Growing Up Kielburger

During my childhood in Thornhill, north of Toronto, we were expected to chip in as soon as we could hold a paintbrush. Our parents flipped properties before there was a cable channel devoted to the process—buy house, renovate, repeat. We were the only kids our age who became accomplished at painting, plumbing, and drywall, more familiar with the local Home Depot than with any of our childhood homes. Mom and Dad, both school teachers, believed firmly in the value of hard work and entrepreneurship.

Watch an embarrassing home movie of me as a kid: Click for video.

When my mother, Theresa, was nine, her father died suddenly, leaving my grandmother Mimi to provide for the family. With just an eighth-grade education, Mimi cleaned houses to make ends meet. And when ends failed to meet, as they did one especially tough summer, the family was forced to live in a tent. One day, Mimi read about a local high school burning down, years of academic records destroyed by flames. Buried in the classifieds, she also spotted an opening for a secretarial job at one of her hometown's biggest employers, the Chrysler Corporation. Only high-school graduates were eligible. Lucky for my mother and her three siblings, Mimi had moxie. Mimi bought a typewriter and, painstakingly, taught herself to touch-type late at night and on her rare days off. Then she applied for the secretarial job. When asked about her high school credentials, Mimi replied, “Oh dear, did you hear about my high school burning down?” Her typing skills were so exceptional that no one had reason to doubt her. Eventually, Mimi worked her way up to head the secretarial department.

My dad, Fred, is the son of a German-Romanian immigrant who came to Canada with next to nothing during the Great Depression. A cook and a musician—my dad's dad could play eight or nine instruments—he didn't speak more than a few words of English. There weren't many job openings for foreign-language chefs or multi-instrumentalists. He literally fought to survive, boxing for money in what he described as “suicide matches.” Eventually, he found work as a servant in Toronto's upscale Rosedale neighborhood, saving enough to open his own corner store. In more than 20 years, it closed for exactly one day, so the family could enjoy a brief holiday in Niagara Falls.

My parents feel the meaning of struggle and sacrifice in their bones. And like all parents, they wanted more for their children. Their own tough childhoods heightened that desire, and so they encouraged my brother and me to consider distinguished careers in medicine and law, respectively. At the same time, our parents have always been sensitive to the struggles of others. We will be forever grateful for the lessons in tough love and drywall repair, mixed with those about compassion for strangers. Before we were born, my mother left teaching for a few years to work as an outreach worker, helping homeless youth escape drugs, alcoholism, and prostitution. Dad volunteered one summer at the original L'Arche, a home for adults with developmental disabilities in Trosly-Breuil, France. He slept on the couch of the organization's visionary founder, Jean Vanier, who subsequently built L'Arche into a worldwide support network. But our parents didn't talk much about their own activism when we were young. In fact, as teenagers, we had no idea about this part of their past. It wasn't their style to tell us how to do it, and so we found our own way.

Water Boy to the Prime Minister

My path in grade school and in high school meandered toward service. It seemed to me, as a high school student anyway, that to change the world, I had to go into politics. I had always been fascinated by the power and drama of politics, and chose the University of Ottawa in the nation's capital, and the center of Canada's political arena, for the first year of my undergrad. I was thrilled to win one of 40 coveted spots in the House of Commons Page Program in Canada's Parliament.

Pages in Canada's House of Commons, akin to pages in U.S. Congress, ferry secret notes back and forth across the plush green carpet, and deliver water and stationery to Members of Parliament. It was important, we were told, that then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien took his water without ice, while then-Finance Minister Paul Martin took his with ice. With all the shouting across the chamber, it was critical that each politician have his or her throat moistened to an exacting standard. The work was hardly glamorous, but it did afford an intimate view of the cut and thrust of politics. And there was one other job perk.

Roxanne Joyal was a page from Winnipeg, Manitoba; a striking, brilliant young woman with a fiery French-Canadian accent who wouldn't give me the time of day. I managed to insert myself into her life by dating her roommate. My plan to woo her makes me sound like the antihero in a Woody Allen movie, I know, but it must have worked because she agreed to marry me years later.

