[Music]
[Applause]
so 34 years ago nearly to the day by the
side of candy lake in Sri Lanka my mum
gave birth to this adorably cute little
boy who would grow up to have a little
bit more facial hair it was a relatively
peaceful moment in a year that had been
anything but three months earlier in Sri
Lanka race riots swept through the
streets and we we lived in candy which
was we thought relatively insulated and
far away from the heart of the rights
but the riots found us in the middle of
the night mobs ran through a street and
burnt down a house and my pregnant
mother my dad and my brother and sister
fled my parents don’t really talk a huge
amount about what actually happened in
those days but what I do know is that
within a few days a friend of the family
put us up in their house we eventually
made it to Australia and when we got
there this spirit of people helping us
out
continued people helped us find
furniture for our house people helped us
find clothes people helped us get a loan
so that when my parents were students we
could actually afford a place to live we
will help me learn English they even
gave me free cake and so I grew up on
this diet not just a free cake but of
stories that said when you’re in need
people will answer and when people ask
you for help it’s your responsibility to
put
hand up and do something and so when I
open the newspaper every day for me it’s
all fake news these stories of people
building walls these stories are people
shutting out people in their hour of
need those stories don’t reflect the
world that I grew up in and this idea
that we’re a group of mean-spirited
people that don’t actually care that
doesn’t reflect the people that I’ve
come across in my life because I know
deep down each and every one of you
given the choice would give this kid it
doesn’t speak any English it’s free cake
and so I always just kind of feel with
this idea that there are these hundreds
of thousands of people out there that
want to do something to make the world
better all I had to figure out was how
do I help them get from having an idea
to getting it done and if you could get
all those people to put their hand up
what actually would happen so four years
ago I set out to actually answer this
question and the first thing that I
discovered was there actually was a heap
of people who had ideas that to change
the world and they would have this idea
know tell their friends about it they
would get excited and then they would
get stuck because they couldn’t build a
community or raise funds to make the
idea reality and so we decided that the
first thing that we needed to do was
make it incredibly simple for people to
raise funds to build a community around
their projects and build make the
projects come to life in 2013 I started
a crowdfunding platform called chuffed
org dedicated to helping those people
with social impact projects in our first
year we raised a million dollars in
donations through the platform but more
importantly
that we supported 300 projects come to
life and I just want to tell you the
story of one of those projects and bear
with me with this because it’s a hard
one to tell so 26 years ago
Abdi and Fatima and therefore little
children found themselves in the heart
of the Rwandan Civil War there to flee
and as they fled from the hail of
gunfire
Abdi the father lost grip of his
nine-year-old son Syed the family made
it to Australia they didn’t the 10 years
the family sat in Australia
thinking it’s a it had died and then two
Red Cross workers Jane and Joan they
tracked down Sayyad to a refugee camp in
the outskirts of Kenya and four years
jadynn Joan petitioned the government to
let say ed return to his family
but to no avail in early 2014
Abdi the dad found out that he had a
terminal illness they only had a few
months to live and and his dying wish
was to see his son so Jane and Joann
kicked into action again
they got 35,000 signatures and they
petitioned them Immigration Minister
directly but to no avail
I’ve deed ID without ever seeing his son
it was at this point that we met Jane
and Joan they launched a campaign with
us
if they was like we just need to do
something for this family and they right
they wanted to raise $15,000 to fly for
tumor over to see her son was no longer
a nine-year-old boy and in a day they
got their $15,000 and they had to shut
down the campaign because too many
people wanted to donate there was a way
that people who cared about this issue
could finally do something that meant
something to them on the 23rd of January
2013 I opened up my email and I got this
photo after 23 long years Fatuma had
been finally reunited with her son now
every day of my life for two years was
filled with stories like this and but
like nothing prepared me for what was to
come in 2015 and we were sitting in
far-off Australia down under when news
of the Syrian refugee crisis broke and
while my news feed was filled with these
stories of governments closing borders
my chuff feed was filled with these
stories of brits opening their hearts it
was it was like nothing we’d really seen
before it was like a switch had been
flicked in the collective consciousness
and people said this is my problem if I
don’t do something if I don’t do it now
no one else is going to do it and so
they did they got in their cars they got
on the train they crossed the channel
