Craig Pollard [00:00:03]:
Welcome back to a new episode of the Fundraising Radicals podcast. I'm your host, Craig Pollard. Our exploration of global fundraising continues today with Jermaine Craig, the founder of Kwanda, a funding platform that connects members of the African diaspora based in the UK and North America with grassroots projects in Africa that they can fund and support beyond cash. Now this isn't about charity in the traditional sense. In fact, it's a practical and authentic challenge to the status quo. Kwanda was set up to support entrepreneurs in Africa who are responding thoughtfully to the daily frictions in their lives. Germane's view is that traditional funders and non profits neither understand nor trust Africans to build and scale solutions to their problems, so they're not equipped to support these local entrepreneurs. This is where Kwanda comes in, investing in entrepreneurs in Africa and telling the stories of their impact.
Craig Pollard [00:01:02]:
Now I've been following the growth of Kwanda for a while now, and I'm really excited to be joined by Jermaine Craig today. Welcome to the Fundraising Radicals podcast, Jermaine Craig.
Jermaine Craig [00:01:16]:
Thank you. It's good to be here. I'm excited to chat.
Craig Pollard [00:01:19]:
So tell me tell us about Kwanda, about why it exists, and what is your vision for Kwanda, but also as a vehicle for for your and other people's social impact?
Jermaine Craig [00:01:34]:
Yeah. So Kwanda is a platform that brings people together to pool or combine their donations to fund grassroots projects across Africa. And the reason why it exists is because, one, we believe top down aid is broken and more capital donation should go into bottom up solutions. But secondly, I feel strongly that the donor has been neglected as a part of the process for quite some time. And, you know, organizations typically just look at donors as, hey. That's a source of cash. But, actually, increasingly, donors have expectations of what the giving experience should look like. You know, they want transparency.
Jermaine Craig [00:02:17]:
They want to be able to talk to a CEO or the team. They want to be able to have a say in how their donations are used. And so at Kwanda, we really focus on, as well as the impact that can be had, through investment in grassroots solutions. We also focus on the the metric we have internally is creating an excellent donor experience. And so in terms of of the vision, really, 1, we want to be leaders in in creating an excellent donor experience. And, ultimately and what we've learned is that donors want to be involved in some way or the other. So the long term vision really is to we we obviously have a community of donors that donate regularly. So the long term vision is to not only connect these grassroots solutions with the donations, which is the typical approach, but also in the future, actually connect them with the donors themselves.
Jermaine Craig [00:03:11]:
And so, for example, we might have some doctors in our community who make a donation every month but also can help in other ways, like with their expertise. And so the long term solution is to really combine these grassroots solutions and organizations, not only with capital, but also the actual expertise we have in our community.
Craig Pollard [00:03:29]:
It's kinda like a a crowdfunding platform sort of slightly upside down and sort of a bit more broad in terms of your definition of the value that donors can bring to your projects as well.
Jermaine Craig [00:03:43]:
Yeah. It's it's it's really about looking beyond beyond just money. And it this really comes from the model that currently exists, specifically with African and Caribbean immigrant families and how they relate to, Africa or the Caribbean, which is that, hey. I've come to the west, whether that's the US, Australia, New Zealand, UK. I can definitely send back some money, but, also, I'm learning a lot here. Like, typically, they've come to the west for for educational reasons, and, actually, that that that knowledge might be a bit more impactful. So it's really borrowing from that, sensibility and, like, bringing it to, like you said, a a crowd forming platform. So you're exporting more than just the cash, but also the knowledge.
Craig Pollard [00:04:33]:
And how many how many people do you have? And are they are they all based in the UK? Are they are they all African? What what what's your sort of your community of donors? Look. What does it look like?
Jermaine Craig [00:04:44]:
Yeah. So currently, we have, I think, about 459 donors in the community. Some are based in the UK. About? Yeah. Because this is I've been it's like changing all the time updating.
Craig Pollard [00:04:58]:
I love how specific. I love I love how specific. I love how you know exactly how many donors you have. That's great.
Jermaine Craig [00:05:04]:
Yeah. I mean, I check every day, like, just to see, you know, every 10 minutes probably, see see who joined, etcetera. And, of course, and we might talk about this later, we expose a lot of these metrics. So on our website, there is a counter that shows you how many donors you have. And so to respond to your question, some of these donors are based in the UK, largely based in the UK, and that's just a function of where we've raised awareness about what we're doing. Some are based in the US, and, typically, they are of African or Caribbean descent. We do have people of all different heritage, to be honest. We chose to target people of African or Caribbean descent just because, we wanted a niche, that we can focus on and grow through.
Jermaine Craig [00:05:48]:
We wanted it to be very much like, hey. I understand why this exists. This is something I'm familiar with, and now we're just basically making a platform from it. So, yeah, really everyone from everywhere.
Craig Pollard [00:06:01]:
And it's I guess it's always about finding initially starting with people who who share your worldview, who are, I guess, experiencing the same problem that you're facing and that offering them the same solution that you've built. Right?
Jermaine Craig [00:06:17]:
Yeah. Precisely. And it was a function of the community that I'm a part of in that. When I initially had this idea and I went out to speak to people about it, I noticed the pattern in people of African and Caribbean descent, which was I don't give charitably because I don't trust the large charities. I don't know where my money is going. And one thing that was quite interesting was I don't trust how the beneficiaries will be portrayed.
