Welcome to the For Love and Money podcast, the show where business and social purpose meet to inspire a movement for positive change. Here's your host, Carolyn Butler-Madden. Today's guest is Ash Ross-Handler, a thought leader in corporate social responsibility and the founder of Good Company, Australia and New Zealand's largest unified platform for workplace giving, volunteering, fundraising and rewards.
Under Ash's leadership, Good Company has driven over $100 million in impact through donations, volunteering and corporate engagement, helping thousands of charities connect with much-needed support. Ash has been at the forefront of social innovation, creating Australia's first charity gift card and the Good Company volunteer Mystery Bus. And he loves giving solutions that empower companies like Optus, AMZ, CSL, NBN and Medibank to align their business strategies with social good.
He's a champion for scalable social impact and he is dedicated to helping companies become forces for good. In this interview, Ash shares his background and what led him to do what he does today as CEO of Good Company. We get into how important it is to employees to find meaning in their jobs. We also talk about the role of volunteering, including some of the personal expectations that come with it.
He explains the benefits that Good Company can bring to businesses, charities and individuals and he shares some of the initiatives that Good Company has created. My personal favourites, the Volunteer Mystery Bus and Tuesday. Enjoy. Ash, welcome to the For Love and Money podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Very excited. This is going to be an interesting conversation to get into. I'm looking forward to it.
I will give you the question I give every guest, the first question, which is, in your view, is there a role for love in business? Oh, a thousand percent there is. Love that stuff. are?
Absolutely. You know, as a founder and a CEO of a small business myself, I really, I want my people to love what they do, want them to love their job desperately, because when people love their job, you know, they're happy, they're engaged, they're excited, they'll go the extra mile, they'll come up with innovations, they'll problem solve, and they'll be engaged. So, So 1,000%, I want them to love their work and business has a role to play in that.
Yeah, brilliant. And people want to love their work, don't they? 1,000%. Did I say 1,000%? Yeah, you said 1,000%. Make that 10,000%. Let's up it a little bit. 1,000,000%, 1,000,000%. And what's interesting, some of the studies around it too is there are 75% of people who are satisfied with their work. There's 30% who hate their work. The percentage who actually love their work, I would say, are a subset of people who are satisfied.
What also is interesting is the different ages, their love of work. So younger folk, and it totally makes sense, a lot of them don't love their jobs because they're, you know, they're, Check out people, washing cars, they're busing tables, they're at bars, they're drivers. So that love for the work, I think, goes in a sort of exponential curve a little bit, the data shows.
So when they're middle-aged, they really seek opportunities that they know that fit them and their style and their worldview and what they want to bring, their skills and talents, and where they want to invest their time. And what's fascinating is actually as they get older, 60, 70, the percentage of people who love what they do continues to grow and that's when they might go into volunteering or they might go into other efforts.
And they're in the twilight years and they're looking at their health and they're looking at their friends around them and they're saying, okay, if I am going to work, I really now want to be doing something that brings me some joy. Yeah, isn't that interesting? And even like wealthy, successful people, you know, who have made pot loads of money in their twilight years tend to go, okay, I now want to give back. I now want to contribute my time, skills, insights into something that feels worthy.
But they wait to the end. And some of them wait to the end, which is hopefully there's a bit of a mindset shift on that and successful people now, you know, your canvas of the world are looking at their most productive years and saying, how can I marry up, you know, the work that we're doing, we're doing some good for the world. Yeah. But yeah, my father's generation, there's a lot of his friends now who have retired and are just lost.
So I think, you know, those that do find some opportunities to volunteer and give back, there are studies that say, you know, it makes you live longer, like healthier, more engaged, longevity benefits. So there are all those rich benefits there for the taking. And do you think, I mean, you talked about younger people who are in more sort of entry functional jobs, which, you know, they don't necessarily love, But young people, clearly young people are more engaged in wanting to do,
you know, wanting to figure out how to create positive impact in the world. Yep. Do you think that's because they just see the enormity of problems ahead of them and feel that you know they need to step up and solve them yeah well i think what's interesting is like those young people in jobs that they don't love this is so critical though to character building if you're doing a job.
