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Chris leads eBay's social impact work, focusing on the role of e-commerce in driving positive social change and empowering economic opportunity across disadvantaged and marginalized communities.
Chris Gale discusses how businesses can drive positive social change by leading with genuine care and integrating social impact into core business strategies.
Key Takeaways
- Businesses must integrate social impact with the same intensity as their core operations to create real change.
- Vocational training is crucial for economic empowerment but often undervalued compared to higher education.
- Authentic community engagement is essential for sustainable development and social impact initiatives.
- Purpose-driven businesses can grow faster and have a meaningful impact on society and the environment.
- International development efforts should focus on long-term, locally relevant solutions rather than short-term interventions.
Summary
- Chris Gale leads eBay's social impact initiatives focusing on e-commerce's role in empowering marginalized communities.
- He has extensive experience working in education and vocational training in India, Ghana, and South Africa.
- Chris emphasizes the challenge and importance of balancing strong business performance with genuine social and environmental impact.
- He shares insights on authentic community engagement through sustainable tourism and vocational training.
- Chris reflects on the pitfalls of traditional international development approaches and the need for meaningful, long-term impact.
- He highlights the stigma around vocational training and advocates for its recognition as a viable career path.
- Chris discusses working with purpose-driven companies like Ben & Jerry's and Marks & Spencer on social mission strategies.
- He explores the potential of business to be a force for positive change addressing poverty alleviation and environmental issues.
- Chris talks about the importance of leadership energy and commitment in driving social impact within businesses.
- The conversation includes examples of social enterprises and innovative business models that prioritize people and planet.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Chris Gale and eBay's Social Impact Work
- 02:38Balancing Business Performance with Social Impact
- 04:46Authentic Community Engagement in Sustainable Tourism
- 06:51Early Career Experiences in India and Vocational Training
- 08:52Challenges and Reflections on International Development
- 12:32Business as a Driver for Poverty Alleviation and Social Change
- 19:05Purpose-Driven Business Growth and Leadership Energy
- 25:20Innovative Social Enterprises and Future Outlook
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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With a deep passion, understanding, and commitment to social and environmental issues, working across both the NGO and business sectors, Chris believes that business has the potential to be a force for positive change in the world to make a real difference to the lives of the
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people and the planet. Now, prior to joining eBay in 2020, Chris spent seven years on issues surrounding education and skills development in Ghana, India, and in South Africa. He then transferred into working more closely on how business can drive social impact,
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spending time at Marks and Spencer, and our favorite ice cream place, Ben & Jerry's, where he led their social mission strategy in Europe, focusing on refugee and asylum rights. So, you're going to enjoy our chat and learn yet
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again how leaders and business can really be a force for positive change in this world. Okay. So, please enjoy my chat with Chris. Chris, it's so great to see you again. Thanks for taking time to chat with me today. I really appreciate
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it. Thanks very much for having me on, Rob. So, I'd like to start with a quote and it goes like this. If you're going to create real impact, it has to be done with the same focus and level of intent,
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of intensity as your business. And that's a quote from Scott Tatleman. He's the co-founder of State Bags. And this is a company that supports American children and families in need in ways they need it most where they give support for every bag purchased. And so I'm just curious what comes to your mind when you hear about, you hear those words and you hear about a business doing that kind of work.
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I think we put such emphasis on business performance and an intensity that goes into what does it mean to be a business? What does it mean to be a business person? And at the same time, you've got these
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businesses out there that would label themselves as social enterprises or fair trade businesses or whatever you want to call it that are having to do that. They're having to be great businesses and at the same time
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they exist to do something else in the world. They exist to deliver on a social impact or an environmental impact and do that as well as they're doing the other part of their business. I mean that's pretty hard. There's
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some out there that are doing that, doing great stuff. We're working with someone at eBay I can talk a little bit about later, but that's what comes to mind is that that is an intense job trying to run a business and drive an
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impact in the world at the same time. Yeah, I hadn't thought about it that way until I read that quote in preparation for our conversation and it really kind of hit me in a different way. So yeah, the first thing that came
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to my mind is I wonder what Chris would say about that. So thank you for that.