Craig Pollard [00:06:51]:
Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:06:51]:
And I don't wanna contribute to a narrative that I'm not aligned with or I don't believe is correct. And so I thought, okay. This is, like, quite an interesting problem to solve here because this is a whole cohort of people who don't donate or give charitably and don't see themselves doing that in the current environment. And so there needs to be something that's created that's more aligned with their with their worldview, and my own, to be honest. So yeah.
Craig Pollard [00:07:18]:
That's that's really interesting.
Craig Pollard [00:07:20]:
We can definitely get into that in a bit. Where did this come from? Was it your own sort of personal frustration? What what what sort of hole does it fill for you, I guess, the project?
Jermaine Craig [00:07:31]:
Yeah. The so there are a few different streams in, I'd say. One was a personal frustration I had around visibility into charities and nonprofits. So I like, I'm very passionate about child trafficking as a problem. And, you know, there was a moment where I was just like, hey. What can I do to help her? And, you know, child trafficking isn't one of those things you could just say, you can just raise your hand and say, hey. I wanna help out with this. You know? And so I was like I felt I felt quite stuck.
Jermaine Craig [00:08:03]:
I was like, you know, this is something that I don't want to see happen in the world. How can I contribute? And, you know, all I had was money to to to contribute. And so I found a few charities, and I decided to make donations to like, recurring donations to about 3 different charities. And, you know, that happened, didn't really hear anything. I got added to a mailing list, I think. And a few months later, I saw, like, something on maybe one of my social media timelines. And I experienced that same emotion again, which was, child trafficking. Like, why does this happen? How can I help? And I kind of forgot that I'd already been donating to a to some charities, and I'd already kind of solved, in a sense, this this problem for myself.
Jermaine Craig [00:08:49]:
And so I, like, searched through my inbox, to kind of get an update, and I couldn't really, like, tangibly get a sense of what had happened, how this this issue had progressed longer than I thought. You know, there needs to be a a better way to bring people closer to the impact that's having and remove that, like, opacity almost. And so that was a big motivator for me to create a platform which allows charitable givers in a month or 2 to be able to say, actually, here is how my money's been used, and I feel comfortable to just go off and continue working knowing that I'm making an impact. So that was one of the big motivators. And I do think, especially, amongst, like, people of African Caribbean descent, there has been a history of people coming together, contributing money, and then the thing not working out, whether that was a fraud or just financial mismanagement. So there is that issue, and I thought, hey. We need a platform that kind of strikes out that possibility.
Craig Pollard [00:09:52]:
I mean, your platform is super open. Like, every single financial transaction is there on your website.
Jermaine Craig [00:10:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. So Well, that's It's interesting.
Craig Pollard [00:10:05]:
That's that's amazing. You know? I was like, wow. Okay. You can Yeah. You can see all your all all of your subscriptions, all of the the like, just the it's it I I was really blown I I was really blown away. I really like it. Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:10:18]:
I'm glad you do. Yeah. That's, that's probably one of the most compelling elements of of our platform to people. So to kind of describe what we do to the audience, we're entirely financially transparent. And the the reason for that is we want our donors at any given moment to be able to say, hey. This is how the money is being used. This is how much money is available. This is how much money this nonprofit spends.
Jermaine Craig [00:10:46]:
And so everything from the amount of cash we have in the bank currently, the amount of monthly donations we receive, our monthly fixed costs are updated. I think it's now 6 times a day at different intervals through the day, so live updated or as close to live as you can get. And then on a more granular level, we actually have something that we call a village ledger. And so this is what you mentioned is basically on line by line financial transactions, and everything's there from even, like, if we were to have a 1 pound or dollar go out just for a active card check or something like that. It's all there. Initially, we were manually updating this ledger and basically trying to tidy it up and combine stuff, and we figured, you know, that ultimately wouldn't be scalable. And so let's just give everyone the raw data, and it might be a bit to wade through, but it's pretty much precise and exact. And so the way that actually works is we just connect it to our bookkeeping API.
Jermaine Craig [00:11:49]:
And so you're essentially just seeing our bookkeeping. Yeah. And I guess the useful thing about that is you have to do your bookkeeping legally so you get all that data visible.
Craig Pollard [00:12:00]:
But it it's interesting that you you talked about sort of the community of African Caribbean heritage having sort of being more mistrustful of organizations, both INGOs, but also organizations that have been set up within their communities. And and that that transparency comes as a result of that. Could do you think African Caribbean communities tend to be a tougher audience for this sort of, for for charities, for for this sort of donating? And and why is that? Is it the the connection? Is it the the authenticity? Is it the feedback loops from communities in Africa and, and and other places there? What is that?
Jermaine Craig [00:12:39]:
So I think it's a function of history, the times. Because I I actually think it's quite the opposite. African and Caribbean communities are very trusting and historically have been willing to, like, put in and contribute even if it hasn't worked out. And it's always like, alright. We'll try again. This time it'll work. This time it'll work. This time it'll work.
Craig Pollard [00:13:03]:
Mhmm.
Jermaine Craig [00:13:03]:
And so, naturally, that has developed some mistrust because there are a lot of examples people can point back to and say, hey. You know, we had this before, and it didn't quite work out for one reason or the other. And so, yeah, there like like you mentioned, there's definitely an element of, like, mistrust for sure. The fortunate thing is if you're able to get over that, people are very willing to give, and there's quite an incentive to give because there's a bunch of people that are almost holding back and, like, I really wanna give. I have a lot to give. There is just, like, this blocker, and the blocker in in this case is typically the lack of transparency. But the the good thing about that is once you get over that, you don't have to really do much to convince, and then people are very willing to give.