You don't love as a 20 year old then then it really concentrates your mind on what are the skills what are the courses what do i need to do now in my life before you know i'm doing a job like this in the next 20 years so i don't think i think it's wonderful that some jobs don't give you love i think it's wonderful that some jobs are horrible and painful and teach you about you know what you don't want to do and and really focus your mind and your energy on your hunger towards what
you do want to do and what will be fulfilling but your other point about people young people's desire to do good i think that that's testament to probably the change in schooling to social media to to more awareness of of social issues and problems but i've got another scary sort of theory which i don't love which is is it possible that each generation just wants to be a counterweight to the generation before them or a counterargument to that.
That's a concern of mine. So you've got like, you know, the 40s during the war, you know, destructive, dangerous, scary time. Then the 60s, love children came out, you know, with the optimism. And then the 80s was all about greed and it went the other way, going, oh, there's 60s hippies, I want to go to Wall Street and make some money. Then the 2000s came and maybe it shifted the other way again with the GFC and people thinking more about the environment and what they're going to do next.
And I just wonder whether it's a generational thing, you know, having three kids of my own, that part of your independence and finding yourself is saying to the world, I'm not going to be just like mum and dad. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a fair point. I think, you know, the world goes in cycles, right, and generations. But I think it depends. It depends. I don't know. Let's watch this generation and see where they go.
It's because I think this is a particularly interesting one because of where we are. Yeah.
Yeah. And with its own unique challenges and just as a parent, getting your kids off a mobile device and reading books and you know it's it's definitely a challenging time but there are some wonderful young people everywhere doing amazing things and so I'm quite optimistic and hopeful but yeah yeah I think to your point let love rule you know life can do amazing things so whether it's in business relationships friendships what are we doing here if not for love and two quick points.
And we will get into good company because I'm excited to share your story with people. But this is just such an interesting conversation. The first one, personal story. So my daughter, my background is marketing. So I think like you, you were in marketing as well. But I had 30 years, 10 years in London, 20 years in Sydney, running my own agency for 18 years, working for big corporates and running an agency. Oh my God. Like it was a rollercoaster ride, right?
And so my daughter grew up seeing me and I was the main income earner in the family and I was absent a lot of the time. And she just saw the stress involved and I loved what I did, but it was stressful. And when she was in year 10 or 11 and she was thinking about careers, she actually said, Hey mom, I hope you don't mind, but I'm not going to follow your footsteps because I've just seen how freaking hard it is and the payback isn't good enough.
And I said, yeah, that's fair enough. And at the time, I was actually planning my pivot into what I was doing now. And I kind of got the proposition almost as a visual homepage on the website, website homepage. And I turned it to her and I said, what do you think about this, though? And her eyes widened. And she just went, oh, my God, yes, that's what I want to do. And she has followed that track. So she's very purpose-driven.
You know, she's volunteered for Sea Shepherd and they sent her to the Faroe Islands to video the, you know, the massacre of the pilot whales and things like that. She's now working for a B Corp certified video production company. But like so that, Len, what you just talked about, the cycles, you know, my personal experience was she looked at what was not good from what I've been doing. But it wasn't a rejection of everything I'd done for the sake of,
you know, new generation, new way of doing things. It was looking at, you know, what wasn't good and wanting to learn from that and do better. She sounds wonderful. You must be very proud. Yeah, yeah, I am. But I thought that was interesting. And the other thing I wanted to share was there is a TED Talk by someone called Bea Boccalandro. She's in Canada, I think. and she talks about job purposing.
Okay, so, you know, the fact that going back to that point you made about people in, young people in, you know, low-level entry jobs, character building, yes, but you've just got to grit your teeth and do it. But she shared some examples and one was a guy who was a parking inspector, a car park attendant. And he turned a boring job around to one that he absolutely loved because he decided to use his job to make sure that everyone's tyres and car was roadworthy.
So he would check all these tyres and he felt fully fulfilled in his job because it connected to something that he felt was worthwhile. Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, it's interesting how you can actually look differently at a job. But let's get into good company.
So actually, no, before we get into good company, first –. If you could tell our listeners what Good Company is briefly, and then I want you to give us your backstory and tell us how you came to be where you are today with Good Company as CEO. Okay. So Good Company is a good company. And what we do is we connect corporates to charities to do good.
