JustGiving’s CEO, Zarine Kharas, on ‘The New Business of Business’.
‘Values’ are a tricky business these days – easy to talk about, much harder to practice. Thanks to a very unusual group of investors, we’ve been fortunate to be allowed to do things our own, more ethical and sustainable, way.
It all comes down to a very simple idea: that a company does not exist only to make money. We believe, and our investors believe too, that a company exists to serve all its constituents (customers, employees, the local community and shareholders) in a balanced way.
This is why we’ve been able to reinvest our profits in to the business, in order to create the most innovative and robust fundraising platform for the benefit of charities. Nearly ten years on, our investors have yet to get a penny back.
We love what we do, but equally important to us is how we do things. Everyone at JustGiving is a co-owner of the business and acts as such. There is no bonus scheme. We have a flat structure, no organisational chart and no rules. Instead, we work in teams to get the job done.
You won’t often find our CEO, Zarine Kharas, at conferences on ethical business or similar talking shops, so when she was awarded the Albert Medal from the Royal Society of Arts ‘for democratising fundraising and technology for charities’, we thought we’d better tape her lecture because it pretty much sums up what we are all about. If you have ten minutes to spare, have a watch – and if you have a comment afterwards, feel free to post it here.