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But I want to talk a little bit about your background and some time that you spent in India and South Africa and I'm just wondering would you share what you were up to in those countries while you were there?
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Yeah. So a few years back when I started my career I was working for an organization that did research and sort of small-scale development projects around vocational training skills development. So I spent a lot
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of time in India, a lot of time in Ghana, a little bit of time in South Africa and it was really around how do you improve the sort of policy around but also more so the practice around delivering vocational training. So as an
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example, I did quite a lot of work in rural India. Amazing place. Would love to be spending more time there now. And working with small-scale smallholder farmers, female smallholder farmers particularly around
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how do you develop good agricultural training and what does that look like for women's co-ops basically in rural India and just fascinating stuff trying to understand the sort of governance behind some of those
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groups from the village level up to the wider sort of state level and what does that mean when you're trying to get people to take on new agricultural practices and things like this. So that was a lot of
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what I did was around that. Did some work around pro-poor tourism as well and how do you develop hotels and hospitality that is really about, you know, going into local areas.
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Everyone is more and more looking for that sort of authentic experience when they go on holiday, I think. How do you do that in a way that engages the local community, hires from the local community, and you can say,
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you know, in a place like India, you can say, "Oh, we're recruiting locally," but you might be recruiting from 2,000 miles away from a college rather than the small village in which that hotel has come to make its money.
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Lots of stuff around that and other areas around construction and things like this but primarily around how do you work with marginalized communities primarily and help them to develop good training.
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What is vocational training? So vocational training would be anything from plumbing to carpentry to agricultural. So, anything where there's a trade involved, but it's got a real spectrum. And traditionally, I don't know if it'd be the same in the
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US, but traditionally in a place like the UK, vocational training would be sort of the poor cousin in many ways to higher education and university and college. But there's been a big push in recent years to try
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and change that and for many reasons that we need many more people going into vocational training. So some of what we did was around a stigma around vocational training as well and seeing it as a viable
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pathway with progression pathways as well. Do you have a success story or a story that sticks out in your mind about your time there?
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It's a good question. So a lot of what we did was around research.
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I've got an odd story if that is a helpful one. I remember I was 21, 22, so pretty fresh out of university college and desperate just to get because we were based in the UK but just desperate to get out to India and spend some time working on the projects and I remember there was a new initiative that we started out about
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15 or 18 hours outside of Delhi and it came in and who wants to go? We've got to represent, it's a new initiative, there's a sort of conference going on opening the program and everyone was like, "Not for me, thanks."
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And I was like, "I'm desperate. I'm going. I'm going." So, I remember flying out there, getting straight off the plane into a taxi, 18 hours in the taxi.
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Got there, couldn't sleep. Woke up in the morning on stage, 1,500 people as a 22-year-old. I was like, I have absolutely no idea what I should be doing here. Did this sort of speech
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about the program, straight back in the taxi, 18, 20 hours back to Delhi and then flew home and I thought, okay, there's something in this that's rather odd. I can see why no one wanted to put their hand up for it but also
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there's an element of is this needed? Like, do you need it? And I think that's sort of moved into some of the way I think about some of this work in the future is, you know, back then, international development work as you saw it was quite often about people flying in, showing their face, and flying out and that's just ridiculous. So yeah, not any particular insight there but a bit of an insight
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for a young 21-year-old trying to find his way in industry. Yeah, I feel like at 21 maybe you can make that happen but at my age n
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there's an element of is this needed like do you need and I think that's sort of moved into some of the way I think about some of this work in the in the future is you know back then sort of
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development work as international development work as you saw it was quite often about that people flying in showing their face and flying out and that's just ridiculous. Um so yeah not not not not any any any particular insight there but a bit of an insight
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for a young 21-year-old trying to find his way in in industry. Yeah I feel like at at 21 maybe you can make that happen but at my age no way.
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I'd never be able to do that. Me neither. I'd be I'd be asleep for a week after it. You mentioned that uh you loved your time there and I'm just curious what what was it about the rural areas in India that uh you have such
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fondness for? It's a good question. I I think anyone that's been to India there and it's a cliche is you you know you get off the plane and and everything is different.