Craig Pollard [00:13:52]:
It's really interesting. And and that and I guess the the the mistrust of sort of traditional charities with their sort of imagery, as you said, the sort of how beneficiaries are portrayed and and that not wanting to contribute in that narrative. It feels like there's a huge, huge potential market for for what you're trying to do that it just isn't being served by other organizations.
Jermaine Craig [00:14:22]:
Yeah. It's interesting because it's also very easy to to fix that problem. An example is, you know, we do some really small things around our language and our messaging that you would think people won't notice, but I've had countless people, you know, come to me and say, hey. What I love about Kwanda is you don't really call people like, hey. Here are the people we're helping, or here are the beneficiaries that get it's it's kinda like here are the entrepreneurs or the local innovators we invested in. And just simple things like that. And and I think the reason it's easy for us to think that way is because we're able to more easily empathize. You know, I lived in Nigeria, for example.
Jermaine Craig [00:15:08]:
And when I lived there, I saw myself still as an entrepreneur. And so if someone from the Nigerian diaspora was saw something interesting that I was doing and said, hey. I wanna help out. I see them as, hey. You're just you're helping out an entrepreneur. I'm not, like, a like, this isn't a charity case or anything. Like, I'm an entrepreneur living in Nigeria, and you've seen this amazing idea that I'm working on, and you're investing in it. That's really just what's happening.
Jermaine Craig [00:15:37]:
And so the framing is really important. It's something that we're we we keep top of mind for sure. And then, like, of course, images as well. Like, you know, we just do raw imagery. It's kinda like the type of image you take on your phone of of something happening. Yeah. And sometimes it's it's as easy as that. Unfortunately, like, we're moving into a place where, you know, a lot of content is very much like UGC user user generated or is very raw and real, and so you can get a real picture of what things actually look like.
Jermaine Craig [00:16:07]:
And more more than than often, it's not like an African kid, like, starving. It's just like normal people just building building stuff.
Craig Pollard [00:16:16]:
But isn't that part of the is is that a key part of the narrative that you're building? And and isn't it you know, you you talk about investing in entrepreneurs and innovators. Isn't that just about respect that these communities and countries haven't been shown by other charities, INGOs, etcetera?
Jermaine Craig [00:16:39]:
Yeah. Definitely. I think it's and more than just respect, it's just the reality. It's just what is. And so, yeah, if you kind of take a marketing lens of things and you're just like, hey. How can I accurately communicate what's happening? Naturally, you know, you you talk about, things in these ways. And so it's actually easy to do, and and the the the more complicated thing is to, like, imbue these these, like, false narratives on on on reality.
Craig Pollard [00:17:14]:
Yeah. That that constant spin, what what you're offering is just that is is a sort of clear window rather than anything sort of overlaid to anyone's intentions or yeah. It's yeah. I, you know, I think it's a stunning it's a stunning project. So I I was I was reading something a few days ago about private capital flows between, to into Africa, 70% of which are remittances
Jermaine Craig [00:17:38]:
Yep.
Craig Pollard [00:17:39]:
From individuals. Right? And 20%, I think is overseas development assistance, and 10% is donations and sort of philanthropy and international NGOs. How do you fit within that massive market and and and that of this sort of remittances and people contributing to their own family members, etcetera.
Craig Pollard [00:18:02]:
What, what's different about what you offer?
Jermaine Craig [00:18:05]:
So I'd actually say it's not very different. And there is a trend. I don't have the data for it, but I'm noticing it as a younger African that we're trying to stop by replacing. And so a a good way to think about it is the members at Kwanda are actually replacing that remittance flow, and I'll explain why that is. So my mum, dad, they were born in Nigeria and Ghana, and they came to the UK. And it's just a given that they're gonna send money back, and that typically is the case with the the generation before me. Like, it it's a given. It's it will be odd if you didn't.
Jermaine Craig [00:18:54]:
It would be like you don't have anyone back home to send money to. And and they account for this 70% remittance flow that you just discussed. Right? And and the reason the flow is so that that percentage is so big is because it's a given just like eating is. It's just something that happens. So imagine every single African or Caribbean in the west has that built in. And so one of the issues as we as a newer generation comes about is we don't actually have that same connection or sense that this is something we have to do.
Craig Pollard [00:19:31]:
Okay.
Jermaine Craig [00:19:32]:
And so that remittance flow is actually at risk. Yet younger Africans and Caribbeans like myself still feel like we wanna give back, but we don't have a vehicle for doing so. Like, I wouldn't know who to send the money back to. I would send the money to my mum, and then she might decide to send it to someone.
Craig Pollard [00:19:51]:
Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:19:52]:
And so that Remington's flow is actually at risk as we as a new generation of Africans come online. And so what we're actually doing is trying to keep that alive by saying, hey. We understand that younger Africans and Caribbeans have this similar appetite to give back, but don't actually have a contact on the other end to to send money back to you. And so we need to basically design new systems and platforms to recreate that. So, yeah, I I would say we're actually more like the remittance flow than the philanthropy flow actually if you if you use that frame.
