2008 where she now leads a team conducting research and teaching courses on philanthropy and fundraising, including an innovative MA Philanthropic Studies. Beth has written and edited five books, including ‘The New Fundraisers: who organises charitable giving in contemporary society?’ (2017), which won the AFP Skystone Research Partners book prize. Her latest book ‘In Defence of Philanthropy’ offers a robust response, based on both theory and extensive evidence, to the critiques against big giving. She has also written a wide range of research reports including ten editions of the annual ‘Coutts Million Pound Donors Report’. How did you get into fundraising and charity? ‘When I left university, all I knew is that I wanted to be useful. I didn't come from a particularly privileged background, so I didn't have a huge sense of what kind of jobs were out there. I only knew about social work and teaching and they're great jobs, but I didn't really think I had the personality or characteristics to do those sorts of roles. Instead, I looked at the charity sector because that seemed another obvious place where you can do good. My first job was as a fundraising officer in a youth homelessness charity called the ‘Cardinal Hume Centre’ in London and I became a fundraising officer rather than any other job because frankly, there's more opportunities in fundraising. I loved the way you could bring together a good organization that needs resources with generous people who have got resources with people who are good people who have got resources, you matchmake them together and the magic happens.’ How do you approach writing? ‘I have two strategies, the first is that I lied to myself a lot and I’d sit down at 10 o'clock at night and I would say to myself that I'm just going to do half an hour and of course what happens is you start writing and you get into it. The hardest bit is starting but once you start, you're glad you did it. Strategy number two is mint chocolates. I am an absolute sucker for dark mint chocolate, and I have boxes of them in my office and whenever my energy starts to flag I just open another box of chocolates then I can keep going for another hour.’ Beth has served as trustee for the Cardinal Hume Centre for young homeless people, as a commissioner on the Commission for the Donor Experience, as publications editor of Philanthropy UK, as a member of the President's advisory council at NCVO; as a member of the Advisory Group of the Charity Tax Commission; and is currently a member of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute Research Committee, Lilly School of Philanthropy, Indiana University, USA. Buy In Defence of Philanthropy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Defence-Philanthropy-Beth-Breeze/dp/1788212614

Kevin Robert Frost joins Purposely Podcast to share his very personal leadership story in the fight against HIV. Kevin has been the CEO of amfAR, The American Foundation for AIDS Research, since 2007, first joining the organisation in September 1994. Kevin is fully committed to the work he does, and vividly remembers the dark days when people were dying in large numbers from AIDS in New York and other parts of the world. Kevin personally knew some of these men and still remembers the horrible stigma caused by fear and bigotry. Fast forward to today and an HIV diagnosis is less likely to be a death sentence thanks to organisations like amfAR and committed, passionate leaders like Kevin. People diagnosed with HIV are less likely to suffer thanks to combination therapies, preventative medicine, and different attitudes towards sexuality. Kevin does stress, however, that things have not changed for everyone and unfortunately in many countries HIV and homophobia can still mean a death sentence. Kevin talks openly about his own journey and why he decided to do something meaningful to fight AIDS and give hope to people diagnosed with HIV. He also discusses his parent’s reaction to his mission and about coming out as a gay man. We talk about the current Coronavirus pandemic and Kevin’s frustration that lessons learnt from the fight against HIV have not saved the world from more pain and suffering. Kevin’s sense of mission is incredibly strong, and you can hear his passion and commitment for his life’s work over three decades. Kevin’s amazing career includes: - February 2010, appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), which is charged with providing guidance and recommendations to the administration on the U.S. government's domestic and international HIV/AIDS prevention and research programs. - Served as a member of the international advisory committee for the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, Spain, - Member of the Scientific Committee for the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada, in August 2006. H - Served on the advisory panels for three U.S. Food and Drug Administration hearings on a new drug application for Chiron Corporation’s ganciclovir implant; a new drug application for Gilead’s cidofovir; and a review of the application for fomivirsen sodium. - Published in The Lancet, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, Journal of AIDS (JAIDS), Journal of Infectious Diseases, and The AIDS Reader. As vice president, clinical research and prevention programs at amfAR and later, vice president, global initiatives, Kevin worked extensively in Asia, where he facilitated the development of amfAR’s TREAT Asia program. This network of more than 50 hospitals, community clinics, NGOs, and healthcare facilities works together with civil society in 17 countries to build the capacity necessary for scaling up treatment efforts in the region.