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You know the smell is different everything visually is different. There's so much going on. There's this sort of buzz that happens in India that you don't get elsewhere. And when you get out of the cities and you get into
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into rural areas, it's it's it's it's quite a different place and the way of life is much slower. There's a level of interest in intrigue that that that people obviously have in in you and and what are you doing there? And I don't
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know, there's just I would if I could, I would move to rural India and and set up life there and and would be very happy.
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I think I'm not sure I could do it to the two young kids we've got right now, but um I just love being around people in in in India and um the sort of compassion and and interest that that
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that people have is is I don't know striking more so than maybe anywhere else I've ever been.
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Just curious, a thought came to my mind as you speak so fondly about it. when you see the challenges that they that they're experiencing uh currently uh what do you think about you you know what what do you think about with with
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what's happening over there and how they come together as a society I think um it's first and foremost it's it's it's really sad and it's not just in India where where co is is is running rampant obviously but I think there was
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there was a lot of um there was a lot of talk in the UK UK about probably 10 or 15 years ago, probably 10 years ago around development aid going to India given the you know the scale of the
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Indian economy and you know got a space program and these sorts of things but the reality is you've got hundreds of millions of people in India that are living um below the poverty line and if you've been to any um uh slum around around a
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city in India you can see the living conditions. Um so I think you know first and foremost there's there's other sadness there but there's also a there's a lack of uh understanding I think of the reality of of of of some of the
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situation in India and there's things the Indian government obviously of you know maybe not prioritizing their investments in in in the right way and that's a different discussion but um you know with the with the uh level of
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vaccine inequality in the world as well this is you know I hope that some of our leaders uh in in in in the west start to recognize that we're all in this together. We've talked about that a lot
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over the last 12 or 18 months. Um and you know until we make sure that everyone has access to that vaccine, I don't know if we're going to come out the other side in the way that we all
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want to. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. So you and I met through a mutual friend and a past podcast guest, Tom Ripen, who is founder and CEO of OnPurpose. And it just so happens that you went through
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the onpurpose program I believe 2013 2014. Yeah, it sounds about right. Yeah. Uh can you share with us how that program impacted your thinking in business and in the world and how you go about your work?
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Yeah, it's a it's a big question, Rob. Um so I start maybe with a bit of a background as to how I found On Purpose.
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um because I think everyone that joins it has a bit of a different journey. So as I mentioned before I'd spent sort of six seven six seven years working in um in the development space in research and was writing a lot around how businesses
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should change and businesses should do this and if they're going to train their staff in a certain way or um integrate um certain things in their supply chain they should change in this way and that way at a time I was like never worked in
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a business. Uh so I'm making all these recommendations but perhaps I should uh spend some time in one of these businesses that I thought about.
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Um so I spent a lot of time sort of under exploring you know what does that look like? How do I make that move? um looking at supply chain jobs in in large corporates but but to to what extent
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people wanted people who have got a supply chain background and my interest then was really about how business could drive development and and how business could um sort of address poverty alleviation. So I spent a lot of time
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looking around and just by accident found on purpose which for many people at that time had been the people that join the program and the program is um you spend two two stints at different um different social enterprises or social
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purpose businesses of six months each and do training around that. A lot of people that found their way to the program were coming more from a sort of corporate career. So they they often ex lawyers ex-conultants um that were looking to do to use their
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skills in a more sort of socially impactful way. Whereas I was going slightly the other way that I I'd work more in the NGO space and was looking at how can I make that link into working within a business. Um and so found my
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way on the program and really for me was this moment of like right I need to know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life right now. Uh and and and as many people that have been through that
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process, that's not a particularly energizing space to be in if I'm honest with you. Um but the but the the the program I spent six months initially at Ben & Jerry's and six months at a at a UK retailer called Markx and Spencer,
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which has got a a fairly strong sustainability um program and has done for for a long time. Um and and and really for me it was a voyage of sort of exploration and discovery which was you know what do I
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want to do but what sort of environment do I like what sort of business do I want to work in do I want to work in a business do I want to go back to the NGO world and um particularly through the
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time that I spent at Ben & Jerry's was okay there's very different ways that that businesses can drive uh impact because Ben and Jerry's wasn't about um uh you know supply chain really there was an element of that but it was really
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around how do you use this reach that you've got as a business to engage your fan base in a social justice issue. And I thought, wow, this is this is interesting. You know, can you do campaigning as an ice cream company?