Craig Pollard [00:20:23]:
And and and about sort of hedging and building that remittance and sustaining that remittance flow as well, I guess, in some ways and and and handing that on.
Jermaine Craig [00:20:31]:
Yeah.
Craig Pollard [00:20:32]:
So you you have your donors in in the UK, in, North America, etcetera. How do you connect with projects and people, in Africa, and how do you sort of evaluate them? How do you how how do you do that side of the community piece?
Jermaine Craig [00:20:49]:
Yeah. So we have a a few ways. 22 main ways. You know, when we initially launched, we just didn't have the capacity to do any sort of rigorous due diligence. We didn't have the ability to fly out to all of these different countries and do that sort of thing. So we leveraged a platform. I think it's called Global Giving. I'm not sure if that's the exact name.
Craig Pollard [00:21:11]:
Yeah. No. That is. Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:21:12]:
Okay. You know about Global Giving. Yeah. And we learned that they actually do pretty rigorous due diligence on all the organizations that end up on the platform. So initially, we actually just proactively reached out to organizations on global giving that really did work, that was aligned with the type of work we wanted to fund. And so that way, we could bypass the due diligence stage by leveraging off the work Global Giving does. And then what we did is we just done a test pilot project. So we would say, hey.
Jermaine Craig [00:21:42]:
Look. We'll give you a £1,000. These are this is how we report stuff back to our members. We don't do, like, end of year reports, but could would you be willing to join a WhatsApp group with me and just, like, share photos as they come up? And we do that pilot project that will last a few weeks, and that would be our our qualifier to say, okay. This is a good relationship. Let's build upon this. And so that's the main way that we we connect with these projects. And we're slowly building up the capacity to do our own due diligence.
Jermaine Craig [00:22:12]:
And so the second way that's coming online now is our actual members typically are people that are already involved in a nonprofit space and run grassroots organizations themselves. So they'd say, hey. You know, I've joined Kwanda. I love what you're doing. It's very much aligned with the work I'm doing. Could we talk about doing a project together? And separately, our members also act as scouts. So someone might say, hey. Actually, you know, my auntie's in Uganda, and she knows this bishop.
Jermaine Craig [00:22:41]:
She runs an orphanage.
Craig Pollard [00:22:42]:
Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:22:43]:
I can get her to find out some more information, then we do, like, a pilot project again. So we're largely relying on the proactive reaching out, but over time, we want to shift to, you know, member or we call our members villagers, villager suggestions and recommendations.
Craig Pollard [00:23:00]:
That feels really organic and and sort of going through that network is in itself, I guess, sort of building the trust and do part of the due diligence process as well. Right?
Jermaine Craig [00:23:12]:
Yeah. A 100%. And it's yeah. Because there's also a there's a, I forget the word, like a social qualifier almost to it.
Craig Pollard [00:23:20]:
Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:23:21]:
It's like, hey. This project, entrepreneur, organization has been validated by a community of people, and that's, like, what we can where we can build the trust from. So definitely and and it's also amazing for, you know, our members to see that sort of thing happening and to feel like, hey. I suggested this idea and, you know, the company actually or the organization actually took it up and followed up and done the due diligence. And now there's a platform on the project, and that that's because of me.
Craig Pollard [00:23:52]:
And then, you you know, that initial donation and then the transparency, and I guess that's all about just building these partnerships, and that's part of the the scaling as well. Right? As as these tiny projects maybe grow and who knows what they're gonna turn into in the future. It's kind of exciting. Right? You're seeding lots and lots of projects.
Jermaine Craig [00:24:11]:
Yeah. Exactly. It's like, it's it's really catalyzing these these projects from these are projects that have a lot of room to grow and scale because they're typically, like, quite sustainable and circular in nature.
Craig Pollard [00:24:26]:
Can you give me an example?
Jermaine Craig [00:24:28]:
So an example is we funded a project in Kenya, and the project was titled, you know, delivering health education and 200 sustainable metro kits to girls in Kenya. And so the typical approach would be, hey. We're gonna buy a bunch of products in the west. We're gonna ship it over. They're disposable. And, you know, once that's done, you kind of have to just buy a bunch of products again. And what we did actually is we hired some local seamstresses in Kenya. I think there was 5 of them.
Jermaine Craig [00:25:03]:
And they actually got to know these girls and were able to sew, like, menstrual kits that are reusable and specific to the girls. And so we basically paid them as employees to sew these kits, and then it was distributed to all the girls. And there was also an organization called KenyaConnect who we partner with who carried out workshops in the local community to raise awareness about the issue. And so what happened is these girls got reusable kits that they could use for up to 3 years, which was amazing. The products were produced locally, so there weren't any exports or anything like that. And then because of the educational workshops, the word got out about what was happening and and how these girls were benefiting from the products. And, actually, a lot of the parents, mothers were like, hey. We want these products as well.
Jermaine Craig [00:25:54]:
Girls from other villages and schools were like, hey. We want these products as well. And so those seamstress essentially banded together and said, hey. Let's start a business where we just throw these kits and, like, distribute them to the girls. And so we haven't invested in that particular project in a year or so now, but it's still it's sustaining. It's still running and, like . . .
Craig Pollard [00:26:14]:
That's amazing.
Jermaine Craig [00:26:14]:
. . . the one thing we'd love to do is obviously say, hey. We wanna invest in more capital in this. Also, we have, you know, a Fortune 500 CEO in our community or some researchers. How can we help you actually take this to market? And the other thing that was interesting is the the women essentially reached out to us and said, hey. You know, we wanna make a business for this. How can we help? And we we need a logo. And I was like, okay. Cool.
