In August of 2017, B1G1 celebrated its 10th anniversary. In those 10 years, Buy 1 Give 1 has had over 100 million Giving Impacts globally. 

How does focusing on giving, change the way we do business?

B1G1 is a Social Enterprise initiative that delivers value to businesses, by helping them ‘embed’ charitable giving and purpose, easily, into their everyday activities. It was founded by Paul Dunn and Masami Sato, after Wealth Dynamics - a profiling system created by Roger Hamilton - inspired them. 

Paul and Masami have seen that giving has a profound impact on businesses and individuals. 

Masami used to run a food business in Australia, a frozen meal company distributing products to more than 150 stores in Australia. 

“In 2006, I had the opportunity to participate in Entrepreneur Business School (EBS) hosted by Roger in Bali. Our business was one of the shortlisted businesses pitching and competing throughout the 3-day business program. 

In one of the sessions where Paul was mentoring a smaller group, I explained how our food business was aiming to give profits away to feed and educate street children. But the truth was that we were still not making much profit at that time even though our plan was to grow our business so that we could help many children. We wanted every meal we were selling to be helping disadvantaged children. 

Right then, someone in the audience said, “ah, that’s buy one give one!” The words ‘BUY ONE GIVE ONE’ floated in the air as everyone in the room could almost see them. We thought it was a fantastic, magical idea: Small giving can be embedded in every small transaction. Giving does not have to be a result of big success. 

But I only recognised the significance of the idea a few month later. I realised that we could create a world full of giving by making it easy for any and every business to give in the ‘buy one give one' way. 

Several months later, we sold our food business and moved to Singapore to found B1G1. Soon after that, Paul joined the team to help make this vision a reality too.”

"There are so many people that say “When I'm successful, then I’ll give back.”

Many people don’t understand that being on purpose is part of the journey. 

When you start with purpose, if you can explain it in very concrete terms,  in such a way, that when you can get up every morning focused on that bigger purpose, it’s like an electromagnet switches on. Other people start coming to you because they too want to plug into the same purpose, and then real magic can begin to happen. 

Most of us started our business, because we wanted to do something meaningful but when we’re doing everyday things, we can get separated from that meaning. When the desire to make a difference is just something you want to do in the future, then it’s easy to get lost in the day to day business development and get frustrated that the giving never begins. The most important thing, is not to make things so big you can never reach them, but turn each thing into a small action, that you can integrate into what you do. 

More change can happen if you make it small.

In these small actions, things like sending an email, or creating an account, if by doing that you then could give a family in Kenya a goat, or give a child access to water - then all of a sudden responding to emails becomes a joyful thing."

B1G1 Gives businesses the opportunity to give through small actions. Every action can have an impact, and as Masami says,

"Everything that happens in the world happens is an exchange, just like business. When we think about this exchange there are 2 ways to do it - trying to get more and trying to give more. When we’re trying to get more of it, we’re not in control because we’re dependent on other people to give to you. When you’re giving it’s under your control 100 percent, you can always offer something no matter how small. if you do it willingly to keep offering, it’s impossible to stop the flow, and it comes back to you."

How does the value of giving impact businesses?

Paul tells a story of how giving changed a small business in the UK.

"Michael from the midlands ended up in the army, and he was deployed as a prodder. 

He would lie in the sand and use a knitting needle and had to crawl along to find the landmines. 

There’s now a charity that trains rats to do that, where they can sniff it and run the other way. Michael left the army, and reflected on his experience, and knew what the army was doing was causing a lot of damage. He asked, how are we going to fix that? 

So he decided to start a business. He and his friends had the idea of Combat Pest Control. They do pest control for individuals and commercial businesses, and they hire army veterans. Michael looked at the business and thought ‘where do we go, what more can we do?’. He found the B1G1 projects in Afghanistan, through looking at our site, and became a member. Now he can just focus on running his business - and we take care of the giving. His company just won an award from the Ministry of Defence for Veterans in Business. 

B1G1 can elevate their purpose, and they’re free to focus on running their business, with the giving built in”.

Businesses can literally become more successful through giving. Roger Hamilton, social entrepreneur, futurist and creator of Wealth Dynamics talks about the value of giving for people who might be stuck in a victimhood mentality, at Infrared level of the Wealth Spectrum. 

“Giving is the antidote of getting. It’s like the footballer saying ‘why is no-one kicking me the ball’ - when he might not even be in the right position on the field. The paradigm shifts when you say - what do I have to give, rather than what can I get out of this. If you move to a better position on the pitch, asking what can I give, the ball will get passed to you. 

The antidote to victimhood is service, and you get there by asking how can I start giving more effectively."

Another business that experienced this shift is a dental practice in the UK. They had a problem with high turnover of employees in their practice. After including B1G1 in their hiring process, Paul talks about the reactions they get from potential employees. 

“After they talk about what they do with B1G1, there are two reactions. The first reaction is “oh well, that’s really nice”  -  the second is “Oh Wow! I really want to be a part of this!” - and it’s no surprise who they hire. It’s transformed the way this dental practice runs their business, and has made the whole practice more giving in the way they interact. They have had something like 30,000 impacts, and they give their patients the choice of where each impact goes.

Everyone talks about the search for meaning and purpose. We’re always ‘on’, doing something, and we get home at the end of the day and ask if that’s all there is. If we’re really living a purpose filled life. 

B1G1 gives people the chance to see the impact they’re having every day, it grounds the actions we take into real service. We’re releasing an app, called the ImpactNow app that allows us to integrate giving into everything that we do and track it.”

Masami says,”The best part of giving is when everybody becomes a giver, to be proud to do what they’re doing and exchanging what they have, benefiting each other, and creating true joy”.

Today, we work with more than 2,000 businesses and those businesses have created more than 130 million giving impacts. This is the power of small!”

B1G1 is focused on the achievement of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. By having businesses give, in the most effective and connected way possible. 

Early in 2018, GeniusU, the online network for entrepreneurship and B1G1 are creating a fully integrated partnership. This will allow the 800,000+ GeniusU members, to connect and give through their GeniusU member profile and circles, direct to B1G1 causes. 

This will enable B1G1, to grow its membership and giving impacts substantially in 2018 and beyond.

How can you give more effectively today?