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Maybe we talk about that a little bit a little bit later. But um so for me it was it was that it was like what sort of environment do I like? What sort of teams do I like? Not necessarily like
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what's the exact type of work I want to do forever. And really the outcome for me from the 12 months was you're never going to get that. you're never gonna know this is exactly the thing I want to do forever. And it's you
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know fairly obvious for many people I think but for me I was like wow okay it's about the journey there is no destination and and look for what's the next thing how you going to build um your level of understanding and
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awareness in this space for with the next move and the move after that rather than planning everything out it was how you make the most of what's happening right now that what I got out of it can you share more you talked about
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maybe we can talk about that a little bit later with Ben and Jerry's but let's talk about it Now, um, you know, how are they making an impact in the world through their ice cream selling and we all love Ben & Jerry's, let's face it.
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Great brand, great product. Um, like I loved my time at Ben and Jerry's. Um, and so Ben and Jerry's model was really, you've got all these people that love cookie dough. How do you talk to them about something that matters? Like
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that's it. That was that was the model. Um and so uh so my job was was really around um heading that up around Europe and uh Ben and Jerry's is pretty big globally but around Europe we we were
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significant of significant size in about seven seven countries and um we actually had activism managers and still do in those seven countries which is really weird for an ice cream company but quite cool I think. Um and so the model was
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exactly that which is you know we can get a message to a more mainstream audience than an NGO can. That that that's it really. Um and so all of our focus while I was there and it continues to be so for the Ben & Jerry's in Europe
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is around refugee rights and and asylum rights. It's all about displacement. Um and that was partly because everything was going on. I was there in 2015. We started to build the strategy then. that was going on in the world then with um
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what people called the climate crisis in in Europe, but also things around Brexit and and I believe you had some political change at that time as well in the US.
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Um and so there was a lot going on in the world and um and and and lots of people talking about um displacement, but we also knew that that was going to that was going to stop and there wasn't
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many businesses also talking about this issue. And many of the many of the NOS's around Europe are pretty pretty small, have a have a you know a core membership but don't necessarily get that message out more broadly. And that was the whole
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idea of of Benagarius was to try and get that message out more more more widely.
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And you know sometimes we did a good job of it and sometimes we didn't because it was it's hard like it's really hard to get the framing of those messages right and you've only got people in social media for a short period of time and
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they're okay ice cream talking about refugee rights. what on earth is going on? And there's a level of awareness you've got to start to build that maybe you don't have quite so much in the US where people maybe know the story of
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Benjer's a bit more and and and get the idea of business playing in this space which I don't think you get so much in Europe. Um I think it's growing. Um but but but certainly not from a sort of
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activist business mentality I don't think back then. Um so yeah that that that was the model. you know, we went to the first global refugee forum with with with with Ben and Jerry um at the UN in in Geneva um just before I left. So that
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was mean in 2019, I think. And you know, we were there launching an ice cream about um refugee rights, which is incredibly weird, but but the reaction you get was it's just like great that you we've got businesses talking about
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this stuff. And if it engages one other person in this issue, that's a good that's a good thing as long as you're not doing it to sell more stuff. But the reality is you do you do drive loyalty
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from from from that without doubt, I think. Um so yeah. great time. I spent some time with Ben and Jerry. Really interesting characters. And you know, they're out there doing their thing, trying to challenge money and politics in the US and and and other things. And
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that's what you want that's what you want to see from from leadership. Yeah. I was curious because they're owned by Unilver, which is a much larger conglomerate. How do they how did they remain autonomous and be able to go, you
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know, and be focused on this purpose? I don't maybe Unilver has a similar purpose. I'm not I didn't check into that. I probably should have but um if they don't how did how were they able to continue in that way?
