S13E09: Unlocking billions in funding for nonprofits, with James Citron (CEO, Pledge)

An episode of The Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast

S13E09: Unlocking billions in funding for nonprofits, with James Citron (CEO, Pledge)

We're continuing our season on "business as a force for good", Richard speaks with James Citron, CEO of Pledge. Pledge's mission is to power generosity by partnering with mission-driven companies, nonprofits, and charitable individuals to unlock billions in funding for over 2 million nonprofits around the world. Pledge has helped to fund clean water for 1M people, 1M trees planted and 1B meals to children and families in need. Prior to Pledge, James built and successfully exited multiple companies.

In this conversation, you’ll learn:

  • The moment James decided he was all-in on "tech for good".
  • The roadmap James used to build Pledge, and the very first thing he did.
  • James's advice for avoiding hiring mistakes.
  • Why (and how) your company purpose can evolve.
  • How James plans to unlock $10B of value for the non-profit sector.

"There are moments where you have to block everything else out, build something, break some rules along the way."

Click to Tweet

Resources/sources mentioned:

Watch

More of a video person? No problem.

You can watch this episode and discover more videos on strategy, leadership and purpose over on the Xquadrant YouTube channel.

Transcript

James Citron
Literally, when a kid was in crisis, they could send a text, and on the other end, someone was there, a crisis support person. So these two life events, what they did, I was like, oh, my God. I didn't create my text messaging company to save lives. We were sending out billions of messages for President Obama, prime Minister, modi salesforce, et cetera. But I saw this little nonprofit use technology. My platform save lives.

Richard Medcalf
Welcome to the Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast. I'm Richard Medcalf, founder of Xquadrant, and my mission is to help the world's top CEOs and entrepreneurs shift from incremental to exponential progress and create a huge positive impact on our world. Now, that requires you to reinvent yourself and transform your business. So if you're ready to play a bigger game than ever before, I invite you to join us and become an Impact Multiplier CEO. In this episode, I speak with James Citron, the CEO and the founder of Pledge. Pledge's mission is to partner with mission driven companies and nonprofits and individuals to unlock billions in funding for nonprofits around the world. He realized that the system had so much friction in, and he made it his mission to address that. And to date, the company has been able to fund clean water for a million people. They've planted over a million trees. They've delivered over a billion meals to children around the world. So this is a company with real impact. And in the conversation, I speak with James around his previous corporate career and the moment where he went all in on tech for good. When he decided that he could have a purpose as well as a business. We look at the roadmap he used to build the business. What was the first thing he did when he decided to go all in? And we get some very practical tactical tips as well on hiring and also on purpose, how that plays out in that whole process. And then, looking forward, we tap into James's entrepreneurial instincts as he explains how he's going to tap into a 10 billion opportunity to do good in the world. It's a great conversation. Enjoy it. James Citron, CEO of pledge.

Richard Medcalf
James, what I know about you is that you're on a mission to create a billion dollars in charitable donations. You've already raised fundraising, 4 billion meals, and provided clean water for a million people. And yet ten years ago, you were right in the middle of the mobile messaging and engagement industry. I believe you built three text messaging businesses at scale. So how did you get from one to the other? What was that journey? Because it sounds know you're on a real mission that's really quite different from where you were just a few years ago. Yep.

James Citron
Well, thank you, Richard. It's an honor to be here. And I'm happy to share what seems like a very nonlinear path to a world focused on impact. So a little less than ten years ago, I had these two crazy life events, which I'm sure many of your listeners have had one of these two events. So I became a father, and my wife and I had our first child, and I took paternity before paternity was a thing. And I told my private equity investors and board, I said, look, I'm going to take a month off. They're like, are you kidding me? And I said, yes. A very non American thing to do. Eight years ago, I didn't think that.

Richard Medcalf
Was allowed in the states. But that's.