Becky Endicott and Jonathan McCoy join Purposely Podcast to share their founder story about ‘We Are For Good’ from Oklahoma, USA. This is a special episode for me, I am a massive fan of their podcast and their approach, and I launched Purposely at the same time - sharing similar values to them. Heading into our late-night recording I got to ask questions that I had been sitting on for over a year. We talk about the joy of a successful launch and how deciding to take the leap in the first place was ‘most definitely’ a family decision. We talk about how they decided to reject start-up capital and instead bootstrap the platform using their own time and effort as well as their own money. They have worked as consultants in their spare time to keep money coming in to cover living expenses. The good news is that their launch success will mean they can go fulltime in the New Year. The topic of burnout soon comes up with both giving a very candid and honest assessment of how difficult it is to start and grow something at the same time as prioritising other family commitments. So what is We Are For Good? It is a digital kindness community that is working to revolutionize the nonprofit industry through profound compassion, best-in-class education/training, authentic storytelling and crazy good marketing all leading to an #ImpactUprising.’ Becky and Jonathan launched in 2019, they are long time colleagues and close friends, as well as the proudest Oklahomans you will ever meet – they are also ‘American philanthropy royalty’ who really believe in the power of giving and receiving ‘collective good’. We Are For Good has big dreams to revolutionize the nonprofit industry’s professional development through online training and enhanced storytelling. Their vision is to cultivate an ‘Impact Uprising’ aiming to connect more people to philanthropy. Its podcast of the same name debuted at #1 in the USA in the nonprofit category and is frequented by nonprofit colleagues around the world How did it all start Becky? ‘I stumbled upon this graphic design intern who was in a senior year of college, which is John, and I decided to hire him, we just kind of grew up together in nonprofits! We're both ridiculous idealist and we call ourselves marketers disguised as fundraisers. We just have this optimism for the world!” ‘We just loved working together and we ended up having this amazing experience developing and running a revolutionary employee giving campaign at our health care foundation that raised over a million and really cemented our working relationship. 10 years later it's like that million dollar campaign with 1000s of employee donors all over again, except this time it is our company.’

Kirsty Green–Mann joins Purposely Podcast to share her expertise on responsible business.  Kirsty is Head of Corporate Responsibility at Burges Salmon LLP, a Bristol based independent law firm, that thanks to Kirsty’s leadership skills in the field of CSR, has recently won awards for its innovative and impactful approach to responsible business. This is a great episode for anyone involved in strategy build, Kirsty outlines some wonderful steps to ensure success.  I first met Kirsty when we were judges on a dragon’s den style panel assessing innovative and impactful community change projects, projects created and run by disadvantaged young people in Bristol. I know from this experience that Kirsty is passionate about community empowerment, more specifically helping young people to remove barriers to get on in life and be the best versions of themselves. Kirsty has worked in the corporate sector for 20 plus years with a significant amount of that time focused on sustainability and ensuring better work practices along environmental, social and governance lines. Utilising this vast array of experience Kirsty provides some wonderful insights on how to develop and implement a successful responsible business strategy in a corporate setting. You will learn a lot from Kirsty and be impressed with her ability to engage key stakeholders to make a positive difference. She is a member of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability and an associate member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment. Kirsty has responsibility for framing and driving the responsible business agenda, leading on community engagement and social mobility, addressing business and human rights all in a global context applying the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a guiding framework.

Award winning social entrepreneur Jessica Macpherson joins Purposely Podcast to share her founder story and how she swapped wine selling for life as a social entreprenuer. Jessica has now started a number of successful social enterprises and is best known as the founder of St Kilda Mums, Geelong Mums and Eureka Mums, a much-loved organisation with thousands of volunteers supporting more than 20,000 babies and children each year across Victoria, Australia. Jessica has also inspired and personally supported many other like-minded organisations across Australia and she has received several awards for her community work, including an Order of Australia Medal in 2019. She was inducted into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2017, was an award winner in the Pro Bono Australia Impact 25, and the recipient of the coveted Golden Hoodie in 2020. In April 2021 she established Blaze Your Trail she founded Blaze Your Trail was established in 2021 by Jessica Macphersons OAM, founder of St Kilda Mums, Geelong Mums and Eureka Mums. Since 2014 Jessica has personally supported more than 200 skilled migrants to secure their first job in Australia. Blaze your Trail provides practical hands-on learning opportunities, mentoring and support to find pathways to employment for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, who are also often parents trying to return to work, and people looking to change their career to technology roles. Without a level of training and support these people would most likely stay in casual and poor paying positions. Their main partner is SASS company Salesforce who Jessica talks highly of and she reminds everyone that they offer their free to small charities and enterprises. 