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That's the question we used to get all the time actually because the acquisition was back in 2001 2002 so it's been you know 20 years plus. Um and what they did and and people sort of study the the acquisition agreement in
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detail is that Ben and Jerry's retained a um an independent board of directors that that that that looks after the social mission of the company. So there was a an economic mission, make money and make money for our suppliers, a
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product mission, make nice ice cream and a social mission which was to basically have a positive impact on the world. and the and the board of directors can hold Unilver to account on exactly on that social mission which I don't think
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they've had to do in in many ways because they've retained um a level of independence from Unilver stayed in Vermont uh kept the head office in Vermont even in in in the European office was outside of a sort of
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Unoliever environment in in the UK as well. Um so I think they you know there was a Ben & Jerry CEO as well that's still there. So I think they sort of retained this idea of go and do your
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your stuff and and put in place the governance to ensure that that happened and you know what can we learn from that and you know if anything goes wrong well it's still Benjo is still slightly on the periphery then I think in some ways
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but I think the model's worked really well and Jo has thrived in that time I think unilver as a business also has um through the previous co and the current CEO um has really led with the idea of
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sustainable business and and and purposeful business And there's a unilver stat that gets rolled out quite a lot actually, which is, you know, their purpose-led businesses or purpose-led brands uh grew 2 point something times faster than the ones
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that wouldn't label themselves as as sort of purposeled over a period of time. So, sort of seen as a bit of a poster child for sustainable business.
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And if they can do it with the scale that they've got, then I think, you know, other do.
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Do you have a favorite flavor? Favorite Ben and Jerry's flavor? What is it? Uh, I had two cherry garcia and and chunky monkey. Mainly because we don't get it a lot in the UK. If you go to go
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to the shop to get it, you can't buy it in in a supermarket. That's great. Was there any ever any discussion about your favorite a person's favorite flavor and what it means about their personality?
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No, but we did have um uh we had to have our own aka. So I was I was the coneer which had no relevance at all uh and and feels a bit egotistical but um uh yeah you know little subtle things like that
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make make a business and make a brand and get everyone to buy. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well, so now you're currently head of social impact at eBay and you're leading what's called eBay for change and I'm curious you if
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you could talk a little bit about what that means and what it means for a company like eBay to be focused on uh social impact.
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Yeah. So um eBay has this uh global purpose around economic opportunity for all and that is you know that is a big that is a big goal. Um and and I think um if you've got a if you've got
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a goal like that you've got to be quite proactive around how are you going to do something to change to change the world and what you know what is wrong in the world for you to need to change it. Um,
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and so my focus is in the UK, but but but we've obviously got a broader global arena as well. But for us it was how do we take that big goal and and and drill it down to something that we is
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manageable for us and that works for us in the UK. And so sort of took that and said, okay, what does it mean for us?
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Well, actually it's around economic opportunity for marginalized communities. So this focus on marginalization and then how do we use our business to take action, do stuff uh uh uh but also to be an advocate for change. So take a take a position on
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what's not working in the world and that's really a deviation from where eBay has been in the past and there's more to do there and then really rooting that work in a in in the need for a more
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inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy which again they are all very big words. Um so then what does that really mean for us? I think there's sort of two ways into that. One is you could take the Ben & Jerry's approach which is
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we're going to focus on working with one particular marginalized community. we're going to build up a level of knowledge and understanding within that movement and within the NOS's that that that drive that movement which is which is one option but actually within eBay and
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eBay's got this um like which is what appealed to me actually about eBay is it has this focus of being for everyone and there's very few businesses like that and so it didn't really feel like we there was a natural reason why we would
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pick one community over another and so for us it was really what are those what are those business models and and approaches to doing business that are inclusive by design so that targeting um economic opportunity for marginalized communities for the very reason for
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their existence basically and that's how we ended up with we should really be about supporting the growth of the and the and mainstreaming of the social enterprise movement and the fair trade.