So that's through volunteering donating fundraising it's a hybrid of a charitable foundation and also a tech company so the charity foundation does what it does best which is taking funds from the public and passing them on to ddr1 charities and the tech company does what it does best which is building beautiful software that is is bespoke and customizable for large corporates so that they can offer their staff a wide variety of charities to choose from where they can do payroll giving.
They can volunteer, they can do fundraising pages, and they can collect all the data and all the good and all the impact in the one spot.
So how I got to good company a lot of happy accidents i guess along the way but born in 74 in melbourne so it makes me 50 years old this year i went to mount scopus memorial college so for those of you who may or may not know that that's the biggest jewish day school in the southern hemisphere so i finished there graduated went to monash uni where i did a double degree in accounting and philosophy Pete Stowe. That's, wait, what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yes, that was all right. You sound like you might have been a bit conflicted, torn. Yeah, yes, yes. But funnily enough, that kind of then mirrors, you know, what I've to do today, which is good company. Yeah. So it's a mix of the good. Yeah, I love it. Philosophically, you know, what is good? How do we do more good in the world? And company being sort of the accounting, maybe a bit drier, but like how do you keep in business?
How do you keep profitable how do you keep sustainable so so yeah i did my degree in accounting and philosophy and then like you i ended up in atlant for about a decade so i was. I'd done a million odd jobs before that and then i did what's called award school where you put together a folio, I was about 99 at the time, 1999, and I was still in Melbourne.
And the people who worked in Adland said, if you're really serious about getting a job, you should go to Sydney because the Olympics are coming up.
And that's where all the ad dollars are being spent. So I packed up my Hyundai XL Sprint and put a few clothes in the boot and drove up to sydney and walked the pavements and found a job and found another job and ended up working yeah for for a long time as a copywriter so you're writing jingles and headlines and, long copy and short copy and selling a whole lot of to a whole lot of people who probably don't need it but then on that journey did some ads to red cross
and the heart research Institute and just fell in love with this really, you know, vibrant space of how do you put your creative talents towards good? So I was really, my heart was set on that.
And then I kind of came up with the idea for a charity gift card after seeing an inconvenient truth and learning that we're using two planets and none of this is really sustainable so i was had a gift for a friend for their engagement party and got into a debate with my girlfriend at the time who's now my wife about where this gift would end up as a vase and it kind of end up in landfill eventually and thought oh why why not get them a goat from oxfam or a mosquito net from world vision,
but then thought oh you know maybe what would be better is if you gave someone a charity gift card and let them decide where that money would vest so fell in love with the charity gift card idea called a karma currency knocked on a lot of doors, And one of the big banks said, Ash, we'll give you $30,000 if you just leave us alone. I want you on my business development team. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I was like a dog at a bone.
And so that was enough to get the first iteration of this charity gift card into the marketplace called Karma Currency. And then I was kind of writing ads at night and doing this during the day and, you know, burning the candle at both ends for a few years till I sort of thought, okay, I need to go all in on this. And we won CSL and we won Origin Energy. Clients who are still with us today, wonderful, wonderful clients.
And then Optus came to us with a challenge and they said, actually, we don't want a platform just where you can donate.
We want one where you can volunteer. year when was this this was back in maybe 2010 okay yep gosh a while ago and uh and so we you know like a happy accident at the same time good company had been around for a long time it was a skilled volunteer matching platform we met up with them and they said look you specialize in dollars we specialize in time what would it look like if we bought them together and the thing about giving
time talent and treasure was something that i i loved and so we we merged with good company and recreated the platform and then grew that to where we are tonight. Yeah, wow. And so that was back in, what did you say, 2010? Yeah. Okay. And I think I read that yours is the largest, Australia's largest workplace giving platform? The largest unified workplace giving platform. So that is across sort of volunteering, donating, fundraising, charity gift cards.
And I guess what also makes us large or a great offering is that not only can you give to Oxfam, but you can decide where you'd like your funds to go. So is it to an immunisation kit? Oh, wow. Is it to, you know, they put up a lot of what we call dollar handles or projects that you can support. So currently we've got over 4,000 of those projects on the site. So there's something for everyone. And tell me more about, because there are a few of these workplace giving platforms.