Cheryl Spain joined Purposely Podcast to share her story and her expertise on giving and philanthropy. Cheryl is the CEO of The Gift Trust, a New  Zealand based donor advised fund focused on helping generous and wealthy donors to give effectively and ensure better outcomes. Cheryl has spent the majority of professional career in the UK and we discuss the differences between the UK and NZ charity sectors as well as touching on her passion for community action and how her work with Groundwork, a federation of charities, impacted positively on the environment as well as the local people in Hertfordshire.  "I fell in love with the UK, fell in love with my husband, which helped as well, who was a Brit, and ended up staying over there for a very long time, having a couple of kids and then came back to New Zealand." We shine a light on what constitutes 'effective philanthropy' and Cheryl provides some insights as well as examples of how a successful donor advised fund works; "We try and connect the right donors with the right charitable organizations. On the face of it giving should be an easy task but actually once people start giving at quite a high level, people find it's not as easy as they thought it would be in the first place. We exist really to help donors to  give more effectively and have a bigger impact and as easily as possible." Cheryl also talks about the rich history of The Gift Trust; The Gift Trust has been operating since 2009 and started when a generous family who had immigrated from the USA to New Zealand were looking for an independent ‘donor-advised-fund’ in NZ and found that there wasn’t a national version here. They started a conversation with some of their  early trustees and this grew into the development of The Gift Trust. Until January 2015 they operated under the name ‘Prometheus Gift Trust’. The Gift Trust was previously an independent member of the Prometheus family which included Prometheus Finance Ltd – a specialist in social finance, providing Kiwis with ethical and sustainable savings and loan choices.  In 2014, Prometheus closed its doors, but The Gift Trust continues in its own right, now completely independently.

Welcome to episode 62 with Michelle Wright founder and CEO of Cause4 , originally a social enterprise (now a BCorp) that supports charities and philanthropists to develop and raise vital funds. Cause4 is known for its disruptive philanthropy and has so far raised over £50 million for their clients. Michelle talks about how the 2008 financial crisis provided a catalyst to starting Cause 4, 'going out on her own', 'seeing the employees of Lehman Brothers leaving their building with just their belongings', made me realise that if things were changing in the commercial world they would need to change in the charity sector as well'.  Cause 4 was up and running and quickly became the darling of the Third Sector winning awards and attracting attention. While Michelle appreciated the attention, and the work that this brought, she didn't like the fact that they weren't always able to deliver on their promises. Eventually Michelle too the brave decision to re calibrated the business and returned it to the original mission, 'work with nonprofits in a deep way and make a real difference to their work'.  Michelle trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and played the violin professionally. A chartered marketer, manager and fundraiser, Michelle founded Cause4 after leaving the London Symphony Orchestra, where her achievements in private sector fundraising led to her being judged the Best Upcoming Fundraiser at the National Fundraising Awards in 2008. Since setting up Cause4 Michelle has undertaken major strategic and business development projects, including campaign developments with a number of national charities and consultancy work for FTSE 100 brands developing their cultural sponsorship programmes. Michelle also specialises in philanthropy, having recently developed a number of major philanthropy projects for charities and corporates, and having set up new philanthropic foundations for sports stars, artists and entrepreneurs.

Bridget Williams joined Purposely Podcast to share her inspirational founder story. Bridget had the courage to leave her career as a lawyer to help solve the world’s biggest problems one colourful bead at a time! In 2019, ‘after two years of sitting on the idea and testing with friends’ Bridget launched social enterprise, Bead & Proceed, which exists to educate people about the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and inspire action towards them through creativity. Her passion for sustainability and using creativity as a tool for innovation drove her to launch the enterprise and has made her a recognised SDGs expert, assisting businesses and organisations with SDG strategic alignment and target reporting. Her efforts have been recognised and endorsed by the Rt. Hon. Helen Clark and the JCI Osaka Outstanding Young Person’s Programme. More than 5,500 participants have attended their SDG workshops or purchased Bead & Proceed Kits. Bead & Proceed has grown to offer tailored SDG workshops and ongoing SDG consulting for businesses interested in growing their impact. They work with all types of businesses from corporates to councils, universities, professional service firms, schools and other leading businesses in agriculture and tourism sectors. Bead & Proceed Kit produce kits, it is their foundational product and kick-started Bead & Proceed. The Kit caters to 7 people and serves as a creative activity to educate participants on the SDGs, each person comes away with a 5-beaded necklace, keyring or bracelet that represents the top 5 SDGs they want to work towards. While users paint and make, they ideate innovative way to achieve their chosen goals and have a tangible tool that anchors their learning. Their Kits are SDG aligned and for every Kit purchased, another is donated to a low decile school or deserving community organisation to help spread SDG awareness.