they went to the camps in Calais and
Dunkirk and they provided programs of
care they build schools and family
centers they built libraries they built
kitchens they raised money for phone
credit and we got this glimpse of what
the world looks like when everyone puts
up their hand and does something
now in crises like these each of these
individual stories is amazing and
beautiful but there’s actually a much
bigger story going on when you look at
them as a collective and it’s a story
about what happens when a group of
loosely connected projects act in unison
towards a common goal this is what they
achieved the first thing that we noticed
was that they acted with an incredible
speed and flexibility so while the large
carriage which had normally the people
who respond in this situation were quick
on their donation pages they were slow
in their planning and even slow
longer-acting these campaigns these
smaller projects were up in days not
months and when the need changed they
changed with it and probably the best
example of this was a project actually
in with with a different disaster when
cyclone pam flattened Vanuatu the very
next day the High Commission of Vanuatu
put up a chuffed page to raise money for
Villa Hospital because that was the most
important thing that they needed to
raise money for at that point in time
they needed to get the walls back as a
roof on and they got their $20,000
pretty quickly and then they asked the
ministers on the ground what do you need
next and they were like we need to fix
up the Chiefs house because that’s where
all the decisions are going to be made
on what happens here and so they switch
their projects over to that people on
the ground were directing exactly what
needed to be funded in real time the
second thing that happened was the
people are going into really remote
areas that were hard to get to now
normally for most of these projects they
went to the big camps in Calais and
Dunkirk but a lot of them had further
afield into camps in Greece and Turkey
one of the most what I thought was crazy
at the time was this 23 year old Muslim
lady who raised money to ship a ton of
flour I’m not quite sure how ton of
flour looks but a ton of flour into the
heart of Syria and to make sure that it
got there
she went with it you know most of the
reason that they they did this and for
most of these projects that went out to
these remote areas they had a connection
with people on the ground there either
that family there they had been there
and that connection gave them the
on-the-ground know-how on how to get
stuff done in what is always a tricky
situation the third thing that happened
was that they were incredibly efficient
and transparent now normally when you
hear stories about charities doing
disaster relief it’s something like the
Red Cross in Haiti and 2015 NPR
ProPublica put out this report entitled
how the Red Cross raised half a billion
dollars for Haiti and built six homes
now while the title is obviously
dramatic and intended to be so the
reporting was thorough and while the Red
Cross responded to the all the claims in
there what they couldn’t do was actually
explain where the money went
now compare that with people like Darin
from the Brighton shelter build and
whenever he went over to build a house
or a community center over in the camps
in Calais he would take photos and on
the train back from Calais he would
stitch them together into a little video
before he got home people knew exactly
what had been doing and I think the
reason that people are so efficient and
transparent with their money here is
that who they get the money for from is
quite different normally they’re raising
funds from family and friends and so
wasting their money means ripping off
your mum and you know I know that if I
faced with a choice between facing the
Charity Commission or facing the mum
Commission I know which one I take
so when you look at all these projects
as a whole and it’s a collective they’re
doing something quite magical they’re
doing something that governments and big
charities would struggle to do they had
in effect as a collective without ever
intending to created a better form of
disaster relief and this method of using
loosely connected projects all working
toward a common goal doesn’t just work
in disaster relief it turns out it works
in all sorts of social cause areas now
the way that we think about this is that
the current model of charity and and
doing good is a set of monopolies
charity providers that are entrusted by
us to do social impact where as what
these people are creating is a world
where all these people could put up
their hand and you create a market and
this market is much better at delivering
more impact for more people than the
monopoly is since launching chuffed in
2013 a hundred and thirty thousand
people have donated over twelve million
pounds to campaigns on shaft we’re more
important than that 7,000 of these
projects from 300 in our first year have
come to life and if we can get that from
7,000 to tens of thousands to hundreds
of thousands our view on what our
society looks like will change we won’t
be a group of mean-spirited people
shouting slogans and building walls will
be a world full of people
who put up their hand to do stuff and
that’s a world I think we can all be
proud of
thank you
[Applause]
[Applause]