I mean, so I'm keen to understand the point of difference. Being a unified one is one. What are some of the other things that make you unique? Yeah. Yes, so in the market, there are other organizations that might do the payroll giving, but for volunteering, they'll sort of plug into another platform and fundraising, they'll plug into some other ones.
So what makes us unique is we do it all under the one roof, which I think with cybersecurity and data, where's my data stored and everything else becomes quite important or absolutely critical rather.
And you know we're proudly Australian based, Australian based and Australian developed and Australian owned which makes us special and the other thing is I think our charity gift cards are quite unique but more than that we've got a whole lot of other wraparound services so we've got the Good Company Awards, we've got Tuesdays which emails that go out every single Tuesday encouraging people to do more good. Do you just want to, yeah, okay, I thought you might need to quantify,
but you haven't got a speech impediment. You're saying Tuesday. Every Tuesday is a Tuesday. So that is where we send out messages, encouraging people to choose to sleep better, sleep longer, and what are the benefits of getting a healthy night's sleep. And then also, attached to that, we'll talk about some of the charities on our platform that actually work in areas of insomnia or mental health, or encouraging people to drink more water.
What are some of the health benefits about that? So choose to drink more water. Better for your liver, better for your skin, better for your brain. And also, by the way, there's a billion people that don't have access to clean water. So if you want to support that, here are a bunch of charities on our platform that can do that. So I think this is leaning into, you know, what is it to be a good company? Is it just giving or is it, you know, the health and well-being of your people?
Yeah. And resilience of your people. And yeah, we've done about 200 Tuesdays and we never run out of material. Yeah, wow. That's really unique. I love that idea. Yeah. And so how often do you do it? Do you do it every Tuesday? Every Tuesday. Every Tuesday you put a theme out. Yeah. And it's about what's in it for, you know, like the drink more water. So it's about the benefits to you personally. Yes. As well as an educational component about impact on others.
So if you go to goodcompany.org, you can look at the blog section and you can, yeah, scroll through them. They're wonderful. And what sort of engagement do you get in those? I love the idea. Yeah, we send it out to 3,000 people. Yeah. And the next challenge is actually, or the next job to do is to embed it into the platform so it will send two staff at Optus or Mervac or NBN or Medibank or Bupa or, you know, any one of our wonderful clients and that staff can sign up to that newsletter.
So that is a 2025 project. Yep. And we've got lots of other ones, but that's definitely something we want to deliver. Yeah, brilliant. Brilliant. Tell me about the Volunteer Mystery Bus. Oh, the Mystery Bus. We love the Mystery Bus. So it was borrowed a little bit by, was it the Qantas Mystery Flights or the Ansett Mystery Flights? Do you remember that? It's a blast from the past. That's a blast from the past, isn't it? Yeah.
So for those of you who don't know, a Mystery Flight was basically you'd pay $50 and rock up to the airport and not know where you're going.
And before you know Mona was in Tasmania like a lot of people went to Tasmania what are we going to do here I love Tasmania I'm just kidding but but uh and and those were the mystery flights and just you know our tagline at good company is giving solutions so we're always really keen where we find problems you know how do we give solutions and and also giving solutions like giving back solutions so for you know the better part of 15 years or
something we've seen the problem for corporates in volunteering is always who's going to organize it where are we going to go how are we going to get there how are we going to get back how do we capture the day and and when they try and execute on it finding the right charity finding the time negotiating is there a budget, going back to your staff and staff like, oh, I've been there before or it's too far, it's too near. Can't we do something on a hill? Can't we do something underwater?
It's, that's another thing, Carolyn, like.
People when people want to do good they kind of lose their minds a little bit they want to do good on what they think is good yeah or just the pragmatism that maybe people buy to a business decision just that that the part of their sometimes that part of their brain switches off because their heart is is screaming so loudly you know we need to do this we need to do that and and if they're being more pragmatic then they say okay we want to do good but let's get some professional
help to do this yeah so so the challenge there about finding the right time place event activity insurance for corporates is a challenge and then on the other side for charities they've got all the headaches of companies saying there'll be 10 people and then three people come or companies saying we'll do it on the 15th and then they want to do it on the 19th or telling a company it's going to cost you a thousand dollars and then having
to negotiate with them for six months about whether that's value or not so the mystery bus solves all that it's like beautifully branded my wife did the branding design on it it looks like the scooby-doo mystery bus it looks amazing i saw Oh, it looks fabulous. It's great. And then you just rock up. Everyone goes on. We go to the area of greatest need. We talk about what is the area of greatest need.