After we'd been dating awhile, Roxanne and I took a break from our studies to volunteer in Bangkok, a shock to the senses with its landscape of gold-plated skyscrapers dotted with forests of construction cranes. Klong Toey, the district where I lived, was a maze of densely packed streets; people spilling onto sidewalks from dark, misshapen houses fashioned from shipping crates and corrugated tin. The neighborhood was known as “the slaughterhouse,” named after the abattoir in the stretch of slum next to the Chao Praya River. Sometimes I lay awake at night listening to the pigs screaming in their final moments. During the day I volunteered at Bangkok's only free hospice for AIDS patients. Roxanne was stationed in another part of Klong Toey, where she worked with new mothers with HIV and AIDS. At the time, AIDS did not officially exist in Thailand. Those dying of the disease were referred to only as the “very sick.” For six months, I held the hands of patients as they took their final breaths, consumed by an unspoken illness. The work was emotionally exhausting and infuriating. I was enraged at the thousands of deaths that were being ignored by the government, and resolved to learn everything I could about HIV/AIDS prevention and support.

Inspired by my trip, I moved closer to my purpose. With a full scholarship, I veered from politics and transferred into the international development program at Harvard University. Looking back, this was a further step away from the traditional corporate route toward an exciting, if uncertain, career path in the charitable sector. I knew I couldn't spend my life selling boxes, even if I was well-paid to do so.

Enterprising for Good

At law school across the pond in Oxford, it was easier for me to travel to the expanding WE Charity projects in Africa, which I visited frequently. No place struck me more than Sierra Leone, which is the most damaged country we've ever worked in. An 11-year civil war fueled by blood diamonds brought terror to every corner of the tiny West African nation. Thousands of boys, some as young as seven and eight, were forcibly recruited to the rebel ranks. Those who refused had a hand chopped off to stop them from fighting for the enemy. Young girls were taken as war brides. As the civil war approached its end, our organization began to build and repair schools, but reading and writing took a back seat to more remedial lessons. Kids with prosthetic limbs were taught how to hold pencils. If a book fell to the floor with a thud, students would collapse in tears or dive under desks, the sound like gunfire, a trigger for PTSD.

“A little bit of good can turn into a whole lot of good when fueled by the commitment of a social entrepreneur.”

—Jeff Skoll

Two years into our work there, everything changed. Then-U.S. President George W. Bush had launched an aerial strike in Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A huge amount of aid was poised to flood into that country. Sierra Leone was old news, and NGOs were preparing to ship out en masse for the next stop on their global poverty tour. Many had no choice. Governments and media lurch from crisis to crisis, and donation dollars follow. As ships streamed out of port, we worried about our own projects in the face of news cycles and fleeting attention spans. We are not an emergency aid organization. Our model is built to last, and to withstand the whims of governments and media attention spans with sustainable, community-driven projects. But it takes time, an average of five years, to build relationships so that locals can sustain projects, taking them over from our team—education, health care, clean water, increasing crop yields for farmers, and small job creation. Real change requires a lasting commitment and investment.

We sought the guidance of a long-time mentor: Jeff Skoll. We first met Jeff in Los Angeles through a mutual friend who wanted to produce a film about WE's founding story. At the time, Jeff was at work on his fledgling film company. He had helped build eBay, and used his newfound wealth to launch The Skoll Foundation and the Skoll Centre at Oxford University, both devoted champions of social entrepreneurs, as well as the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

Jeff told us about the origins of his high-octane philanthropy, that he'd donated to traditional charity after coming into wealth. But after spending tens of millions without proof of positive impact, the entrepreneur in him grew frustrated. So he started asking for proof of returns on his donations, like a social impact investment.

We told Jeff about our Sierra Leone problem and, candidly, quietly, hoped that he might solve our funding shortfall with a donation. Instead, Jeff asked a series of questions that had a far more profound and long-lasting impact on our social mission: “Between you, you have a law degree and an MBA, correct?” We nodded, unsure why that mattered. Neither of us was a practicing lawyer or corporate executive.

Jeff pointed out that with our educational background, we should be able to come up with a solution. He told us that our funding challenges in Sierra Leone were only a symptom of a larger problem in the economics of the charitable sector.

Most charities struggle for stable revenue, and this limits their ability to invest in the most effective long-term projects. The entire sector is often unable to scale because donors don't want to dedicate resources to accelerators like technology or research and development of new impact models. Jeff challenged our longstanding assumptions that the business world makes the profits and then shares a little extra with a beholden charitable sector. He cautioned us that the charitable sector was often caught in a cycle of wasteful fundraising techniques, like for-profit firms that take up to 90 cents on the dollar for mass mailings, telemarketers, street canvassers, and those Sunday morning commercial pleas to send money.¹

As social entrepreneurs, we could create financial sustainability for our projects. We were missing untapped opportunities by limiting ourselves to only traditional charitable models. Jeff planted the seed for a socially conscious revenue driver.