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These are models that are proven have been around for a long time but haven't necessarily in many ways broken into into the mainstream. there's still your dedicated platform that would that that you go to when you're thinking about I want to buy
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a a gift for example that that that that is very clearly for people on planet so that people will go to those marketplaces but it feels like what we can offer um is bringing their products to a more sort of mainstream audience
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and so what it looks like really is it has two two parts to it one is um we're working with social enterprise UK so it's a membership body for for social enterprises in the UK and the world fair
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trade organization, same thing but for fair trade businesses and globally. Um to bring some of their members and initially it's it's relatively small.
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We're working with sort of 55 uh businesses to to begin with to provide them with a package of support to get them to improve um or or learn how to utilize eBay in in in the best way. So
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that's a training program that lasts for for sort of four months, zero fees, they don't pay anything when they're on the platform. um and and and probably the most useful thing a big push on the marketing side to try and drive
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awareness of these businesses within the platform. So that's one side and the other side is more of an investment into um into the the ecosystem. So it's a startup program uh again working with a partner called unlimited in the UK that
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um is trying to support uh earlier stage social enterprises to develop their e-commerce business. And the idea is they'll sort of graduate from that onto the onto the hub and onto the platform.
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But you know we're really early stage. We launched it in June. Um and this is new for eBay. We've got lots of learning to to to to to do before we you know go big. How do you envision it looking say
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like five years from now or something like that? Yeah, I think um I think we don't know yet is the honest is the honest answer. I think what we what we hope is that um two things really. One is that you know eBay will
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be the the largest marketplace for social enterprises in the e-commerce world. That that's very clearly a goal for us. And the second is how do we grow outside of this space and be a platform for different approaches to doing to doing business
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that have people and planet at their at their heart. You know, there's lots around the circular economy. There's things outside of that in in in in other sort of alternative economic models that maybe we could be the platform to to
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mainstream some of that, but that's very much personally that's the goal. and and but but as a business we're focused on how do we get this right and how do we make sure that it works for the for the
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businesses that are coming onto the platform because you know there's a reason they haven't found their way onto eBay up to now and that we're we're pushing them. So how do we make sure that there's the consumer demand there?
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How do we make sure that we're supporting them in the right way? How do we make sure there's that interaction between the the network of social enterprises that that they need? Because again back to where we started from.
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These are businesses that are trying to drive a great business and drive impact. Um and you know running a an e-commerce business is quite different to running a you know maybe a high street retail business where you might your impact
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model might be employing certain people that are distant from the labor market. Training them up to work in that that retail environment and then moving them on to a to a future job. Whereas in e-commerce it's more about logistics
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than fulfillment. and what does that mean and how does that change the way you think about your impact model in your business. So these are all the things that are sort of at play and that's why you know we don't know yet
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where we'll get to but that's all we're aiming for. Do you have any good stories of businesses that you've worked with so far that are encouraging or interesting that you might be able to share?
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Yeah, I mean every every business I say we're sort of starting small with with 55, but every business is completely different which you you would imagine they've got a different impact model.
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They're working on different things, but there's a few that I could sort of um share which would give you a bit of an insight into what um what some of these businesses look like. So there's one business called Change Please that
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started in um basically started in the streets of London working with people that are experiencing homelessness. Um and and was training them up to be um baristas. Uh so would get a a London living wage job. um get the training and
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the skills to sort of uh to sell coffee and obviously during during COVID that's been and then they donate percentage of large percent of their their profits to homelessness organizations as well.
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Obviously during COVID lots of those uh uh uh coffee locations have not been uh well frequented or had to close down.
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Um, and so they've looked at how do they pivot their their business to focus more on uh ground coffee and coffee beans and and and you know that that's that's part of that interesting dynamic around what does that mean for your your core part
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of your your model. How do you work with others and and and how do you bring that that impact into what you're doing as you sort of expand into this space. So I think they're they're a really interesting um example. There's another
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called From Babies with Love that that that sells uh organic baby clothing and donates 100% of its profits to abandon and orphan children around the world.
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And there's there's there's many more that that that that you know similar stories um and just basically start from an entrepreneur with a a passion for that issue.
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So for for example the the babies with love, they they donate 100% of their profits. So explain to me the difference between a nonprofit and a profitbased company that donates all their profits.