so 34 years ago nearly to the day by the
side of candy lake in Sri Lanka my mum
gave birth to this adorably cute little
boy who would grow up to have a little
bit more facial hair it was a relatively
peaceful moment in a year that had been
anything but three months earlier in Sri
Lanka race riots swept through the
streets and we we lived in candy which
was we thought relatively insulated and
far away from the heart of the rights
but the riots found us in the middle of
the night mobs ran through a street and
burnt down a house and my pregnant
mother my dad and my brother and sister
fled my parents don’t really talk a huge
amount about what actually happened in
those days but what I do know is that
within a few days a friend of the family
put us up in their house we eventually
made it to Australia and when we got
there this spirit of people helping us
out
continued people helped us find
furniture for our house people helped us
find clothes people helped us get a loan
so that when my parents were students we
could actually afford a place to live we
will help me learn English they even
gave me free cake and so I grew up on
this diet not just a free cake but of
stories that said when you’re in need
people will answer and when people ask
you for help it’s your responsibility to
put
hand up and do something and so when I
open the newspaper every day for me it’s
all fake news these stories of people
building walls these stories are people
shutting out people in their hour of
need those stories don’t reflect the
world that I grew up in and this idea
that we’re a group of mean-spirited
people that don’t actually care that
doesn’t reflect the people that I’ve
come across in my life because I know
deep down each and every one of you
given the choice would give this kid it
doesn’t speak any English it’s free cake
and so I always just kind of feel with
this idea that there are these hundreds
of thousands of people out there that
want to do something to make the world
better all I had to figure out was how
do I help them get from having an idea
to getting it done and if you could get
all those people to put their hand up
what actually would happen so four years
ago I set out to actually answer this
question and the first thing that I
discovered was there actually was a heap
of people who had ideas that to change
the world and they would have this idea
know tell their friends about it they
would get excited and then they would
get stuck because they couldn’t build a
community or raise funds to make the
idea reality and so we decided that the
first thing that we needed to do was
make it incredibly simple for people to
raise funds to build a community around
their projects and build make the
projects come to life in 2013 I started
a crowdfunding platform called chuffed
org dedicated to helping those people
with social impact projects in our first
year we raised a million dollars in
donations through the platform but more
importantly
that we supported 300 projects come to
life and I just want to tell you the
story of one of those projects and bear
with me with this because it’s a hard
one to tell so 26 years ago
Abdi and Fatima and therefore little
children found themselves in the heart
of the Rwandan Civil War there to flee
and as they fled from the hail of
gunfire
Abdi the father lost grip of his
nine-year-old son Syed the family made
it to Australia they didn’t the 10 years
the family sat in Australia
thinking it’s a it had died and then two
Red Cross workers Jane and Joan they
tracked down Sayyad to a refugee camp in
the outskirts of Kenya and four years
jadynn Joan petitioned the government to
let say ed return to his family
but to no avail in early 2014
Abdi the dad found out that he had a
terminal illness they only had a few
months to live and and his dying wish
was to see his son so Jane and Joann
kicked into action again
they got 35,000 signatures and they
petitioned them Immigration Minister
directly but to no avail
I’ve deed ID without ever seeing his son
it was at this point that we met Jane
and Joan they launched a campaign with
us
if they was like we just need to do
something for this family and they right
they wanted to raise $15,000 to fly for
tumor over to see her son was no longer
a nine-year-old boy and in a day they
got their $15,000 and they had to shut
down the campaign because too many
people wanted to donate there was a way
that people who cared about this issue
could finally do something that meant
something to them on the 23rd of January
2013 I opened up my email and I got this
photo after 23 long years Fatuma had
been finally reunited with her son now
every day of my life for two years was
filled with stories like this and but
like nothing prepared me for what was to
come in 2015 and we were sitting in
far-off Australia down under when news
of the Syrian refugee crisis broke and
while my news feed was filled with these
stories of governments closing borders
my chuff feed was filled with these
stories of brits opening their hearts it
was it was like nothing we’d really seen
before it was like a switch had been
flicked in the collective consciousness
and people said this is my problem if I
don’t do something if I don’t do it now
no one else is going to do it and so
they did they got in their cars they got
on the train they crossed the channel
they went to the camps in Calais and
