The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Jason: I think that’s the place to start is asking yourself the question, what are you really passionate about? So passionate that you. give up your time and give up your talent, give up your treasure that you’d pour your heart and soul into something.
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[00:01:22] Michael: today’s topic is a how-to guide for integrating charity and business. We’re gonna discuss Jason’s organization in Zambia that currently employs over a hundred team members who assist over 20,000 children a year with food, school uniforms, and other purposeful products.
[00:01:37] Plus we’ll lay out the simple steps that anyone can follow to integrate charitable business. Giving, I should say, charitable giving into your business. So Jason, fascinating topic, I’m really, been daring, wanting to ask you all about your trip anyway. So what were you doing there in the first place?
[00:01:53] Yeah,
[00:01:53] Jason: We had a, a great time. We were, I was hosting a group from, an organization called convoy hope. They are a large organization in the Midwest and they’ve, , kicked off a feeding program with us. We’re feeding 4,850 kids. Daily hot lunches in 10 schools in a place called no bay compound, which is a very challenging, slum.
[00:02:14] You could call it in, Osaka Zambia. And, we’ve been working there since 2009 and this is our latest project that we’ve launched and we’re really excited about it. So they’re chief operating officer was on the trip. International program, senior vice president, and then their, director for Africa program work.
[00:02:32] We’re all on the trip. And we got to host them, show them our work and, cut ribbons in front of these kitchens that were built in these little schools, these really challenging schools and, meet the principals there and the community. And it was just a great time. So yeah, we had a good time.
[00:02:47] So they were there for several days and we saw our other program work as well. Our backyard gardens program, our THK. Program and then, and then they left and then I did several days of program training and workshop type stuff with our teams.
[00:03:02] Michael: wow. So extraordinary stuff. So best. The first question is, for those who don’t know you that well, they know you as an e-commerce operator, maybe they think of you as the doll closed guy.
[00:03:11] If they, depending what hook people have got for you in their mind. Yeah. I know, obviously you’ve got a big background in charity, but what took you there in the first places and the eCommerce operator? What are you doing in the middle of Zambia? Giving people.
[00:03:21] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. We started our work there in 2009.
[00:03:24] I was leading a trip I worked for in charity for 20 years professionally. I was leading a trip to Zambia to look at HIV aids program, implementation work with a was a big, push back in the two thousands. And, and I, we went on a day, excursion to a local school there. This place called no bay compound.
[00:03:44] And, I met a group of eight moms. They were trying to make beaded costume jewelry to raise money for a school that they hoped to build for their kids. They had 475 children that they just collected off the streets, including their own kids too, though, from their community. And they were, they had a community.
[00:04:01] And they really wanted a school building. They were meeting in a partially built, church. And I just, when I met them, had this incredibly strong conviction that I needed to help them. I didn’t know how to help them. I didn’t know what they needed. I didn’t know them. I didn’t know their community. I didn’t know anything about the context.
[00:04:17] At that point I had been in nonprofit management for 15 years or more, had a graduate degree in international nonprofit management. So it was the career path that I was living. And part of, and, walking and, but this was a special group and it really altered the course of our life, and we’ve worked with them since 2000.
[00:04:35] Michael: wow. Amazing. , but I guess that there is a sort of thread of your life that’s been there, consistently as part of your professional training. Yeah. And experience for a long time. Yeah. Yeah, I guess the next thing is the obvious question is, okay, so on the one hand, there’s you with all of that background and then there’s you the e-commerce operator, but how do they, two, do they just exist side by side?
[00:04:53] Do they have anything to do with each other? How does that work?
[00:04:56] Jason: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. We think they’re pretty integrated, at least in our hearts and lives. They’re. I don’t know from the customer perspective, how good we’re doing, integrating it all. But I, we take our whack at it. The reality was we were nonprofit people who couldn’t pay the bills.
[00:05:09] We were, we were like many nonprofit people. We had a heart to serve a heart to, do missional work and caring type service. But, the reality of living on the west coast is it’s just. And that was the tension. So we started selling on eBay in 2007. It was, my wife’s sort of, part-time what she could do.
[00:05:29] We have three kids, so they were in school. So she, it was a part-time side hustle deal that she could weave into to her life really more than mine. And then it turned into, eCommerce operation and a real business, a real company. Ultimately, I retired from my nine to five job on January 1st, 2014 and went full time with the business.
