So, what happens when (or should I say if) we make money?

We're gonna do good things with it.

One of the earliest initiatives I built into my first business Ethique was our charitable program.

I didn’t want to wait till we were ‘successful’ or flush with loads of cash (lol) to start giving back, I wanted to do it from day one. And everyone told me this was stupid. I suppose, in fairness to them, it is a little naive, because startups have one thing in common - they have no money. Ethique didn’t, and Incrediballs doesn’t either. I am running Incrediballs as a proper startup, so there is no blank cheque behind the scenes, greenlighting every idea we have.
I could go into why I made that decision, but I don’t really think you’re reading our Substack for those sorts of conversations.

It has always felt backwards to me that you grow a business, doing all sorts of damage on the way, and then when you hit some arbritrary point, you decide to look at how you could try and make it better. Wouldn’t it be better not to do the damage in the first place?

This logic is more obvious with things like paying a living wage. I lost count of the number of people who said ‘you can just pay people a living wage when you’re bigger’. The underlying message being you can only grow a startup if you exploit people to get there, as long as once you do, you think about paying them a wage they can actually live on.

And yet I am the one people look sideways at?

Anywho, that’s a philosophical tangent you probably didn’t want.

What have we done so far?

We’ve been stuck in R&D hell for about three years now, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t already been working on this.

Ecologi: We’ve been an Ecologi member since the business was first registered back in 2023. Ecologi funds trees (with a brilliant organisation called the Eden Reforestation Project - more on them soon…), rewilding projects, community projects, clean energy initiatives and so on. I have worked with them for all my companies for years and love their work.

OnlyOne: A bit like Ecologi, OnlyOne have ‘gamified’ giving. They find, vet and then work with organisations and communities around the world creating real impact with activities like planting coral, pulling plastic out of the ocean and restoring mangroves - as well as lobbying global leaders. Again, I’m a huge fan of what they do and how easy they make it - but without compromising on genuine oomph.

Click on the name of each org above to see our impact dashboard for both.

WWF: We hosted a screening of David Attenborough’s ‘Ocean’ last year with some brilliant speakers to draw awareness to some of the truly grim statistics in the film. All proceeds went to the WWF.

SPCA: I combined my old soap-making skills with Incrediballs and turned them into SPCA-themed soap cupcakes - with 100% of sales donated to the SPCA. For a $30 donation, you got two soap cupcakes and a free box of Incrediballs. Together, we raised $3,210 for the SPCA which made piping soap icing swirls at 2am worth it!

Donations: We’ve donated samples to more than 20 NGOs and community groups for them to use in fundraising (or to just enjoy). And no - this does not include prizes and surprises we’ve given away to some of the ballers.

So now what? Drumroll please…. 🥁

Introducing the Incredifund ✨

Yes, at some point I will stop prefacing every word with incredi, but we’re not there yet.

Our plan is to donate 20% of profit, or 2% of sales (whichever is higher) to NGOs, charities, schools and all sorts of other organisations and individuals who are doing good things.

Now, before you send us a paypal request, we do have some parameters. We’re splitting our focus into three, quite broad buckets¹.

This still needs work, so don’t look too closely…

1. We’re here to rid the world of plastic bottles - we have a strong environmental focus.

2. We want others to see how incredible our planet is, and how arse-backwards some of the things we do are - so there is an education pillar.

3. And finally, health. You can’t be a drinks company without focusing on science-led health. And when we talk about health here, we very deliberately don’t mean wellness culture. We’re not interested in detoxes (not a thing), superfoods (again, not a thing), or telling people they’d feel better if only they tried harder.

How will it work?

We will work with a small number of organisations on an annual, or semi-annual basis for bigger partnerships. It’s so hard to narrow these down, but the way to actually solve problems is to be very focused, rather than higgledy-piggledy and work with every organisation doing good things.

And yes, we will definitely have a small budget set aside to support community organisations and smaller events too - more on how to apply for this soon.

This will evolve. The details will change as the business grows, because of course they will.

I guess we are putting our money where our balls are.
(Had to slide at least one in.)

1. Which is absolutely not best practise, according to some wonderful philanthropic experts I spent some time with, so don’t do what we’re doing.