Jermaine Craig [00:26:39]:
We have a bunch of designers in our community. Yeah. And they basically came up with some branding logo, and and so it's that kind of
Craig Pollard [00:26:45]:
Awesome.
Jermaine Craig [00:26:46]:
And that's what I say when I mean circular. And then a positive side effect was, you know, some of the women actually made enough money to send their daughters to university as a result, a woman called Penina. And so it's kind of like you know, it's this small solution you catalyze, but it has all of these positive side effects and also the sustainable element. So, yeah, that's a that's a one of my favorite examples, and there are, of course, more.
Craig Pollard [00:27:09]:
And is that because it is? Like, it's not coming from the outside. It's coming from within the community. It's focused within the community and engaging people and not seeing people as beneficiaries, but people you know, opportunities and just that it feels just feels a lot more natural than
Jermaine Craig [00:27:27]:
Yeah.
Craig Pollard [00:27:27]:
Shipping in.
Jermaine Craig [00:27:28]:
Yeah. Certainly. I mean, ultimately, if you're taking lead from people in the community, They're already designing the solution that works with or without you. So it has to be sustainable for them. And then what we're saying is, hey. Well, you've actually noticed you're marching in this direction anyway. Can we help you get there quicker by providing some capital? And so one thing that's important for us is we don't, like, fund projects that haven't been established. So we fund projects that have already been established.
Jermaine Craig [00:28:02]:
They're already marching towards an end, and we're just saying, hey. Let's, like, help you catalyze this thing. So it's it's happening with or without us, just probably slowly, and, like, what we can do is add some speed to that process.
Fundraising Radicals [00:28:18]:
If you're enjoying this conversation and would like to hear other global perspectives on fundraising and leadership in the nonprofit sector, then please do subscribe using the links in the show notes. If you wanna find out more about our work, please do visit our website, www.fundraisingradicals.com. Now, back to the conversation.
Craig Pollard [00:28:41]:
What's what's your day job, Jermaine?
Jermaine Craig [00:28:43]:
So my day job is as a product designer. So I work as a product designer for M&S in in the UK. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that.
Craig Pollard [00:28:53]:
Marks and Spencers. Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:28:54]:
Yeah. Marks and Spencers. And I I worked there as a freelancer, and I also am pretty good automating internal processes. So just making things move quicker generally. So I also do that for series a start ups every now and then.
Craig Pollard [00:29:10]:
Okay. Because I know I I read somewhere that you're kind of obsessed with the automation stuff, right, as a Yeah. As a sort of way as as a necessary way to scale and make and, you know, keep it efficient. Can you tell me about some of the automations and and how how you bring automations in, but also keep that user experience, that sort of member experience that you talked about?
Jermaine Craig [00:29:32]:
Yeah. So the the utility of automation actually is so that the more human elements of Kwanda, for example, we can maintain as as as human elements. And so a lot of the automation helps internal processes. So I can give you an example of how I think about automation and and the particular automation we have. So when we first started, you know, the process in Kwanda is the process of writing a proposal about a potential project we want to fund, doing that proposal to our members, and then having them vote on that proposal. Now the way that typically happens was, you know, I'd have to I jump on a call with a partner or potential partner. I'd learn a bit about the the project that they're working on. I take notes, then I'd spend a couple, an hour or 2 writing up a proposal, and then I would, you know, manually post it to our website and set up a vote, etcetera.
Jermaine Craig [00:30:33]:
And what I would do is I'd actually time that process, just to get an idea of how long it takes. And this is important because
Craig Pollard [00:30:39]:
And how how long did it take you then to do that from end to end?
Jermaine Craig [00:30:42]:
I'd say, like, 2 to 3 hours.
Craig Pollard [00:30:45]:
Okay.
Jermaine Craig [00:30:46]:
So 2 to 3 hours. Fortunately, this was only happening 2 or 3 times a month. Okay. And so I I time it to get a sense of of how long it'll take. And this is important because if you stack up all of these different processes, it's I need to understand, hey. Is this a scalable thing? Like, what if we go to 5 projects?
Craig Pollard [00:31:04]:
Mhmm.
Jermaine Craig [00:31:05]:
And so now what we've actually done is and and I would break up these different parts of the process and say, hey. This part takes time. It's what can I do to make this a 20 minute process? What can I do to make this a 10 minute process? And so now that specific process that I outlined takes about 10 to 15 minutes. And so this is how it works today is I'd jump on a call with the partner, and this would be actually an informal chat because I won't really want to I don't need to get all the project details in that call. And then I'd send them, Airtable form. And the the form is structured in a way that when we use this to generate a proposal, it's kinda like the the what, the why, the who, the how, the impact, etcetera. I'd send them that form. They fill it in, and then this automatically goes to ChatGPT.
Craig Pollard [00:31:56]:
Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:31:56]:
And the prompt with ChatGPT is, hey. Here are 5 proposals I've written in the past. Can you use the information that the partner supplied to generate, a proposal? And it's pretty tight now. Like, it's better than anything I could have done for myself. Yeah. And so that happens in space of a minute. Yeah. And then, you know, there's also another prompt on ChatGPT that basically generates all the social media posts to say, like, hey.