James Citron
Know, still, most companies are struggling with this in America, unfortunately, because it's a critical thing. And I know across the pond where you are, this is the norm. So I started thinking, looking at my beautiful young boy a lot about my legacy and what was the impact that I wanted to have on the world. And there's this chemical reaction that changes, I think, when you become a parent, and you just look at these little angelic babies. And so as I was starting to think about what is my legacy, and I've been grateful and privileged to build some pretty big tech companies, this little tiny nonprofit reached out to me, and I was checking email, of course, periodically in those late hours and whatnot. And this nonprofit said, james, do you know what happens when someone texts 911 from your cell phone? They said, I literally need the most safe, reliable text messaging platform in the world to save lives. And I'm like, Why? And the story was, there was a young girl who was being abused, and she texted 911 from her cell phone, because if you're a young kid anywhere in the world these days, your first language is text. That's what you do. And this nonprofit leader by the name of Nancy Lublin heard the story, and no one knows what happened to this girl. And she said, I have to solve this. I'm like, well, Nancy we're the platform. She reached out to myself and the CEO of twilio. She chose our platform. And I literally saw I came back from paternity, she launched the platform, and it started out we were sending by the way, my company was sending billions, passing billions and billions of text messages. But I saw this little nonprofit, which is now very well known, called crisis text line, literally start saving lives with text messaging. Literally, when a kid was in crisis, they could send a text, and on the other end, someone was there, a crisis support person. So these two life events, what they did, I was like, oh, my god. I didn't create my text messaging company to save lives. We were sending out billions of messages for president Obama, prime minister, modi salesforce, et cetera. But I saw this little nonprofit use technology, my platform, to save lives. And I said to myself, this mobile messaging thing is great, but my legacy cannot be helping to create add on cell phones and screen addiction. My legacy? I love building tech companies. How do I go the next chapter of my life and build tech for good?

Richard Medcalf
Just jump in there. I think it's really interesting because there is that moment where I think a lot of execs in tech actually have this that they kind of go, you know, what? Well paid, interesting. It's fun. There's a part of them which is like, yeah, but it's like delivering ads or something else, which is not amazing, but it pays the bills, and it's fun and interesting. And I think there's a moment which we can look for or we can not look for, whatever, but there can be this moment where we know we become on fire. And actually, there's something which is more important. I had it myself when I was at Cisco. Cisco is a great company. I was enjoying my role, does good things, right? I mean, it's not doing bad things. It's doing good things. But I got to a stage where I've said it many times in the podcast, I think, that I realized I didn't want my legacy just to be helping increase the profit margin of at and T by 0.1%. Right? There's nothing wrong with that. I love helping my clients with financials, but that wasn't the legacy. That weren't the stories I wanted to tell my grandchildren in the future. It sounds like you had a similar moment when you know what it was like. There's something else.

James Citron
You're exactly right. And once you find that you can't sleep, that is the most important thing. So for me, I had that exact same realization, and then it was, okay, I got to do my job, which was ultimately growing and selling that company. And next it was, what technology platform can I build for good? Whose sole purpose it's not by happenstance or luck or whatever, whose sole purpose is going to save lives, uplift communities, and do good for the world. And that's what led me to Pledge.

Richard Medcalf
Great. So let's kind of fast forward. So where are you now? Tell us a bit about what Pledge is and just kind of where the story has gone to so far.

James Citron
So Pledge is the world's most innovative and trusted charitable donation platform. So now, several years in, we actually can enable anyone, any company, any nonprofit to fundraise. We have 2.2 million nonprofits around the world in the database. Last year alone, we processed donations in about 125 countries, about four to 4500 companies using the platform today. And we have a bunch of big strategic partnerships where we partner with really incredible, mission aligned companies. So I'll give you some examples. Like Zoom. During the pandemic, when we were all the only way we connect was through Zoom. We reached out to Zoom and we said, Zoom, you're connecting the world, but you do not have a donate button. I said, that's a great idea. So we partner with them to bring a donate button and enable anyone to fundraise churches, schools, companies to zoom. So we have thousands of companies. And some of the impact that we've achieved I know you mentioned it, but over a billion meals, a million people provided, clean drinking water, millions of trees planted, we still feel like we're just scratching the surface of getting started or the impact that we want to achieve.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. That's amazing. And so tell us that actually how pledge came. Where did the idea come from? Or how did that evolve?

James Citron
Yeah, so I got a phone call shortly after I sold my text messaging company. And I was talking to everyone. I was talking to venture capitalists. I was talking to friends in the industry. And I'm like, I want to go build a tech for a good company. And I got a phone call from my now partner, who's the chairman of a board, and he said, do you know that hundreds of billions of dollars is raised for charity every year in the US. When he told me the number, now over $500 billion gets donated to charity in the US. Alone. It's twice the size of the US. Advertising industry. And yet when you want to donate in an instant, it's complicated. You can't use Apple Pay or Google Pay. It's full of friction. You don't even know how much of your donation goes to charity. I was blown away. I was absolutely blown away. And so when Matt called me, I said, this is an incredible problem that I want to go see if we can build a better and easier way for people to give and really raise more money. Because ultimately, the nonprofits are they are the ones who are on the front lines of solving some of the biggest issues in the world, but the one thing that they need is more capital. So I said, that's a great problem to go solve.

