The Charity Model of The Future Needs to Start Today
We can’t fix tomorrow’s problems with yesterday’s charity model.
By Simon Doble
For decades, charities were expected to perform miracles on shoestring budgets. Facing humanity’s biggest problems on low overheads and short-term funding. It was unsustainable then. It’s unworkable now. The solution is well overdue. At SolarBuddy, we’re leveraging business principles like innovation, ecosystem thinking, unique partnerships and forming the best teams to build a model for the future.
© Simon Doble
It was like this for as long as I could remember. Charities occupying a special place in the minds of many. One where you work for the mission and not for the pay. Where goodwill is seen as enough of a motivator.
But how can we create any meaningful and significant impact in the world without attracting the best and brightest? It turns out miracles are seldom possible on shoestring budgets. And charities are tasked with nothing less than solving some of the biggest problems of our time.
And still, while other industries have been paid accordingly, a reasonable salary for the skills provided was frowned upon in the charity sector.
The business of charity should be looked upon as any other industry – working to achieve its goals by forming partnerships that create mutually beneficial outcomes for all involved. Where innovation and product development keep pace with the corporate world and push us toward improving and delivering clear social impact.
Charities and Corporations Need to Come Together
The conditions for fixing this discrepancy have never been better. The COVID-19 pandemic created the greatest shift in recent years throughout the corporate world, shifting business’ focus to not only driving bottom line results but doing so responsibly and with purpose – often referred to as the triple bottom line.
Interest in the triple bottom line and environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics was dampened with the re-election of Donald Trump into the White House in 2024. But even when green innovations are discouraged, tariffs hinder trade and corporations fear backlash over their ESG initiatives, the topics of responsibility and purpose are here to stay.
“Charities and businesses should leverage each other’s opportunities and resources and create an ecosystem rather than compete.”
One reason for that is an internal push. An overwhelming majority of today’s workforce is made up of Millennials, while Gen Z are beginning their careers. Both of these groups see purpose as critical in their job satisfaction. And as we continue seeing rising death tolls from extreme weather linked to climate change, consumers and regulators are mounting their pressure on corporations for more responsibility.
The triple bottom line offers a path forward. The corporate world needs charities just as charities need the corporate market. These two segments need to come together, think differently, form a partnership of equals, and by doing so have the ability to create unprecedented change for good.
The Four Principles of the New Charity Model
What I’m describing is a new charity business model. SolarBuddy, a charity I started in 2016 to help end energy poverty in the developing world, is based on this new model.
It’s characterized by four guiding principles:
1) Innovation
We are a charity driven by innovation. While in the corporate world, innovation is often associated with competitive advantage, we believe that a charity has the responsibility to evolve as the world evolves. Just as the markets constantly shift, needs change and new ideas shape how consumers behave, so do the needs of those that rely on charities to meet their basic needs.
Take COVID-19 as one of the more recent examples. For people living in energy poverty, their needs changed almost instantly. Over 1.4 billion people don’t have access to reliable electricity, and 2.7 billion people rely on traditional biomass for cooking. Many of these communities depend on walking to town to access clean drinking water and good sanitation. COVID-19 meant this was not a possibility for millions around the world.
So, we modified our yellow buckets, used to transport our SolarBuddy lights into remote communities. After a few tweaks like adding a couple of filters, the buckets could provide children up to 20,000 litres of clean water to drink and wash their hands with.
As adverse manifestations of climate change and extreme weather events intensify, charities need to adapt quickly. We need to be able to promptly identify new opportunities as part of this effort.
2) Ecosystem Thinking
The global challenges we stand against cannot be overcome solo. Just as with any large success, it takes a coordinated team effort. Ecosystem thinking encourages to look beyond isolated problems and understand the interconnectedness of different issues.
We believe in designing solutions that complement and enhance each other (or enhance existing solutions). Ecosystems act like a spider’s web. You can start building, but the greatest results come when you attract more spiders to that web to grow it even bigger.