Everyone gets a little sticker and talks about, you know, you'd say, my name's Carolyn and I care about, so what do you care about? What do I care about? Business as a force for good is what I care about. Exactly. So we'd go, okay, business as a force for good. And why is that? And you would talk to that and your experience and what brought you there, and everyone on the bus starts sharing.
You know there was someone on the bus last week and they cared about the stroke foundation why is that because their husband had a stroke two months ago and everyone on the bus is like i thought you had covered like i didn't know where you went yeah so people share all sorts of wonderful stories about what they care about and then we go to the area of greatest need and have an incredible experience and you get lunch and you get videos and we all go home on the bus and sing songs and,
And the net promoter score is like 95. It's huge. I bet it is. So when you say you go to the area of greatest needs, at that time and place, you identify where the greatest volunteering impact can be. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, that's another beautiful thing I think about the platform is it has not just the bath, but hundreds of other roles that need filling. There's a legitimate need and a legitimate time for either skilled volunteering or team volunteering because jobs need to get done. Yeah.
Which is exactly the way corporate should approach volunteering. You never approach it from, what do my staff want to do? The approach should always be, what is the need out there in the community? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. 100%. I love the idea of the volunteer mystery bus for a number of reasons, but I love that the whole concept means that people enter into it with an open mind. You're absolutely right. Spot on the money. And you do that because that's the concept.
And so the opportunity for them to enjoy the experience instantly becomes a bigger opportunity for them to do that because they're not holding on to a preconception of what they think it should be. Yeah, and that overmind is so powerful. It's so good. We had a guy who, when we said, yeah, what's your name? And then what are you passionate about? And he said, I'm actually passionate about sort of my family first and then my street and then my community and then sort of wider charities.
And we sort of said, oh, why is that? And he said, well, you know, I really find like if you, and he actually said himself first. So my favourite cause is myself. And when I'm good, then I can help my family, then I can help my street, then I can help my community. Yeah, right. Which is a wonderful answer. And then we said, what do you do for a job? And he's an auditor. Okay. And like, isn't that fascinating, right? Yeah, yeah.
Because that approach is like you audit yourself and how are you feeling? Are you do you have the energy to give back you know look after yourself some self-care and then you can help others and and that circle goes out and just like an auditor you're sort of measuring things and and you should have seen this guy lighter he's just like I've been an auditor for 20 years I could never work out like why I'm an auditor and now it all makes sense Wow.
Because, yeah, it's a very analytical, like what you described, you said, is very analytical, that me first and then I can look after the people. Wow. Do you know what I mean? But like you said, you've got to have an open mind to have some of those moments. But you're going to, with that concept, you're going to attract people who are willing to have an open mind. Yeah.
Right? You're targeting people who are willing to have an open mind because someone who needs to know exactly what they're going to be doing that day is never going to get on that bus unless someone drags them on kicking and screaming, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even, I mean, I've got a team that run the bus, but to fill my bucket, I'll go on there at least a few times a year and had an experience with pets,
the homeless. Thank you. And I mean, I, you know, initially I sort of thought, oh, pets for the homeless and like, don't, maybe people, homeless people have a pet there just so they'll get a few more dollars from people, you know, because I've got like a fluffy animal there. But then when I actually met the organization and spent a day there, you learn very much about, you know, the safety of a homeless person. So if they've got a dog, you know, they're actually safer on the streets.
The, you know, common love of animals and that if you're looking after a pet, you're more likely to get out of bed and, you know, face the day and all the health benefits of just having a pet that everyone, you know, should be allowed to have. This organization, if you're, you know, homeless or in between homes and then the medical condition comes up, they'll look after your pet. So I encourage you to get, you know, back out of hospital and back with your pet.