Richard Medcalf
Beautiful. And so how did you start? That's the problem want to solve. Where did you begin? Right, because in the short spaces, by a time you've borrowed some pretty heavyweight brands and names and made a lot of things happen. But where did you start when it was just you and this idea?

James Citron
Well, first, I reached out to two of my favorite colleagues. I put some job postings out there, and one of my best developers that I've ever had the privilege of working with, we've now built and sold three companies. He said, I would love to join and be your CTO. His name is Paul. He's incredible. My head of finance, who's been my head of finance and business affairs for years across three companies. He's like, I love this mission. I will join you. So first it was about I got to build a great team. At the beginning of every single company. It starts with an idea and a team. And as you know, Richard sometimes the ideas change, but it's the team that's, know, listens to customers, figures it out, that can build the right product. So I started with the team, and the first big partnership that we did that I think proved the model was with Evite. Evite is this incredible invitation platform. It's the largest online invitation platform. Are you familiar with that, Richard?

Richard Medcalf
I don't think I am, no. I'm going to plead ignorance.

James Citron
That's totally fine. They're primarily a US brand, but they send out millions. If you're planning a birthday party in the US. And you have children my kids. I've got two kids, a five and an eight year old. I get an invite like every week to a kid's birthday party. It's kind of the thing. So we were talking to their CEO because he noticed something really fascinating that was happening. So many parents were saying, please come to my kids birthday party, but please do not bring any more gifts. We do not want to invite 30 kids from the class and get 30 more presents. Right. There's just too much creates a culture of excess and there's all these things. So this behavior was starting to happen. So we're talking to Evite. Evite said, is there a way to make it really easy to say, you know what? When you're planning that invitation, a parent can go, you know what? My son's really into the local animal shelter. Please don't give us gifts. Please donate to the local animal shelter or our church or our elementary school or any of the nonprofits. So that was the first launch for pledge, and it took off like that.

Richard Medcalf
So that's fantastic example of like, an initial use case, was that relationship something you already had? You already knew this individual, so you were able just to go to your network and find some traction?

James Citron
It's a great question. So Matt, my business partner, had been talking to Evite, and Evite was looking at the data and was like, this is really interesting. Is this something you can solve? But at the time when I joined, we didn't have a platform that could do it. So my new CTO, who I'd been working with for ten years, but in prior life, I said, Paul, we didn't have any other developers. And he's a CTO, he runs a big team now. But at the time, we didn't have any other developers. I said, Paul, Eva loves this idea, but you have to go build this in the next two weeks to see if it's going to work. Yeah, and that's what we did. That's what we did. He cranked it out. He built the first prototype in weeks. And everyone talks about their entrepreneurial journey. The are these moments where you just kind of have to go block everything else out, build something, figure out how to do it, break some rules along the way. And I have to tell you, Richard, it started working and very few things. I know I've built a lot of companies, a lot of products. Very few things have worked like this right out of the gate.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, well, I guess if you call it the inventor's life, right? You put things out. You put things out, and then you put the right thing out, which is fantastic.

James Citron
Can I tell you a funny story about Victor? So Victor was the former CEO of Evite. He was there for many years, built up the brands, and they have a new CEO who's incredible as well. But Victor goes, I love this idea of bringing people together through Evite, and now there's a whole purpose component with the pledge integration, which is now it's called Evite donations Powered by Pledge. And he goes, I want to go introduce this on stage at this big trade show that I'm keynoting. I said, that sounds great. He goes, well, it's only going to have been live for one day. And James, after I give the keynote announcing this new functionality, would you come speak for a few minutes after me? And I said, sure, why not? So we had been live, and when you work with these big companies, you don't launch everything where you get 100% of their customers in day one, right? So you do a progressive launch. So we were live for less than a day across 10% of their audience. They wanted to make sure it was working. There wasn't any customer issues, no friction, et cetera. So I text Paul, my CTO, Victor's, in the middle of his keynote in Las Vegas at a big advertising show. I'm like, Paul, we're literally live on ebite's website. Only a fraction of the users have even seen it. Is it working? Because I'm about to go on stage and tell people about this new thing. Has anyone tried it? He goes, you would not believe this. An eight year old girl just set up her birthday party, or her parents set up her birthday party in Wisconsin. It's one of these bounce house parties. You get the big bouncy house and whatnot. And she said, in lieu of gifts, please donate to Smile Train, which is this incredible nonprofit that funds cleft lip surgeries. Their first donation was for $1,000. And I'm like, fund multiple cleft lip surgeries with that. I'm like, this is just unbelievable. So I got to go on stage and share this story. And since then, all told, over $30 million has been raised on Evide alone.