This approach is in line with the World Economic Forum recommendation to build synergistic solutions that integrate social, environmental, and economic factors. According to their report, these are essential for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Fitting our solutions into an existing infrastructure and developing products that are open and collaborative are essential to resilience and adaptability in an ever-changing world. When a crisis hits or one element in the ecosystem fails, we can be confident that the people who we help won’t be left alone.
3) Partnerships
Commercial transactions drive business forward. That is true in the corporate world, and we believe charities should learn to think this way as well. We should leverage each other's opportunities and resources and create an ecosystem rather than compete. We depend on our partnerships, they amplify our impact and allow us to focus on what we do best. Our approach is built on partnerships, not patronage.
We work with NGOs in-country to complete our last-mile distribution of SolarBuddy lights, creating a mutually beneficial relationship that sees more of each dollar donated go directly to the very issue we are trying to solve. This not only keeps our overheads low (which was not our reason for this model – rather an additional benefit), but it also creates job opportunities and a source of income in countries where job security and a safe place to work are needed most.
We can only solve the issue of energy poverty by building long-lasting partnerships that benefit both parties. This has been one of the greatest successes of the SolarBuddy model to date, propelling our growth, helping us educate hundreds of thousands on the issue of energy poverty while illuminating over 1,800,000 lives across the world.
4) The Best Team in Business
We believe in building the best team in the business, to ensure we solve one of the greatest issues facing the world today and do so by paying our teams accordingly. We do not believe that those of us that want to use our skills for good, creating social and environmental impact, should be penalised financially for doing so.
By building one of the best teams in the business we are highly productive, innovative and create impact while ensuring more of each and every dollar donated reaches a child in the form of a SolarBuddy light.
The Four Principles in Action
These four principles form the basis of the new charity model and are the foundation of what we do at SolarBuddy. But the most fundamental transformation occurs when you see them interact and reinforce each other in practice.
Of late, one of our most transformational partnerships is with Airbus. After some incredible projects and our biggest in-country solar build yet in Fiji, it’s hard to believe it all started with a chat between friends. Our amazing digital manager Kenny mentioned what he does to a buddy that just happened to work in Airbus. Proves what best teams can achieve.
“FamilyBuddy can plug into the ecosystem, whether it’s used in homes to store vegetables or in clinics to keep vaccines cool.”
Deep commitment to research and innovation took this partnership to another level. Cooperation with their amazing team was extremely valuable for the development of FamilyBuddy, the world’s first solar-powered household energy hub, delivering clean cooking, cooling, lighting and device charging in one durable, off-grid-ready unit.
This device is a new chapter for SolarBuddy. One of the many firsts with it was the integration of telemetry and low-power radio links. This way, we can monitor the unit’s performance remotely and our partners can quickly react when something goes wrong.
The best part is that it’s all done using LoRa communication, a unique low-power radio link that’s perfect for off-grid deployment. This is an open ecosystem used in other tools or devices. So FamilyBuddy can plug into the ecosystem, whether it’s being used in homes to store vegetables or in clinics to keep vaccines cool.
Charities Need to be There from Day One
I believe that as of today, charities should be seen as a critical and active participant in the conversation of how we, together tackle the issues facing the world today. Rather than being criticised for their business models or brought into the conversation once the conversation is already a way down the road, they should be the ones that lead the conversations.
As a charity, we believe we cannot stand still. We must create smarter, newer innovations to keep up with the changing world and ensure we reach our goal of ending energy poverty for six million children around the world by 2030.
Recent advancements in clean tech and the proliferation of more affordable solar and battery technology in the developing world are what allows SolarBuddy to innovate. But it’s our team and our partnerships that make this work possible.
Charities, like any corporation, should be held accountable to good governance but should also be enabled and encouraged to attract the best and brightest of minds, driven to innovate and build successful business models. It’s by bringing the intention and power of the corporate world with the drive and experience of those on the front line of the world’s greatest issues that brilliance can truly happen.
So today, in a rapidly changing world, which is far more about communities and relationships and far less about transactions, my hope is that we look at charities as a critical part of the ideation process when we look at how together we can change the world.
- SI
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