Jermaine Craig [00:32:21]:
We're voting on a new proposal. Here's a summary, etcetera. And then that automatically goes to our website, and I get to review it. And if I click publish, an email goes out to our members to say there's a proposal to vote on. Also, all the social media posts are triggered. And so now we have this process whereby I talk to the partner, generate a proposal, we start voting on it, and it posts and alerts you all our social media profiles in the space of 10 to 15 minutes. And so that's an example of of, like, really and I think that could go to 5 minutes. Like, there's still I have a backlog of ways I can, you know, shorten even the different components of that process.
Jermaine Craig [00:33:02]:
And I'm and that's, like, for me, that's just fun. Like, I do that. Yeah. You know, that's just that's just a a challenge I like. And I'm always like
Craig Pollard [00:33:10]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:33:11]:
Hey. This is, like, version 1.2 of the, chat we have with our partners. What could 1.5 look like? 1.6 look like?
Craig Pollard [00:33:21]:
Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:33:21]:
And so everything's constantly in a state of of improvement.
Craig Pollard [00:33:24]:
But that's, you know, it's key to scaling. So if you're because you're you you have quite a, a, a big ambition Yeah. In terms of the volume of of funding you hope to reach. Can you tell me a bit about that? Because scaling and efficiency is key to that.
Jermaine Craig [00:33:41]:
Yeah. A 100%. And so one thing just I'll quickly talk about one of the benefits of the efficiencies we've built in is that it and collaboration comes into this as well, but it doesn't add any additional complexity for us to launch a project in a new country, which is not typical. Okay. Yeah. And so we can very easily cover the whole African continent, for example, and it would be just as easy as doing multiple projects in one country. So that's that's one of the benefits, and we want to scale in that direction, so that's important. And then when we talk about the actual ambitions, so our first real milestone, I would say, is getting to a £1,000,000, dollars, euros a year in capital that we can invest in these projects.
Jermaine Craig [00:34:33]:
And that would require us to have, I think, it's about £85,000 a month. And that would, of course, require us to be to have all our systems super scalable. And so back in the days when we were very manual, the process of having a vote that 10,000 people voted on was a bit hard to do for sure. Now we have, you know, all of these systems in place. We could do that very easily. And then we could you know, when you look at the direction AI is going in, one thing I'm thinking about is, you know, we could easily just transcribe, create voice overs, and translate all our proposals so people can actually ingest them a bit more easily, across the different countries, different languages we want to scale into. And so, yeah, the the the ambition really requires that. And so our our first real milestone is that 1,000,000 figure I mentioned, and I think that puts us firmly on the playing field.
Jermaine Craig [00:35:28]:
And then from there, we should be able to do some really cool and ambitious stuff.
Craig Pollard [00:35:33]:
Yeah. Because it sounds like that will not be the end.
Jermaine Craig [00:35:37]:
It feels like sort of the next step.
Craig Pollard [00:35:37]:
Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:35:37]:
I think that that would be the start.
Craig Pollard [00:35:39]:
Yeah. And and what's your sort of how long how long do you think it's gonna take you to get to that point?
Jermaine Craig [00:35:44]:
So this number is actually shrinking as we improve. I now think 2 to 3 years. Okay. Yeah. I now think 2 to 3 years. And the reason for that is so one thing is and I'm I'm not sure. I I think you you you know about this, but we initially launched 4 years ago. We ran for 2 years, and then we closed down, and then we relaunched.
Craig Pollard [00:36:07]:
I I yeah. What what happened? What why why did you I I did a bit of stalking on your
Jermaine Craig [00:36:13]:
Yeah.
Craig Pollard [00:36:13]:
X account. And and, you know, I saw I saw the letter about you closing Kwanda down. And and, you know, I mean, being a a social entrepreneur, which is, I guess, I don't know how you label yourself, is a roller coaster. Right?
Jermaine Craig [00:36:24]:
Oh, yeah. For sure.
Craig Pollard [00:36:25]:
And there are massive ops, massive downs, massive crashes along the way. Daily. Tell me a bit about, you know, the about the highs and lows, but why why you decided to close it? And then I I saw, you know, even just a couple of months ago that how this puzzle perfectly fits with with what you wanna do and and, you know, this is your where your your future is. So tell me some more on that.
Jermaine Craig [00:36:49]:
Yeah. Sure. So we launched initially 4 years ago, and we really like, I I I launched it as an experiment. I was like, hey. I know people want to give. I know that there is something that can happen in the bottom up funding space, but I'm really focused on getting people to give charitably. And I don't know exactly where we'll end up in terms of what we fund. Maybe we just fund education.
Jermaine Craig [00:37:14]:
I'm I'm not gonna, like, prescribe what that is so early on. We're gonna just try a bunch of different things. And so we launched, and it was a very tight knit community, which gave me the leeway to just try stuff out and make mistakes. And so month 1, month 2 was pretty good. We were doing different things. Like, we might do business grants. We might pay for therapy for people. It was just a snapshot of of ideas, and we'll basically see what people resonated with.
Jermaine Craig [00:37:39]:
And then in the summer of 2020, about 2 or 3 months after we launched, George Floyd died. And if you remember that time, you know, the whole world erupted and people were looking for ways to support black communities. And around that time, we had about 200, members, And we were also, like, we were transparent as we are today. And so our names came up quite a lot as, like, hey. Look. If you want to support, this is the organization to support. They're fully transparent. Look at all the great work they've done in the short time they've been around.