[00:05:47] So what we do now is we consider it a parallel structure where we have a 5 0 1 C three charity, that we run, as volunteers. It’s a, we don’t take any salary or anything like that. In fact, we’re insanely frugal. We try to have zero overhead, but then we have our eCommerce operation that funds our life.
[00:06:04] And, we, we like to dine out and we like, have a car in a house and, we’re not, we don’t, haven’t taken a vow of poverty. So we live in this weird space between. On the one hand trying to do well for the community we’re serving and the people we’re working to support and also live in the real world and, have our own needs met and that kind of thing.
[00:06:22] And so there’s attention. They’re constantly now, as it happens on the business side and the charity side, all of this is pretty much in the sewing space. So we ended up having an integration there, thematically where we have, pixie fair is. eCommerce operation. If you’re not familiar with it, you can check it out.
[00:06:40] P I X I E F a I R e.com. It’s a marketplace of about 3,500 digitally downloadable patterns, sewing patterns. And then, video training and a me, a membership course like, sewing with cinnamon is what it’s called. And then we have our charity called so powerful and, so that, and that’s got its own trajectory and its.
[00:07:02] Life. And, and, but we try our best to integrate ’em all and, and bring people into the charitable work from our eCommerce operation. We don’t really push the other way. We don’t try to bring people into our eCommerce operation from the charity. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it would seem weird and wrong anyway.
[00:07:20] But, so we, we do our best to use our business to, have an on ramp for people learning about the charity.
[00:07:28] Michael: Nice. So a lot of people listening and that would include me, have a wish to, be more what’s the word, helpful to other people, or maybe in many cases, a much stronger calling as you experienced almost visceral kind of calling experience.
[00:07:39] And I’m sure that’s not, yeah. Not unique, but it’s not easy to, actually do this stuff. Is it, so what suggest do you have for people who are really interested in making a difference, but don’t know where to get started?
[00:07:50] Jason: I think the main thing is, not to boil it down to just platitudes, but I think it’s true that in life, there really are people who are givers and people who are takers and the people who are givers have the heart to give.
[00:08:02] And so the ones who aren’t that then they won’t ever really, they might flirt with the idea of doing something charitable, but it’s really about their ego or about status or positioning. It’s, there’s some kind of kernel. Personal, self interest there, but for the ones who just say, man, I’m just brokenhearted by, whatever it is, orphan kids or the planet being, the rainforest being destroyed or like whatever topic it is, it is like just some topic that captures your heart and imagination and and energy.
[00:08:27] I think that’s I think that’s the place to start is asking yourself the question, what are you really passionate about? So passionate that you. give up your time and give up your talent, give up your treasure that you’d pour your heart and soul into something. If you could make a difference in that regard. And I think that’s, the place to start is really going back to your own reflections in your life.
[00:08:51] What’s really stood out to you. What things have you said? No, this just is, I just can’t stand this isn’t right. This can’t the in a world. Modern world, this can’t be happening. What’s like why in the world? Is there something like, whatever it is you’re thinking about, allowed to exist, that’s where it starts.
[00:09:08] I think. And getting clear on that, I think is a great first step. And sometimes that takes journaling or introspection. It takes reflecting back on times when you’ve really been, ticked off and upset about something and asking yourself the question why, what’s the. Motivation there or issue a concern that’s caught your attention,
[00:09:26] Michael: yeah, that makes sense. And, I guess for me, it kind of ties in a way with commercial life in Sofar, as that a lot of people go into product areas they don’t really care about and it’s generally a disaster. So I think, having something that really you care about, and interestingly, of course, that, Even though it was because you, as you said, this sort of profit, what do you say?
[00:09:45] Non-profit focused people who couldn’t pay the bills, but even, so what you ended up doing was very much driven by an unusual talent that’s in Manhattan, right? If not to say passion. That’s not a bad thing for everyone to reflect on anyway, even in purely commercial life, but I guess it doubly goes for charity.
[00:09:59] Cause otherwise why bother going through it? As you say, yeah, you are either gonna care enough to do it or you’re not, as you say. Yeah, what’s some practical steps then. So as a practical pre journaling and introspection sounds like a good process, but that’s not a doing step.