Dunkirk and they provided programs of
care they build schools and family
centers they built libraries they built
kitchens they raised money for phone
credit and we got this glimpse of what
the world looks like when everyone puts
up their hand and does something
now in crises like these each of these
individual stories is amazing and
beautiful but there’s actually a much
bigger story going on when you look at
them as a collective and it’s a story
about what happens when a group of
loosely connected projects act in unison
towards a common goal this is what they
achieved the first thing that we noticed
was that they acted with an incredible
speed and flexibility so while the large
carriage which had normally the people
who respond in this situation were quick
on their donation pages they were slow
in their planning and even slow
longer-acting these campaigns these
smaller projects were up in days not
months and when the need changed they
changed with it and probably the best
example of this was a project actually
in with with a different disaster when
cyclone pam flattened Vanuatu the very
next day the High Commission of Vanuatu
put up a chuffed page to raise money for
Villa Hospital because that was the most
important thing that they needed to
raise money for at that point in time
they needed to get the walls back as a
roof on and they got their $20,000
pretty quickly and then they asked the
ministers on the ground what do you need
next and they were like we need to fix
up the Chiefs house because that’s where
all the decisions are going to be made
on what happens here and so they switch
their projects over to that people on
the ground were directing exactly what
needed to be funded in real time the
second thing that happened was the
people are going into really remote
areas that were hard to get to now
normally for most of these projects they
went to the big camps in Calais and
Dunkirk but a lot of them had further
afield into camps in Greece and Turkey
one of the most what I thought was crazy
at the time was this 23 year old Muslim
lady who raised money to ship a ton of
flour I’m not quite sure how ton of
flour looks but a ton of flour into the
heart of Syria and to make sure that it
got there
she went with it you know most of the
reason that they they did this and for
most of these projects that went out to
these remote areas they had a connection
with people on the ground there either
that family there they had been there
and that connection gave them the
on-the-ground know-how on how to get
stuff done in what is always a tricky
situation the third thing that happened
was that they were incredibly efficient
and transparent now normally when you
hear stories about charities doing
disaster relief it’s something like the
Red Cross in Haiti and 2015 NPR
ProPublica put out this report entitled
how the Red Cross raised half a billion
dollars for Haiti and built six homes
now while the title is obviously
dramatic and intended to be so the
reporting was thorough and while the Red
Cross responded to the all the claims in
there what they couldn’t do was actually
explain where the money went
now compare that with people like Darin
from the Brighton shelter build and
whenever he went over to build a house
or a community center over in the camps
in Calais he would take photos and on
the train back from Calais he would
stitch them together into a little video
before he got home people knew exactly
what had been doing and I think the
reason that people are so efficient and
transparent with their money here is
that who they get the money for from is
quite different normally they’re raising
funds from family and friends and so
wasting their money means ripping off
your mum and you know I know that if I
faced with a choice between facing the
Charity Commission or facing the mum
Commission I know which one I take
so when you look at all these projects
as a whole and it’s a collective they’re
doing something quite magical they’re
doing something that governments and big
charities would struggle to do they had
in effect as a collective without ever
intending to created a better form of
disaster relief and this method of using
loosely connected projects all working
toward a common goal doesn’t just work
in disaster relief it turns out it works
in all sorts of social cause areas now
the way that we think about this is that
the current model of charity and and
doing good is a set of monopolies
charity providers that are entrusted by
us to do social impact where as what
these people are creating is a world
where all these people could put up
their hand and you create a market and
this market is much better at delivering
more impact for more people than the
monopoly is since launching chuffed in
2013 a hundred and thirty thousand
people have donated over twelve million
pounds to campaigns on shaft we’re more
important than that 7,000 of these
projects from 300 in our first year have
come to life and if we can get that from
7,000 to tens of thousands to hundreds
of thousands our view on what our
society looks like will change we won’t
be a group of mean-spirited people
shouting slogans and building walls will
be a world full of people
who put up their hand to do stuff and
that’s a world I think we can all be
proud of
thank you
[Applause]
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