Jermaine Craig [00:38:11]:
And so our members went from 200 to just over 2,000 in the space of a week. And so a few things happened. One is I realized I wasn't that great of a software engineer because things started falling apart on the website. And the second thing is, you know, all of the sudden, people were asking questions about what exactly we are, and we needed and and they were expecting the answer, like, we do this. We're focused on this country. We only invest in this, and this is our 5 year plan and our 10 year plan. And we were just like, we're just a bunch of people who are trying to figure this thing out at the moment. And so, you know, we were worried that if we didn't come up with those answers, people would just leave.
Jermaine Craig [00:38:58]:
And so, internally, we we were like, okay. We need to decide what we are, like, really quick in the first few months. We need to, like, put a flag in the ground. And so we essentially built in a bunch of infrastructure to support all of these people that have joined, and that was quite expensive. Like, we were fixing stuff as they were breaking. We had to, like, hire a team. And so our monthly cost ballooned to, like, I think it was $7 a month that we needed to, like, maintain the infrastructure, payroll, etcetera. And we actually survived that year or 2 and and came out pretty much on top, but very much burnout.
Jermaine Craig [00:39:36]:
In that period of time, we deployed, I think, over a 100,000 into different projects, and these were projects in Africa or in the UK, made donations into North America. Like, this was we were doing we were saying yes to everything, essentially, and managing it. So it was a testament to how scalable we were, but it was a really, like, hard period. And what actually happened after those 2 years or one and a half years is people, I guess, lost the appetite for supporting and started dropping off, like, pretty rapidly.
Craig Pollard [00:40:11]:
Okay.
Jermaine Craig [00:40:12]:
And so we're, we were in this odd position where we'd, like, hiked up our monthly costs to support. And now we were losing, like, a 100, 200 people a month, and the hype essentially died down.
Craig Pollard [00:40:25]:
Yeah.
Jermaine Craig [00:40:26]:
And it was really hard to motivate the team because we were already burned out, and then we were in this downward trend where it's like, hey. You know, in 2 months, we won't be able to pay your salary, and in 4 months, we won't be able to pay your salary. And, you know, we really tried to we we would we would clear on the notion that we know what this needs to look like in order for it to work, but we can't make that pivot whilst the company is actually running.
Craig Pollard [00:40:55]:
Okay.
Jermaine Craig [00:40:56]:
And in dramatic fashion, I was like, alright. We need to stop this. Like, I'm super tired. Mhmm. And so we did that, and we we sent a note out to everyone, and we were like, hey. Guys, we tried. We've done a lot of great stuff, but this is just going in the wrong direction at the moment, so we need to stop. And, you know, it was surprising.
Jermaine Craig [00:41:16]:
A lot of people were like, no. You know, this is this is the first time you've had something. And I was like, oh.
Craig Pollard [00:41:21]:
I I was gonna say, I am not I'm not surprised that you got that reaction, though. Right? It's just like, no. This is ours. This is important. This matters. Right?
Jermaine Craig [00:41:30]:
Yeah. But, you know, like, sometimes, you know, when you're as a social entrepreneur, you don't know that that many people care because you're constantly fighting for the the the thing you're building. Right?
Craig Pollard [00:41:40]:
I totally get it. And you're constantly second guessing yourself, like Yeah. You know, who am I to do this? Do I have a right to do this? And, and and and constantly sort of corroding your own confidence with it. Right? It's
Jermaine Craig [00:41:52]:
Exactly. Exactly. And then someone says that you're doing this amazing thing. You're like, what? I everyone's leaving. Right? You know? Just kind of thing. Exactly. And so, yeah, we closed, and then what actually happened that summer after closing was I really got to do the thing that I wanted to do whilst we were running, which is really, like, taking all of those lessons from the experiment and say, okay. What should this look like? And pretty quickly, I was able to figure out, you know, what should exist, what shouldn't exist, what are we, what are we not.
Jermaine Craig [00:42:29]:
And I was like, oh, this, I can I look into the future and this works for 10, 20, 30 years if we come out with this new shape? And, you know, I tried to do something else. I was like, alright, Germaine. You learned a bunch of skills. Now you can, you know, use these skills to make your billions. Like, maybe we do something for profit. And I just I remembered the energy I felt before launching Kwanda, and that was my benchmark for how I needed to feel. And nothing got me there, and I was like, you know, I I still love this this thing we did. And if I could do anything, even if it would fail, I'd just try and do do Kwanda again.
Jermaine Craig [00:43:12]:
And so I was like, yeah. Let's look like this is the structure. We've cut out all the fat, and we're just gonna keep going again.
Craig Pollard [00:43:17]:
Let's do it again.
Jermaine Craig [00:43:18]:
You know? And there's there's really just nothing else Yeah. I'd rather do. And if it fails, I just have that exact same 3 month period where I chop the fat, and then we'd go again and again and again.
Craig Pollard [00:43:27]:
And that's and because you because you wrote I I wrote it down. Actually, something changed last week, and I'm still in that glow. I realized Kwanda had fallen perfectly in line with who I am and how I wanted to work. Yeah. And that's amazing. That's that's really powerful to have something in your life that you that gives you that.