Over the years, we had dedicated profits from our book sales and speaking honorariums to fund the charity. With Jeff's coaching, we decided to build on these early revenue models to launch a fully fledged social enterprise, a type of business that doesn't have a developed national framework in Canada, although it's a model used throughout the UK and the U.S.

To learn more about Me to WE: Click for video.

ME to WE by the Numbers^2,*

20,000 travelers to development projects in communities around the world.	140,000 students receive leadership training annually.
1,500 women entrepreneurs in Africa and South America employed full-time as artisans.	10 million social impacts funded and delivered through product purchases, including clean water and school supplies.
$13 million in cash and offsetting in-kind donations to WE Charity.

As the early catalyst, Skoll agreed to become our backer and provide the startup funds. We codified a series of founding principles to ensure that ME to WE Social Enterprise would always exist to serve a social mission. Most important, ME to WE would donate half of its profits to WE Charity, and reinvest the other half to grow the social enterprise by launching new ventures to increase the overall impact. ME to WE has one simple purpose: to better the world.

Since ME to WE couldn't ever go public on the stock exchange like a traditional company, we joke that in exchange for his funds, Jeff got “stock options in a better world.” We were unbelievably lucky to find someone who didn't care about monetary returns—only rigorous, evidence-based social impact (more on this later). We cannot sufficiently express our deep gratitude for his social commitment, as Jeff redefined the term “angel investor.” He joined our board of directors, injecting precision and reporting governance in addition to funds. With Jeff's championing, we set ambitious goals to generate revenue for WE Charity to scale impact, achieve stable funding, and invest in the hardest-to-fundraise-for projects in remote countries around the world. To achieve this vision, we started with global travel and socially conscious retail.

ME to WE Trips, one of these ventures, now operates in six countries, where thousands of individuals, school groups, corporate teams, and families travel with us each year to engage in cultural immersion and eco-friendly travel. In the pink hills of India's Aravalli Mountains, you'll be welcomed into village homes to make chapatti with the local women. In the Amazon's cloud forest in Ecuador, you'll visit a cocoa farmer to help with the harvest. In Kenya's Maasai Mara, you'll walk with the mamas to the Maasai River to collect water. WE has an ongoing partnership with each community, so travelers are welcomed like friends and partners in social impact, not temporary visitors.

Virtually visit the Amazon: Click for video.

Experience the magic of the Maasai Mara: Click for video.

Inspired by Jeff's early guidance, every ME to WE project is filtered through two lenses. First, it must do good in the world in and of itself. For instance, we create jobs in our trip locations, where we need local architects and engineers, chefs, drivers, interpreters, and guides. And second, it must make money to fund the organization's charitable projects. Revenue from trips is funnelled back into WE Charity to fund development projects in those same communities. Every trip participant is part of the sustainable development process; you do good just by staying with us. Not only by mixing cement and laying bricks for a new school or water project, but because the cost of your trip itself helps to fund the very same projects you're building.

Our social enterprise helped solidify the idea of purpose and profit, or in our case revenue, coming together to change the world.

Within seven years of starting up, more than $13 million in cash and offsetting in-kind donations has gone to support the charity (for instance, ME to WE pays the rent for WE Charity offices). This financial prop keeps our charity administration rate as low as possible, at an average of 10 percent, meaning 90 percent of every public donation dollar goes directly to the projects—a very efficient rate given the average among U.S. charities of our size is 25 percent spent on administration and fundraising.³ Most important, we're able to invest in key drivers like measurement, research, and continuous project improvement. This financial stability allows us to plan for the long term to achieve the greatest, most sustainable impact.

With our model in place and running successfully, we had solved a problem for the charity and opened a new door for me and our senior staff.

From day one, many of the original founding team, along with Craig and I, had decided never to take a salary from WE Charity, even though we dedicate most of our time and efforts to growing the charity's impact. Like many who want to work in the social impact sector, we struggled with the idea that we didn't want to be a financial burden. We so deeply believed in our mission that we wanted as much of the money raised as possible to go directly to our projects.