And and then even environmentally they talk about pet food that was going into landfill that then they'll take and they'll re-send it out you know on on soup vans so if someone is homeless with a pet that the pet gets that food and it's got not going into landfill i was just like wow yeah yeah so many benefits and and caring for a pet you know what that does to you mentally, that you're capable of caring for someone and someone is capable of caring for you back.
Yeah. Just that, right? Just that, just that, yeah, yeah. I love it and I love the way you do it where you ask people what they care about and that opens the door to story, personal stories. Yeah. Yeah. Like story, listeners of this podcast will know I'm obsessed with stories and storytelling because it's the key to people's emotions. It's the key to people understanding, having empathy. You know, it's the key to so much. And you've just intuitively facilitated that
through the bus experience. I love it. Just another happy accident. I don't know. Yeah. But anyway, I'm so glad you love it. And when you're in Sydney, right, that's our challenge. We are just based in Melbourne at the moment. Yeah, right. Okay. So you need clients big enough to justify starting the concept. We've got the appetite. We need, yeah, we need probably, yeah, just some locked-in contracts around it and then hit go.
But it is, I mean, our core business is the good company platform and doing that. And we love the bus, but there is definitely appetite. So we should speak further on that. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'd love to. I'd love to. Yeah. Right. Enjoying the podcast? If you're looking for more inspiration, head to our website, thecauseeffect.com.au for more resources on how you can start using your business as a force for good.
Or buy the For Love and Money book. Every copy sold allows us to protect one square metre of rainforest. So you've got clients who've been with you for, what, 15, 20 years? Yeah. So it's obviously working for them. Your platform is giving them the ability to give employees what they want. But I'm curious to know, you know, what are the benefits to the company as a result? The benefits for the company, so many.
One is being an employer of choice, right? I know, you know, the cost of living is a definite issue. Everything's going up and it's really tough out there. But incredibly, unemployment is still kind of stuck at four and a half, five percent. It's historic lows. So the war for talent is something that is a serious thing. And so when you want to attract the best and the brightest, having a platform in place is really important.
And then the other cool thing was when we started this, it was all about connecting those who could give with those in need to bring out the best in everyone. And those who could give with the companies and those who were in need were the charities. Yep. Pretty simple, right? Yep. But over the last five years, ten years, what we've noticed is we're connecting those that can give, which is the charities, to those that are in need, which are the corporates.
Because and that's on a volunteering and donations and fundraising yeah because corporates need a purpose they need a story they need constant stories yeah good good stories about them you know giving back doing good, being a great place to work, and charities can provide those experiences and stories. But it's really powerful because they're our client base. We've got two separate clients. It's a SaaS multi-tenant platform, which is also a marketplace.
They've got the corporates on one side, the charities on the other.
So so yeah it's it's important that both get benefits and both realize the benefits and both have have a positive experience with our platform and then further to that the other sort of mega trends are around corporates and esg yeah and the asx now having to report yeah so whilst good company does a lot of the S, the social stuff, there is the G, the governance that companies are giving to bona fide charities with DGR status and, you know, trustees and constitutions and boards and fundraising
licenses and all those boxes to tick. And also on top of the governance, just, you know, the auditing and the audit trail of where the good's been done.
You know how many dollars how many minutes how many hours to wear and the e the environmental part too is companies now having to report on their scope one two and three yeah so how can they build in rewards and benefits for their staff that aren't going to add to their scope yeah and so our charity gift cards that people purchase through the platform they can be redeemed to charity, they can be redeemed to planting a tree or offsetting carbon.
So that's a mega trend that we love. And then also companies that benefit from diversity and inclusion in that they can say. You know, diversity is a fact, inclusion is a choice. And the way we're, one of the ways that we want to include everyone is by having this great platform where no matter who you are, what your background is, what you care about, we're going to empower you to support those organisations.
So it's individual based, isn't it? So as an employee, I can support any given organisation on the platform or? Yes, yes. And then where the corporates come in is they might have some preferred charities that they'll highlight on the platform. They may say we'll match dollar for dollar just to these five charities and these are the reasons why. Yep. Because they align with some of their offerings, some of their services, some of the things they want to really shift the dial on.
