How to combine community and contribution into the business model
Have you heard my recent podcast interview with Johanna de Burka on “Building contribution into the business model”?
There is no doubt that the conversations we have with others expand our horizons and provide opportunities that highlight ways we can contribute to the lives of others in the community, near and far.
Like many Aussies and Kiwis Johanna de Burka, headed to London for a working holiday in her early 20’s and ended up there for 7 years. She used it as a base for travelling. As she moved beyond the sights and beaches in Europe to more remote places across Africa and Asia for the first time it exposed her to widespread poverty,
She shared with me that “ This made me extremely uncomfortable to witness first-hand that our level of opportunity was largely determined by where we happened to have been born, something that none of us can control. These experiences made me leave my job in central London and I decided to use the skills I’d developed in the corporate sector to see if I could make an impact in the lives of people living in poverty.”
Her first stop was a remote hilltop community in rural Nicaragua where she volunteered as a project leader for months leading a team of volunteers to deliver a gravity-fed water system so the community would have access to clean water. She also travelled to Northern India to run workshops with a local charity around behaviour change, taking lessons from her career in marketing and changing consumer behaviours to see how they could apply to changing behaviours of traditional communities to improve their life expectancy and quality of life.
The example she shared with me was “Women choosing to give birth with health professionals on hand as opposed to just family members to reduce maternal mortality rates”.
Let me share more of her story and responses to my questions with you, here-
What impact did those experiences have on you and what problems did you identify?
I think the years I spent in London travelling for work and pleasure, although I had an awesome time, left me quite disillusioned. Travelling to places like Monaco on the French Riviera famous for its lavish wealth and then visiting slum communities housing thousands of people struggling just to put food on the table. I could see this wasn’t because people didn’t care, so many people I knew contributed to charity or volunteered to help but the current systems were clearly not working. Despite billions spent on aid there was still over a billion people still in poverty. It felt very overwhelming. When I was in central America and India and trying to bring my skills in order to “help” I really just learnt how much I didn’t know! I couldn’t speak the language, I didn’t understand the culture and having never lived in poverty myself I didn’t understand the context. Don’t get me wrong, these were incredible experiences for my own personal growth but I don’t feel like I achieved my initial goal of leaving a positive impact.
What were the problems you identified ?
I think there are a few problems. People who care about global poverty don’t know where to start to help because it is so overwhelming. I think there’s people like me who were never really sure if they donated to a big charity whether it would really reach the people and projects that needed it on the ground. At the other end of the problem is local people who have the skills, relationships and ability to create sustainable change in their communities but don’t have the money to bring their solutions to life.
How did Just Peoples come about?
I started Just Peoples with a childhood friend Christey who spent nearly ten years living, working and volunteering with local charities across Asia. After my experiences in India and Central America we swapped stories about the incredible local people we had met along the way who were really driving change in the communities we visited while we were busy playing the bumbling foreigners, trying to help and making cultural gaffes at every turn! It struck us that if money was placed directly in the hands of these local people to implement change they could really scale up their work to reach more people in their communities. So Just Peoples was born and we began to tell the stories of these local heroes to see if people in Australia and NZ would be keen to fund their work One of the first human stories we told on Just Peoples was about a Cambodian teacher called Morn who offered free education and school lunches to children growing up in the slums of Siem Reap. And we shared what Morn needed to provide education and meals to another whole class of kids for a year. It was about $1000 Australian dollars. 5 years ago today, a school teacher from NZ, Jodine, became our first fundraiser and raised the $1,000 Morn needed to change the trajectory of 30 Cambodian children’s lives. Since then Just People has become a bit like a global dating service that has successfully matched nearly 100 couples. We match people in Australia and NZ, like Jodine, with the same passions and values as people across Africa and Asia, like Morn, who are creating grassroots change in their community.
Why do you think businesses are looking to support projects such as the ones you provide?