Without a salary, we embarked on some very thoughtful planning about how to sustain ourselves. While in university, Craig and I pulled many all-nighters applying for every scholarship and fellowship available to cover our studies and campus living expenses. When we graduated, we faced some difficult choices between following our passions or managing to pay the bills.

Our parents' own childhood hardships made them fiercely committed to social justice, with a belief that serving the most vulnerable is life's highest calling. When they achieved financial success through their real-estate entrepreneurship, they paid it forward—for us and for WE. After our studies, as Craig and I struggled to continue with the charity, we had a series of heartfelt conversations with our parents that we'll never forget, and for which we're forever grateful.

They offered to assist us, to the best of their ability, by supporting our life calling. They decided to unlock our early inheritance, and committed to providing financial support over the years through small acts and larger gifts, such as our first mortgage down-payments.

Our parents have always been our greatest champions and most generous benefactors, both personally and professionally. From the earliest days when they moved out of our childhood home so that our office could move in, to their continued support, we are forever indebted.

Years later, with ME to WE growing, Craig and I felt for the first time that we could start drawing a salary from the revenue generated by the social enterprise. This gave us the security to continue our own career paths in social impact and still allow us to start our own families.

Reflecting on my journey, I'm aware that I have been privileged to benefit from a mix of exceptionally supportive parents, opportunity, hard work, and luck. My grandfather used to say that capability is spread more evenly than opportunity, meaning that everyone can succeed, if given the chance. I'm very aware that there are so many other people whose incredible skills and dedication would benefit the purpose sector. It's odd, perhaps even unfair, to think that changing the world for the better has not been considered an esteemed career, but something that should be done as volunteers or for a pittance. Craig and I have seen our friends reluctantly leave the nonprofit sector for more lucrative careers so they can buy a house and start a family. We've also seen how hard it is to recruit talented employees when nonprofit salaries are so modest, and so many young people are overburdened trying to pay off college debt. We want the best, brightest, and most dedicated to form lifelong careers out of solving the world's foremost challenges.

That's why we started the WE Incubation Hub, to support young social entrepreneurs. We don't want future generations to have to struggle so hard to marry purpose with profit. It connects young social entrepreneurs with the accelerators of space, mentorship, technology, and venture capital. We support them to scale the best new ideas to tackle the world's foremost challenges such as hunger, poverty, and climate change.

Entering my forties, I may not have the fancy corner office of a cardboard box executive, but I have personal gratification, stability, and other job perks. My family travels with me to our projects, and together we've been around the world. My girls already have an appreciation for other cultures and an extended family in Kenya. My oldest, Lily-Rose, speaks a few words of Swahili with a Kenyan accent. Take Your Daughter to Work Day is a whole lot more interesting than it might have been.

How Many Hoops do you have to Jump through to do a Good Thing?

The answer is: We hope fewer, thanks to our struggles.

	A charity that starts a business to support itself was an idea that was ahead of its time—too far ahead, as it turned out, for some governments to process. Earning revenue to offset costs ran completely counter to the long-standing concept of a “nonprofit.”
	In the United Kingdom, charities can form separate for-profit trading companies to generate revenue to meet charitable goals. But in other countries, like ME to WE's home of Canada, not only was social enterprise a new concept, there were simply no regulatory models for us to follow.
	Two of Canada's top law firms, Torys and Miller Thomson, were willing to help us, pro bono. Together we worked to establish a legal structure governance model and reporting requirements.
	For added checks, the model was reviewed by a retired Supreme Court justice and a former Canadian Prime Minister and his law firm.
	In the end, the law firms told us that the costs of these services would have reached hundreds of thousands of dollars (did I mention we're really grateful for that donated time?).
	Here's the deal: We did it, but it shouldn't have been that hard.
	With public donations and charitable transfers from governments both in steady decline, social enterprises are trying to fill the void and provide a stable source of funding to create innovative, sustainable solutions to the world's most pressing challenges.
	We need to fundamentally change our thinking, and that of our governments, when it comes to how we view organizations that set out to solve some of the world's biggest and most persistent challenges.
	Governments around the world have an obligation to work with social entrepreneurs to establish reasonable legal and taxation frameworks to approve social enterprises and encourage their development and growth. While the UK is coming around quickest, all countries—particularly Canada and the U.S.—need to do more to facilitate and support the social enterprise sector.