Episode 60 of Purposely Podcast with Melanie Sharma-Barrow founder of Ludo Consulting which advises individuals and companies on diversity as well as culture and strategy.   'My mission is to help people with their quality of life, mostly in the workplace, but also assisting them in their personal circumstances as well. It's also to facilitate and deliver a message about discrimination to decision makers, calling it out and making a difference to the people who are being discriminated against'. Melanie is an activist and she was introduced to Purposely by a past guest who described her as one of  the bravest people he knew. You will hear that Melanie doesn't mind hitting the headlines,  'as long as something positive comes out of if' for the people she protects and helps. Her activism is direct, she lets people and brands know where they have gone wrong and she demands action. You will hear that she deliberately stays away from online fights, citing Barack Obama for the inspiration to come off twitter and all other forms of social media, 'I don't believe in twitter activism'.   Melanie is also a writer, a guest speaker and a former lawyer born in Britain now residing in Auckland with her kiwi husband and their two children. We talk about local marketing strengths, 'New Zealand markets itself well and is not as egalitarian as it presents itself to the outside world' and we focus on her motivations for leaving the corporate world and a high flying career as a lawyer in London.  We go into her new career as a consultant/activist (and how her welsh upbringing has prepared her for this work).  Melanie takes on companies pointing out the racisim in their communications and advertising... 'most food brands and advertising was riddled with racism.' 'Companies needed to do a better job at educating themselves on the branding and imagery linked to their products'. She encourages consumers to harness the power they have to bring about change and speak up about racism. She talks about the future and what motivates her to keeping going... 'I am hopeful provided I'm able to keep doing the work I do and believing that in 20 or 30 years from now, if things aren't any better, I can turn back and say, well, at least I tried. I'm only hopeful for the future because I hope that everyone else will be hopeful for a better future for their children.' To hear more from Melanie you must check out her fortnightly column Ludology on diversity (as it happens) - 'I will be talking culture, race, gender, migration, in the work place, education, and the street.' 'I have written for the mainstream but I am frustrated with the curated approach to diversity.'

27 year old Steven Zinsli is the founder of Fintech start-up HealthNow, Steven joined Purposely to share his founder story and his vision for the future of his business. A company that combines a focus on making profit alongside purpose and social impact. You could say a new kind of company measuring success in different 'better world' ways.  Steven is incredibly focused, competitive and driven, he is also determined to improve people's health outcomes, he talks about his parents struggling to meet doctors bills when he was young and how access to credit (from the doctor) had played a key role in ensuring the family stayed healthy.  Steven is now using these traits to play active role in creating a world where healthcare is more accessible, more equitable and he is using tech to facilitate this change. He has thrown himself into the tech start-up world which he describes as challenging ... 'dog eat dog'! We also explore how an experience at school transformed his approach to work and life, from a student relying on natural intelligence to scrape through to what he has become... an overachiever hell bent on smashing every opportunity that comes his way. You will hear about his disciplined life sacrificing vices normal for most twenty somethings. Stevens early starts, long days and hours spent in the gym 'focused on his own health'. Don't worry I do push him on this.. 'surely you have some vices?...' 'do you like donuts?!' Steven started his journey in healthcare in 2016 as the first musculoskeletal podiatrist in what was a small New Zealand rehabilitation company, Physio Connect with less than 10 staff. He joined as a partner and over the next 5 years, Steven and a business partner grew the company to 108+ staff and 14 clinics seeing 4 thousand plus patients per week. This tangible experience provided Steven with an array of opportunities to... 'learn, gain scar tissue and meet some amazing people. It also gave me significant insight into customer challenges in the healthcare sector.' Earlier this year Steven secured pre-seed capital from what he describes as committed investors and partners. Steven and his team are now working tirelessly to make healthcare more accessible to the public through a Fintech solution that will move healthcare into the palm of your hand and make healthcare more accessible to more people. https://healthnow.co.nz/