So it's a mix of what's important to your people, and what's important to the company. The balance, yeah. And the balance, yeah. Yeah. So, Ash, I'm curious, the individuals who engage with your platform, you know, whether it's through Tuesday, through the bus, through giving, through charity gift cards, what kind of feedback have you had from them on how they feel about it after being part of this?
The feedback we get on the bus, it's very clear because we do, you know, really good feedback surveys there. And that's wonderful. That's sort of between 95 and 100. When people are giving, you know, if they're giving a, you know, a homeless meal every pay cycle, we notice their commitment and their loyalty. And it's a shame because it's called regular giving. And regular giving sounds like, you know, I eat Metamucil and I'm regular.
It's terrible so you know we and it's probably our job you know it is our job to say well you're not a regular giver you are superhero or you're you could probably come up with some better words you're the copywriter originally award school no less yes yes they're you know super loyal giver And what we've noticed is they are rock solid. They continue to give, you know, every pay cycle. So I think that that's a wonderful thing. When people volunteer, we've got feedback surveys that they fill in.
And we hear stories all the time of companies that, you know, getting out of their bubble and going out to different organisations and getting a completely different worldview. Yeah, I can see that. You mentioned to me before we started recording this podcast, you were talking about skilled volunteering and learning opportunities. Yeah, absolutely. So we were chatting about some of the, you know, the challenges for companies is finding the budget sometimes to do some of those activities.
And some of the interesting things are like if you go to your company and say, can we have a volunteer budget? They'll say, you know, we'll just give you time where there's no budget for that.
But if you say, hey, there's a great team building opportunity, we're going to be out there for a whole day, you know, bonding, learning from each other, shared experience, they're they're quite au fait with that and they will find budget so again with with volunteering if it's not team then maybe it's skill stuff and what we do on our side that we love is we say here's some skill volunteering opportunities so what are your skills your skills required for the role but what are some
of the skills acquired by the role. So if it's problem solving, if it's leadership, if it's resilience, so then we get feedback on that afterwards saying, did it help your resilience skills? Did it help your leadership skills? And so we're seeing a wonderful correlation there and people, you know, looking at how do we split some of our L&D budget towards volunteering.
Yeah, yeah. I love that. And what I love about it is, yeah, and you talked about it before, Whereas you used to look at it as the charities have a problem and the corporates are providing the solution to actually the corporates have a problem and the charities provide the solution. And I think where you're going with this or what it seems to me is there is so much value in the doing, you know.
The volunteering, probably not just the volunteering, but there's value, there's development, growth opportunities for employees and there's value to the businesses as a result.
You know skills development fulfillment which then moves to you know I love the company I work for because I'm loyal to this company because and yeah I think what you're doing is amazing I mean it currently sits in CSR or ESG in a silo right but the benefits are flowing through to the wider a business and I'd love your thoughts on, you know, I don't know, five years from now, how could this be powering the business success
in a bigger way than this sort of siloed effect of this is a volunteering program and a giving program? Yes, absolutely. I think I'm totally aligned on that, that where the benefit, where the business gets more benefits and where it can start a virtual circle that they can actually see, you know, bottom line, we are winning more tenders because we can report in a really professional way about how many dollars, how many hours, where the impact is.
So we're winning those tenders. We're winning the best place to work because we do this stuff. We are winning net promoter scores with our customers because we've chosen to take all of our customers, our key customers out on the volunteer mystery bus, right? So instead of going to the pub, instead of going out for lunch, spending a day with your customers. Love it. Not talking shop, just helping. Love it. You know, just sharing stories, seeing our commonalities. That shared experience.
That shared value, shared experience is absolute gold. And one of the other things I didn't mention was actually we're the official volunteer partner for the Gama Festival. I saw you posted on that. Yeah, tell me more about that. So this next year is going to be our third year in 2025, which is excitingly, it's Gama's 25th anniversary and it's also Good Company's 25th anniversary. Oh, really? Yeah, which is very cool. And we are entrusted to find 100 corporate volunteers
to go out to East Arnhem Land for 12 days. Amazing. It is super immersive, super educational, wonderful time to get out of Melbourne in August. Uh just it's kind of mind-blowing you'd be over subscribed on that surely we do we do companies want to you know there are a few companies out there with and on our good company awards which you can also get to by goodcompany.org you can see the top 40 companies and how they're giving back and the top four or five have unlimited paid volunteer leave.