Richard Medcalf
I hope you're enjoying this conversation. This is just a quick interlude to remind you that my book, Making Time for Strategy is now available. If you want to be less busy and more successful, I highly recommend that you check it out. Why not head over to Makingtimeforstrategy.com to find out the details? Now back to the conversation.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, so I love this super pragmatic way, right, of finding some people who, you know, already know in your inner circle who you can solve a real problem for, and then guess that's how you got the scale so fast, right? Because you couldn't go out and win over those donors one by one, right? You had to go to organizations that already had that reach. So I'm curious to dive a bit deeper in one of your philosophies, actually, James, because I know that you say that this season is called businesses are forced for good. And I know that one of the things that you say is that businesses on a mission to do good will outperform those with just good business models. So purpose driven will actually win out over pure, commercially driven. Kind of curious. It sounds a great thing to believe, but why do you actually say that? What's your thought process that has led you to that conclusion?

James Citron
So it's something that I believed intrinsically, which is why I do the work that I do. Right. But the data has to prove it out. So a few years ago, there was a bunch of surveys that said this. They said things like 80% of consumers, if they're offered two different brands, one that aligns with their values and the one that does not, 80% will switch to the brand that aligns with their values. So this was all kind of hearsay data that was out there in the marketplace over the last few years, we have seen this. Consumers are voting with their dollars like never before. The younger the generation, the more ingrained in the fabric of every decision they make is their values. Right? Which is why you have employees who go, I will never work for that company because it doesn't align with my values. Years ago, when I'd interview folks, nobody asked about the mission. Now everyone's asking about the mission. Tell me about the mission. How do you live your mission? And on the pure revenue side of our business. One of the biggest challenges I think to uplifting every business and making sure that businesses go purpose is not just a nice to have it's a necessity, is really showing how when you actually do it the right way and not just say it but actually live your values, you can actually build a better business. So this is something that's core to our platform now, where we literally go. We have ecommerce merchants who go, all right, show us the data and we can tell them. Once you integrate a roundup and enable your customers to give back at checkout, or you launch a set of products that are mission aligned, the customers who buy those products on average will have a 50% higher lifetime value. 50% higher lifetime value.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So here's a question. I think some companies, especially when they're founder Led, still are in an easier position to really tap into why the founder built the business in the first place. So do you find that do you find that most of your kind of partners are from those kind of companies where Mission has been baked in at the start there? Because I think I'm sure a lot of people listening or some people listening will be like, well, that sounds great, but the reality is I'm just in this company that's been around for whoever knows how long and it be quoted. And so it sounds like it's going to be really impossible potentially to align around something that's genuine, right. And it's just going to be stuck on. Do you think that is the case, that there's really two sorts of companies like Mission Centric and those who are never going to get there? Or do you think there is a bridge from one to the other? Just curious. It might not be your zone of expertise, but I'm kind of curious.

James Citron
No, well, we have a number of publicly traded companies that we work with and a number of earlier stage companies. You're absolutely right. A lot of founder led companies. It's just built into the DNA, right? It's something that's so core to who they are that they build it in from the start. And if you're a listener and you're going how do I build it in? We always talk about this build impact into the cost of goods sold so that it never goes away when you even become a publicly listed company because you've built it literally into the DNA of your business to add an impact. Now, when you're a publicly traded company and you're thinking about this, it might sometimes be reactionary, it might be because of ESG reasons or it might because of shareholders these days going what are you doing about climate, right? How are you recruiting young talented employees who have the option to work anywhere at so many companies? So the motivations might be different and they might not be founder led at big companies. But there are a number of big companies now who I would say half the Fortune 500 have some sort of an impact and purpose because they realize it is important.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, I think it's a great point. Some are born great, some have greatness, some growing to greatness, whatever it is and some have greatness thrust upon them. It's a bit like the same, right? Some companies are born with purpose and others have purpose thrust upon them potentially right by the needs.