We have been getting more and more interest from small to medium sized businesses who are looking for a way to contribute. Generally it starts with the founder or owner of the business making a personal decision that they want to make a contribution to the world. They see building goals of contribution into their business model as a great way to do this and to ensure they leave a legacy through their business, not just of improving the lives of their customers or clients but having a global impact too. And it really is a win-win as they are able to grow their brand and have their business be known for the contribution they make is really appealing and a great way to attract socially minded customers and clients too. Some of the businesses we work with even engage their employees or customers in choosing which project to support too which is a really cool way that they can bring their community on the journey to make their contribution.
How do you manage the relationships and expectations of all the parties?
That’s a great question Kerryn. It is certainly one of the most interesting parts of our jobs as we’re dealing with people all around the world with completely different cultures and expectations. I guess we’ve found the key is to establish really informal and easy ways to communicate with our project leaders and supporters . So for example rather than expecting lengthy emails and reports from our project leaders which are required by larger NGOs for example we would prefer that our project leaders were out in the field doing what they do best. FOr most of them English is their second language so writing reports can actually be a fulltime job and very cumbersome. So instead we establish close relationships and trust with our project leaders so they feel comfortable sending us whatsapp videos, calls and messages from the field with updates on what they’re working on and little personalised videos for their donors so they can see the impact that their donation has had first hand. We make it our business to go above and beyond what our donors expect when they make a contribution, we want to provide them a really special giving experience.
What have been some of the challenges?
Like many business owners I think our biggest challenge was in March this year when Covid really started to take off. The communities where we work were especially vulnerable as many were forced into government lockdowns to prevent the spread. Many of the people we serve live hand to mouth and stopping working means not having enough to eat. There were also no government supports available. Fortunately we have a trusted base of project leaders on the ground who knew what needed to be done and came to us with solutions to support their communities. Rather than telling their stories and waiting for funds to come in we sent out funds in advance as the need was urgent. We’ve then been working to raise the funds retrospectively. This is not the normal way we work and we were nervous about losing our supporters too as its tough times for everyone but we’ve really been blown away at the support we’ve received,
What have been some of the positive consequences?
We always set out with our mission to reach as many people living in poverty as possible with solutions. We have now reached nearly 84,000 people through nearly 100 projects which we’re incredibly proud of and excited by. But I guess one of the really beautiful things that we didn’t really consider when we started has actually been meeting and engaging with all of the people in Australia and New Zealand who have contributed to make these projects happen. So we’ve now had over 1,000 people join the fight against global poverty by donating or fundraising through Just Peoples. And its really special because we get to meet these people when they are being the best versions of themselves, looking at the ways they can give back to the world . We get so much energy and inspiration from our supporters and all the creative and selfless ways they make their contribution.
What does the future look like for Just Peoples ?
We have a goal to reach one million people living in poverty over the next 5 years. To do that we will need to scale up our operations and recruit more local leaders with a track record of addressing poverty in their communities to design and deliver our projects. We are also excited about growing our presence here in Australia and partnering with more individuals and small business owners with goals of contribution to make these projects happen from a financial point of view.
How can people find out more about you and connect with you?
You can always check out our website at justpeoples.org to learn more and we really love to hop on a call and explore with people if there’s a way we can help them meet their goals of contribution. If anyone is keen to chat with me just head over to justpeoples.org/call and book in a 25 minute zoom.
I invite you to “meet” Johanna online as you watch our interview on youtube HERE
Hello, for those of you I have not met, my name is Kerryn Powell. I am a connection strategist, conversation starter and network catalyst who thrives on building communities and creating the right connections for those seeking strategic allies to make a positive impact through connection, contribution and community.
My experience has equipped me with skills and knowledge to work with, encourage, support and empower business owners, professionals , teams and individuals to create true connection through authentic conversations that build real relationships, boost confidence and generate business and opportunities.
The relationships you build all start from the conversations you have. Would you like some help to access those genuine relationships? Book a discovery call today and let’s start a conversation