I saw that. Unlimited. Unlimited paid volunteer leave. So if you've got a good business case, you can go to your manager and say, I want to get paid for 12 days because I'm going to go up to Gama and volunteer at this festival. So, yes, we've got such a wonderful array of people, different ages, different backgrounds from different companies. And the split's about 60-40, corporate versus non-corporate volunteers for that 100.
But that opens up in about Feb. Yeah, wow. So applying for that and it's... I'll put a link in the show notes to, I think you've got a page for the 2024 one. So is there something that people can sign up to? Yeah, yeah. We'll actually put an EOI on there too, an express of interest so that we can capture some of that. Yeah. Yeah, and just such an amazing part of the world and it just blew my mind. You know, they actually call money Rupiah. Really? In East Arnhem Land. I didn't know that.
Yeah, and that's because they've been trading with the Indonesians for like a thousand years. Yeah, right, of course. Right? Wow. Wow. Like little things like that. There's so much we don't know about our country and especially about our First Nations history. It's extraordinary. And their worldview about like a Western timeline, like that doesn't really exist. It's like everything happened, will happen, happened before, happened again.
And it's, yeah, I mean, being two weeks there is nowhere near enough to even scratch the surface of sort of how much knowledge there is there. And do you find that with the volunteers, that it opens the door to wanting to learn more? Oh, they love it. I mean, they want to learn more. The stories of them sleeping so much better after sort of being on their feet for a day, you know.
And you know the ability to set up the festival work at the festival help pack down because when you get up there it's pretty bare and then you see this whole thing come to life it's it's really magical it's great. Ash, I love what you are doing. I think, you know, the value that Good Company is providing to organisations, I can see its immense value, but I can also see its potential to be even greater and fuel the success of the company even more while supporting, you know.
The charities that you do support there. And ultimately, it comes down to the impact on the individuals you know not just from their feel good but from their actually learning more not just about the charities you know when you talk about the bus learning more about their colleagues you know developing a sense of empathy which has to change the way you work with someone as well absolutely there's so much value thank you thank you for coming and sharing your story I'm before I ask you to close to
close the show with the question which I will ask you is there anything else about good company that you would like our listeners to know about uh probably just that we've got a really open door policy you know that that we stronger and better by engaging with more people who are similarly passionate about you know doing some impact and doing some good so I think you know you've probably got quite a few listeners who are excited and engaged and driven to to do some good you know someone told
me years ago you can go fast by going alone but what's the same but you won't go far yeah but but together you'll yeah together you'll go you'll.
Go further yeah so it's only taken me 50 years to kind of learn that but it's true so that's what I'd like anyone to to reach out find me on LinkedIn have a chat you know see how we could bring some of your your giving solutions to life or collaboration because yeah we we can't do it alone and do you have to be a large corporate to be a part of good company no no not at all we work with companies of all different sizes you
know if they're a team of 10 they're perfect to go out on the volunteer mystery.
Bus if you've got five people maybe you want to send charity gift cards for christmas if you're a thousand people you want you know a platform that can engage all your staff so we we love working with any company that's genuinely you know committed to to doing some good yeah brilliant brilliant thank you so so i'm going to ask you to close the show with ash's dream so you know if if you could achieve your dream goals, over the next five years, let's say by 2030, what would it look like?
Well, I've got four dreams, I think, four. So one's for every company to be a good company. That's a pretty big one, actually. Yeah, love that. But we do have a good company certified logo, which basically means that your company invests in giving back and doing good.
So for every company to have one of those to grow the good company awards be fantastic to grow the tuesdays emails that go out every tuesday and make that a a household brand or name would be incredible and and lastly to expand that volunteer mystery but so it is running nationally, and driving change. So they're the four dreams. Beautiful. Ash, Ross Handler, thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. I've loved it. Music.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the For Love and Money podcast. If you'd like to take a deeper dive into the purpose movement, visit us at thecauseeffect.com.au. And remember, doing good is good for business. So if you're not doing good, then what are you doing?