Jermaine Craig [00:43:45]:
100%. So so one of the the the biggest lessons I learned when we closed down was, hey. I try to do all the things and be all the things people would expect that we should be. So I wanted Kwanda to be professional, and I wanted this to look like this big organisation. And that was the reason we fell was because we were trying to, you know, have an advisory board and do all and just, like, everything that they said
Craig Pollard [00:44:16]:
Like a charity.
Jermaine Craig [00:44:17]:
Yeah. Exactly. It was.
Craig Pollard [00:44:18]:
Be like a traditional charity. Yeah. Did you feel that pressure, though, to to to conform to to be like that?
Jermaine Craig [00:44:24]:
Yeah. Especially, you know, like you mentioned, you know, this kind of corroding of confidence. And I think there was a point in the journey where I thought, hey. Maybe the charities have it right, and there's a reason why everything works a certain way. Maybe we're not supposed to be this radical innovator. Maybe people have tried that before, and that's why everyone, like, you know, looks looks at someone at all. And then, you know, as we grew, especially, I was like, oh, you know, maybe our idea is good for 200 people, but we need to be more like a traditional charity to support 2,000 or 4,000 people. And so, eventually, you kind of like, I lost a bit of confidence and started ship shifting in that direction, and it was just worse.
Jermaine Craig [00:45:07]:
I was like, oh, this isn't this isn't what you're supposed to do, sort of thing. So I forget, like, where where where I was going with that, but, you know, that's that's definitely something that happened.
Craig Pollard [00:45:18]:
Yeah. But it's but but it feels it feels like that gravity within sort of social impact is very much to to do things like, you know, INGOs and and big charities, etcetera, do it. The the gravity sort of pulls you towards there, and it and it sort of like, well, who am I? And but in some ways, that's the reason that these sort of projects and organizations are needed to challenge that, to to show that, and offer an alternative way of doing things.
Jermaine Craig [00:45:46]:
A 100%. And, yeah, actually, go back to the point about it's perfectly aligned with with who I am. I think the difference now is, you know, I'm just I'm I'm just building the thing that I think should exist, and I'm willing to make mistakes. Our members give me leeway to do that. And, you know, even when we talk about social media, it's like, you know what? We're just gonna we're just gonna post, like, a raw video. We're just gonna, like, talk about things in a very even way. We're not gonna have this, like, brand bible that we have to abide by. We're not gonna, like, try and create the perfect Instagram grid.
Jermaine Craig [00:46:20]:
We're just gonna document what we're doing, and I think that was a big change. It was less, hey. We have this new project. You should it's more, oh, we just got off the phone with these partners. We might be doing something. Ken, you seem very excited. Emoji emoji emoji. And that's the that's the first.
Jermaine Craig [00:46:37]:
And and it works, you know. And and I feel more comfortable. I feel like it's more of an expression of myself as opposed to this rigid thing we're trying to fit into.
Craig Pollard [00:46:46]:
And and it's it's amazing though that your community of of members sort of reminded you of that as well because and I think this is from where I'm sitting sort of in in a similar sort of position thinking about funding and and who fund and that matters. Right? Having that space to make mistakes, that that sort of forgiveness when inevitably things go wrong and and acceptance that because I say it all the time, I literally don't know what I'm doing. 90% of the time it feels right. And but but to have donors and partners and people giving you the resources and expertise who who understand that and accept that, that is incredibly important, and I feel like that's often lost in the charity space. I feel that that is, just some there's something missing there a lot of the time, because I think having that those sort of people around you is so important to especially if you're going against the sort of gravity of the Yeah. Of what's normal and dominant.
Jermaine Craig [00:47:50]:
Yeah. Precisely. I mean, that's
Craig Pollard [00:47:51]:
There was a question in there.
Jermaine Craig [00:47:53]:
Yeah. I I I I I agree, and that's probably the biggest motivator I have is, hey. There are 500 people probably at this point that, you know, have given me room to make mistakes and can see that I'm well intentioned in what I'm doing. And so it's like, I I don't wanna let them down, you know. And I think that, that, that's . . .
Craig Pollard [00:48:20]:
That's the flip side, is it? Right? The pressure of, like
Jermaine Craig [00:48:22]:
Yeah. The pressure. But it's a it's a soft pressure. It's not like a
Craig Pollard [00:48:26]:
Okay.
Jermaine Craig [00:48:27]:
It's like, yeah. I'm gonna try my best to make sure this is everything people believe it it to be and and believe it can be. And it's like, it's a great set of people to be in service of for sure.
Craig Pollard [00:48:40]:
It sounds like you, you know, well on that path. It's so exciting. I'm such a a massive fan of what you're what you're building and and how you're building it and the challenge that you're presenting and the alternative that you're presenting as well to the status quo. I think it's incredibly exciting, and thanks so much for for talking to me today.
Jermaine Craig [00:48:57]:
Yeah. Of course. It's been a great conversation. Very much enjoyed it.
Craig Pollard [00:49:00]:
What a brilliant, simple, and authentic concept Kwanda is. Thanks again to Jermaine for joining me today on the Fundraising Radicals podcast and for so openly sharing the highs and lows of his own journey in social entrepreneurship. This conversation resonated really deeply with me as someone who also experiences those daily highs and lows that come with founding an organisation that is following a different path and challenging the status quo. But I'll reflect a bit more than that in the Fundraising Radicals blog that will follow this episode. So for now, thanks again for listening, for joining our exploration of global fundraising, and we'll see you back here soon for the next episode of the Fundraising Radicals podcast.