[00:10:12] What are the sort of next things that we need to do if you’re really gonna pursue this path?
[00:10:16] Jason: Yeah. I think it’s a really valuable step to actually do something that might feel like a little bit of a research project or, Googling around real intensively to figure out are there people doing something in response to the issue that you care.
[00:10:30] And are they doing it in a way that you feel like is a good approach to it? I mean that as soon as you start to go down that path of what’s happening, that you’re up, upset by you. You’re already articulated in your mind something called a theory of change, which is basically your response to the issue.
[00:10:50] Now you might have an uninformed theory of change. Like you might be completely. You might see something that needs to be changed and you think that you know how to change it and actually you make it worse, but what you wanna do is do really a graduate level research to say what charities exist that are operating in that space and what are their core tenants and beliefs, who’s behind them, what’s their motivation, what, how they run operationally.
[00:11:12] Can you really, see the value in their point of view and approach? To the work. And can you believe in them, are they a professional, appropriate response to the, to the issue? And if you find the, that organization, if you find a charity that you say, oh, man, these guys are just, they know what the issue is.
[00:11:30] They know how to, approach it. They’re they have outcomes that are, proven. And I just think they’re great people, then, the answer, just throw yourself into the mix with them. Find out who they are, how they operate, how you can participate. Now if you don’t find that person or that group or that charity, then you’re left with sort of the horns of a dilemma, which is, do you, do you start something yourself?
[00:11:52] And I didn’t start my own charity until I had gotten a graduate degree in international nonprofit management and had worked at a huge organization for. 16 years or yeah, 16 years. And I had volunteered at a lot of smaller charities, so I had a kind of background and point of view on things, but I wouldn’t encourage it.
[00:12:10] Somebody just start something cold. If they’ve never been involved, even if there’s an organization that you feel like maybe doesn’t have the right approach, you might be better off volunteering with them or working with them for a few years, just to understand operationally why they do things the way they do, maybe.
[00:12:24] maybe you’ll come to appreciate their point of view on things, or maybe you’ll learn what not to do and, fair enough. So
[00:12:30] Michael: mean very interesting and fascinating to hear this not topic we’ve ever really discussed before. What does strike me is, and this isn’t very popular approach in eCommerce, but it does strike me as very good advice for anyone in eCommerce or indeed trying to start their own business.
[00:12:45] It’s not a bad idea. To have some training and experience in a similar company. I’m not saying it’s a given that you have to make a rule for yourself and give yourself as it were. You have to take a driving test before you drive. But it’s not a bad idea. Frankly, a lot of the people that I know that are quite successful have worked in the industry on behalf of somebody else will partner with somebody else you had perhaps more money and more experienced before they then mention into an area on their own, which is yeah.
[00:13:08] Quite a common trait. Not amongst the eCommerce operator as a whole, that I know, but the successful ones, which is a bit of a hint, isn’t it? That the experience and training does count. Yeah. Which somehow there seems to be almost a pride that everyone takes probably cuz they’re trying to sell courses, in saying, oh, experience, doesn’t matter.
[00:13:24] Start your own thing. Yeah. Start your own thing. And I’m not saying that you have to put a rule on yourself, but I do think experience does count. And if you have experience in something. it makes sense to, pursue that area as long as it’s something that crosses the ven diagram of, I care about this.
[00:13:37] And I would say that for me personally, that feels like it makes sense in the business world, again, possibly more extreme in the charity world. Cuz if you don’t , care about it. If you don’t know about it, I guess if you sell widgets that don’t sell, it’s disappointing. Whereas if you do a lot of damage to a community somewhere it’s even more important maybe, but yeah.
[00:13:53] Yeah. Interesting.
[00:13:54] Jason: Yeah. I think that the difference is. In the business space, we’re always focused on a product for service. The question is how good product or service is it in the charity space? You’re really focused on meeting a need or addressing an issue. Again, that phrase theory of change is the kernel of the idea.
[00:14:13] It’s what, what is it that you’re trying to, alleviate. Resolve or reform or correct. There, there’s deep water there. You have to actually start to think through this stuff and really come to grips with, the fundamental approaches and, there’s a lot of slap dash haphazard work that can get done in the charity space.