James Citron
Yeah. And the purpose can evolve, you know what I mean? So Tom Shoes was a great example of a company that went know, a great idea to the fastest growing, I think, you know, apparel and shoe company in history when they were doing their buy one pair of shoes, give one pair of shoes. But what was really fascinating was they realized after several years of doing that, they realized that their impact wasn't as big as they wanted to achieve. So they actually changed their purpose. They stopped doing one for one shoes and realized there were certain issues that they could champion as a brand that would have even a higher impact. So the purpose narrative can evolve depending on the stage of the company, based on the products they launch, et cetera. So you don't have to stick with just one thing, because companies naturally evolve and grow over time.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, I love it. Let's dive into what I think is one of your superpowers, which is spotting talent. Because we talked about how purpose actually does act as a magnet for talent. Right. People are attracted to making a difference, right. Creating an impact. And you said that as you build your own company, you've really focused on talent and finding the right talent. You said you started with building this great team. It's been there from the start. So how do you do that? Right? I mean, everyone says we need to build a great team. It's key. But I just have to know, what are your kind of strategies for actually spotting and then checking, recruiting, whatever, bringing those people into the team? How do you go about that? What are your tips?

James Citron
It's a great question, and I feel like I'm grateful because I've had the privilege and opportunity to hire hundreds of people over the years. And I think the more you do it, the more you get comfortable with it. But I think very quickly, one thing that I've learned, my first interview question, usually when I meet someone new, is to ask something very open ended that has nothing to do with, tell me, if you're a salesperson, what was your quota last year and did you hit it? If you're a marketing person, give me the greatest marketing campaign you've ever launched. I want to ask an open ended question. What are you passionate about and why? I want to understand who this person is. And usually in the first 30 seconds to two minutes when someone opens up and shares more about who they are, you're going to feel this gut in your heart about whether this person is going to be a fit for your culture, your values, if they're going to work out. And I found 90 plus percent of the time your gut works. The resume of the past. Did this person go to Oxford or Cambridge? Do they have a Harvard Business School? Pedigree. That stuff isn't as important as it once was. I don't know if it was as important back in the day.

Richard Medcalf
Hashtag I went, I can't believe you said that, James. We're completely mortified. What I did 40 years ago, or whatever it was 30 years ago, is damn very important. How dare you? No, I'm kidding. Yeah, I get it. It's who we are. It is who we are, right?

James Citron
It is who we are. Yeah.

Richard Medcalf
Well, yeah. What came to mind is that we don't get what we want. We get who we are. And it's a great point, actually. Often we know that, and yet we know that our best colleagues aren't necessarily the ones with the most technical skill set. They're the ones who we can work with. And yet when we come to interview for our next colleague, we still go, okay, your CV doesn't look quite like exactly like what we need 100%, there's something here, whatever. And actually all that stuff can be learned. I mean, the number of people who've made huge leaps, the world's top entrepreneurs, right? They just leap from Richard Branson, right, leaps from sector to sector. Nobody complains that he didn't have a track record in the aviation industry for 30 years before he started Virgin Air, right? I mean, those things we put too much weight on.

James Citron
Completely agree. We also ask questions. We have our core values, and we ask the so tell me, how the core value of care, how you would show care in your past or with your colleagues? And so when you ask questions like that, you really get to the character of an individual. And I've always said this, but you hire fast. And if someone's not working out, make a decision to fire fast, because you're quickly finding great people is really hard. And we've got great people. You got to do everything you can to create a great environment for them. And if it's not working out, it's not going to change.

Richard Medcalf
Typically, have you had an example, actually, James, where you've looked at well, I don't know, you looked at a resume, they look great. And then either in the interview really immediately, you're, ah, no, it's not going to work. Alternatively, where you didn't listen to your gut, and then later on you realized this wasn't working.