Speaker A
So it's a very gray area. There's no question. But I think um what what's at the heart of a of a social enterprise is that you you you you exist as a business. So you your your the way that
Speaker A
you bring in your revenue is through a business business model rather than grant making and then you reinvest that back into your impact model. So that might be the same for some nonprofits.
Speaker A
Yeah. Um but we've got in for example in the UK we've got different legal structures um that exist that would that was so we've got thing called a community interest company which means you exist to to to drive that particular
Speaker A
impact and it's it's built into your articles of association as a company in comparison to maybe a a charity which is regulated by the charity commission in a slightly different way.
Speaker A
That makes sense. I wonder if it's like a BC Corp here in the United States.
Speaker A
It would be slightly different. So, we we get that question quite a lot because as a BC Corp, yes, you you you uh and big fan of the BOP movement. Ben and Jerry was a BP when I was there. Um but
Speaker A
as a BC Corp, you um you have to you you do your scorecard, you come out at a certain level and you you you continuously improve. But I think what's um slightly different with a social enterprise is that as a BOP, you can
Speaker A
tone up and tone down your impact depending on how you're doing as a business. Whereas social enterprise, you can't. You exist to deliver on that social environmental impact. And so if you're if you're making money and not investing into that, you're not
Speaker A
fulfilling your your your your articles of association and the reason for you being which makes it particularly tough.
Speaker A
Uh I would say so. And then the other the coffee business, coffee for change is it was that change please. Yeah.
Speaker A
Change please. So they they had retail locations that couldn't be open during COVID. So they sort of pivoted and started uh selling their coffee online through the eBay social change platform, social impact platform.
Speaker A
Yeah. And and and other and other channels as well. Yeah. Exactly. They're relatively newly into eBay but but exactly they pivoted to do that and then we'll donate I can't remember exactly but the percentage of their profits back
Speaker A
into uh homelessness initiatives um really interesting founder loads of energy and that's what you find I bet founders is just loads of energy so I'm wondering before we close our conversation here today do you believe in your heart of hearts that business
Speaker A
can become a force for positive change in the world it's It's a great question, Rob. And um it's actually one that I I I I um I think about a lot actually because I think uh I I do believe in it, but it's very much
Speaker A
driven by um the personalities and the people within those businesses, whether it's whether it's a marketing ploy and it's or or whether it's actually embedded into who you are and what you want to be as a business. And I think um
Speaker A
there's two ways of approaching this work. One is you can start with what do our consumers want to hear and how do I shape a message to to the things that they're interested in and the other one is you can start with what's the change
Speaker A
that I want to make in the world and then end with how do I engage my audiences in that and I think any business that does it in the first way you're never going to drive any change in the world truly because you're always
Speaker A
going to be reactive to the needs of your consumers or the things that they're interested in that day whereas if you start with this is the thing that we truly want to change in the world we're happy to play our role in whatever
Speaker A
small way that is and be part of a broader movement that's trying to drive that change, then I truly believe that that you can and you can do that, you know, while making money and because you you need to make money as a business to
Speaker A
survive. But I think everyone's on a bit of a journey as to where they they sit within that that that balance. And I think it then comes down to have we got the right people within those businesses driving that that are willing to hold
Speaker A
firm on this is the change we're trying to make and and using that checks and balances when you get questions back which inevitably which inev inevitably come.
Speaker A
It's great. Thank you to eBay for creating a program around this and they're fortunate to have a leader like yourself uh to help move it forward into the future and I'm excited to see how it uh transpires. There will be a link in
Speaker A
the show notes so you can go to the eBay page for social impact and people can check that out and um keep us posted along the way. I know we'll be paying close attention to everything that you're doing.
Speaker A
We'll do really appreciate it, Rob. Thank you for Thank you for having me. Absolutely. And thank you to all the loyal listeners out there. As always, I greatly appreciate you spending time with us today. And I wish you all much
Speaker A
love and gratitude. [Music]
Topics:Chris Galesocial impacte-commercevocational trainingsustainable businesssocial enterpriseeconomic empowermentcommunity engagementcorporate social responsibilitypurpose-driven business