[00:14:31] It’s not effective. And, the, and the worst thing to be honest is sometimes the people who do really shotty. In the charity space are really good fundraisers for story tellers, so you’ve got these two tensions in the charity space. You need to do really good work and learn what good work is in your, area, but you then also have to, figure out how to raise money for it.
[00:14:54] And, those are two. Trade skills.
[00:14:57] Michael: Yeah. And again, I guess I’m speaking with the commercial bias, not having had your charity experience that the shoddy, workmanship with great marketing is not uncommon in the commercial space. Although over time it gets found out and I’m sure the same is true with charities, but it can take a while.
[00:15:13] Jason: The difference is the, if it’s alright for me to go down that rabbit hole for a minute, the difference is in the charity space. many times people have a philosophy or an approach that they wholeheartedly believe in, but time proves is incorrect and they didn’t know it, like with a product you’re like, is this a good garlic press?
[00:15:33] I can find out in about three seconds or whatever, is it a good mattress? Gimme three or four nights to sleep on it. I’ll tell you, is it a good cheeseburger? I’ll find out after one eating. but in the charity space, people can have these very long, life cycles of really not testing, really not understanding.
[00:15:51] And then ultimately finding out that, oh, this actually is toxic or destructive, or, like whatever it is. And, that’s the sort of the difference is this short, quick response time for products. And it’s just, it is just a different system of thinking,
[00:16:04] Michael: makes sense. Two quick responses on that.
[00:16:06] One is, occasionally charity gives very quick feedback that what you’re doing is wrong. There’s a famous story that, Charles Dickens, the author was involved in a train crash in Victorian Britain. And he went around feeling Brandy to people which was seen at the time as a good idea, which, turned out to kill a few people from choking, which is not surprising to me, but, so that was a very obvious misguided attempt.
[00:16:25] Yeah. That’s rarely that big, quick feedback loop. The other one that strikes me that is that in between. Not going any further down this rabbit hole, but it does turn up in eCommerce, is people advising, giving courses, giving books, doing one to one or one to many advisory. Yeah. Where again, wrong thinking.
[00:16:40] They may wholeheartedly be sincere about it, but may take a while to throw out, throw out the results in broken businesses. And I think again, Just cuz somebody wholeheartedly believes something doesn’t mean that you should follow it. As you say, there’s gotta be the proof and that can be complex sometimes.
[00:16:54] But
[00:16:55] Jason: yeah, it is interesting there. Of course there are people who teach such things. I’ve never felt inclined to teach nonprofit issues publicly. I did teach nonprofit management as a. Adjunct professor at university, but that to me was different. It was like a classroom setting. It wasn’t like trying to market a course or anything like that.
[00:17:13] I think this is one of those things where the subjects are so unique that we might be passionate about that really your own education is required in every one of those spaces. If you’re really passionate about whatever it is, ecology or, human trafficking or, or, orphan issues or malnutrition, those are such radically.
[00:17:32] Topics and disciplines, really, it’s more a solo journey to of discovery in some ways on finding out more about what area you’re convicted or passionate about and how to respond appropriately, So
[00:17:45] Michael: anyway. Yeah, I guess maybe that’s one of the differences between business and charities that the outcome of business can be lots of different types of products.
[00:17:52] But the main thing that has in common is profit, hopefully, and cash flow and possibly building a valuable asset you can sell. Whereas for charity, as you said, the outcomes you’re looking for can be very different and personal. So one question to come back to you then to bring back to the more sort of practical questions, you’ve said, if you find a charity that you think is great, you could get behind it.
[00:18:10] And I guess that means. You’re gonna give something to it. So when you know, what forms of giving can we give, I guess cash is the obvious one, but how does it break down? Yeah.
[00:18:19] Jason: There’s a phrase that a lot of people will use in the charity space. That’s time, talent, and treasure. I think that’s a nice phrase, it kind of comprehends, different areas, so time is just volunteerism.
[00:18:29] And many organizations need volunteers. And so that’s obvious and sometimes can be hard though, in terms of a, your desire to help. Sometimes organizations don’t make it easy. They don’t have a lot of good on ramps, for volunteerism, others, do others do great jobs with that.
[00:18:45] So that’s time and, talent is. Is, bringing your skillsets to the party, as e-commerce operators, we know how to do a very special set of skills. I don’t know if it’s Liam neon from some recent movie, but there’s a meme and they like do anything. And it’s I have a very particular skill set, something like that.
[00:19:02] Michael: Yeah. I can’t remember the movie, but I’ve seen it. Yeah. It’s and we
[00:19:05] Jason: do have a very particular skill set and, so it’s not a lot of people on the planet who know how to rig up a. Sequence with email marketing and, good, stuff like that, or, run ads on, Facebook, that’s a very, small group of people who know how to do that relative to the worldwide, community of people.
[00:19:22] And so if there’s charity that you are passionate about, and they don’t have a good website or they don’t have a good email marketing, they don’t have any, social media presence or. Can you bring your talent to the party and offer to serve and not with a critique? Hey, let me critique the ways you’re not doing something, that’s not helpful.
[00:19:38] You, you wanna bring your, your, skills to the party and say, Hey, I’m happy to actually, help your, run your email marketing or, can I be on your email marketing team or whatever, stuff like that. So that’s talent. And treasure is. Is your money now there, your cash giving is valuable.
[00:19:53] For sure, there’s also lots of other treasures. You have assets that you can bring to the party. And when you start to really work hard for a charity and you really either it’s your own charity or charity really believe in, you really start to think through how many ways could I help.
[00:20:10] These people, like it’s you or whatever, but how many things can you do? And actually, as it happens, there are a good number of ways that you can help a charity, this space that we’re leasing as our business, but we’ll run it, our charity out of this space. So it’s gifted, office corporate office.
[00:20:25] We have staff members who do stuff for our charity that we pay from, for our, from our business, so they’re a defacto volunteer. For our charity, but really we’re the ones paying for their work on the business side. And there are other things, there’s assets that you wanna dispose of literal things like phones, furnishings, computers, maybe product.
[00:20:47] There are a lot of fashion retailers. Fashion’s a very obvious thing that can be used for charitable purposes. Local homeless shelter always needs clothing and, Bombas has done a really great job taking the, buy one, give one model to a healthy place. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, Michael.
[00:21:05] they support, homeless shelters. Yeah. And, so when you buy socks or underwear or whatever, from Bombas, they, it, another one goes through homeless shelter and that’s a really elegant buy one, give one model, Tom’s is a hot mess disaster that we can talk about. And I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the background of that, but Toms was a really improperly implemented theory of change and is a really interesting story.
[00:21:30] So anyway, so there are lots of ways you can help. Charities and, time talent. Treasure is a pretty good summation.
[00:21:34] Wrapup: Hey folks. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of the eCommerce leader. We’re normally aiming to make you the best eCommerce leader you can be. But today we’re talking about something a little bit broader than that, which I guess is trying to help you, bring some meaning back into your life.
[00:21:47] If for you personally That includes some kind of charitable giving or creating a charity. Now that’s quite a specialist thing for many people that may not be the thing. If it really interests you as it does me at the moment as a possibility, then welcome to the club. But if you want to go further with it, then I hope today has really shown you a more concrete example as Jason and cinnamon have been acting on which I find personally really inspiring the fact that Jason gives to charity.
[00:22:12] And this is not a small point for me. Actually brings a level of trust for me in Jason as a person. And I think that’s not a small thing in business that could be seen as a sort of business, like reason to give to charity, or it could be that it’s for you personally, a really important, fundamental part of how you.
[00:22:29] View your time on this planet and what you want to give. So a very personal thing, but I thought very interesting stuff. As ever, if you want to have this and also much more practical, how do I make money type content, then you’ll find us on a good podcast player near you, Spotify and apple being the big ones.
[00:22:48] We are available on all the big ones. Google podcast, you name. If you are able to subscribe on those channels, please do join us. There are many people who have joined us, particularly on Spotify, where we can see that data over the last few months. And of course, if you can give us a rating and a five stars on either of those platform, Spotify or apple would be really grateful last.
[00:23:08] Request would be, if you can give us an actual review in, old fashioned letters and words on apple, that would be really fantastic to help inspire us, to keep going with giving you the best content we can give you. I hope you’ve enjoyed today as a little bit of a different one. We’ll continue with the same conversation.
[00:23:25] The second half of the same conversation next show for the meantime. Thanks very much for listening to the eCommerce leader.
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