James Citron
Oh, absolutely. My first startup, first time founder issues, this is now ten plus years ago. I had one venture capitalist who I think very highly of. His name is Mark Suster. He runs one of the biggest venture capital funds in Southern California, and he was just an informal advisor and dear friend of mine. And he said, you know what, James, when you raise your first round, big round of capital, don't go hire that hot shot with a big resume. He said, don't do that. And at the time, I was a 28 year old first time CEO, I raised my big round of capital. And my venture capitalist at the time, investor, said, james, you know, you're a great CEO. I love your vision, but you really need to find that great partner, that hotshot, who's been doing all this stuff for years, who has the business school degree and all that stuff. And we ended up hiring somebody in a very senior role who made multiplier of what I did and had a great pedigree. But within the first two weeks, it was just a total cultural misfit. He came from a very large company. He came to a company of 50 people, and everyone was young and they were tech savvy, and he. Was not. And it was just I didn't listen to this informal advisor and listen to my VCs and in my gut, it didn't feel like the right thing. And within six months, both of us realized, like, this is not going to be the right thing. So I remember it like it was yesterday. I've not made that mistake. And I always talk to other entrepreneurs and founders about the same issue. Trust your gut.

Richard Medcalf
Trust your gut. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, hey, James, we're getting towards the end of our time here. I want to ask you a question I always love asking, which is, well, first of all, what would it look like for pledge to multiply your impact as a business or as an organization? What's that going to look like in a few years time when you say, wow, we've really knocked it out the park, what does that look like for you?

James Citron
So that is doing one core thing, Richard. End of last year, we were digging into donation data and just trying to figure out how can we unlock much bigger impact? And we stumbled upon something that just blew our minds. 3% of every donation at least, and sometimes it's five to 10%, never even makes it to a nonprofit. So all told, last year, over $10 billion of donations given by individuals to US. Charities literally went to Visa, Amex, Mastercard, bank of America, et cetera. It went to the processing as opposed to the charity, which is mind blowing to us. So we said, you know what, it's core to our mission to raise as much money as possible for nonprofits. So we are going to start paying all the credit card fees when anyone uses pledge. No one's ever done this. We've had nonprofits come to us going a few weeks ago, just signed up with us called List. The her organization helps refugee families. She goes by switching to pledge. I literally can help hundreds more people coming to America with essential supplies, refugees who have nothing, because tens of thousands of dollars last year went to credit card companies. So for us, this is the newest initiative for us to go. How do we unlock a billion dollars more by paying all the credit card fees? Because a billion dollars could be 10 billion meals, it could be a billion trees. It's gigantic impact.

Richard Medcalf
So that's one way I love it, right? Finding this huge pot that you can go after for good. I love it. How are you going to need to shift how you operate as a leader? What are you going to need to work on personally if you want to be the leader that can multiply your own impact as well as you go along? What comes to mind? What's going to be the growth for you, James, in the next few years, would you say?

James Citron
I think it's twofold. I think we've got the most incredible team I've ever worked with, and I've worked with hundreds of people over the last 1520 years. And I think one of the greatest skills and it's always hard for a CEO is all about empowerment and trust, and it's something that I constantly am working on to go, how do I empower all of our young leaders? Whether it's a first time employee who's just getting started to go, who's creating social media, here's our brand values, here's our guidelines, go for it. How do you share this narrative and story? The developer who wants to build something brand new and refactor the code, go for it. So I think part of my job is to go, how do I EMP power our current team? How do I continue to recruit the best possible people and empower them to be the best versions of themselves and have the most impact? Our mission is to power generosity and let the manifest that mission in what they do every day.

Richard Medcalf
Beautiful speaking with a leader's heart, right, for your people like that. So. Thank you, James. It's been such a pleasure talking with you. I love kind of diving into this great story right, of starting in your early years as a father, your shift in focus from commercial to impact, and then kind of looking at how you did that, right? Starting with building your team, finding the next circle of key partners that you can do something with, solve their problems, and then all the way scaling up to this mission of how do we unlock this 3% that could represent so much value to the broader community. So I kind of love this story. And then also there's really pragmatic ideas along the way of hiring and everything else we've covered. So it's been a lot of fun. If people want to get in touch with you or with pledge or we find out more about what you're up to, where should the do that?

James Citron
So please feel free to reach out know, richard my personal mission, in addition to pledge, is just to help thousands more of, your, know, future entrepreneurs, current CEOs, help them have a bigger impact on the world. That's my own personal mission. So I want to help however I can. So you can find me at James Citron. C-I-T-R-O-N. James Citron at instagram. Twitter. Feel free to reach out anytime. Can also shoot me an email, james at pledge to. If you want to try out pledge, please check it out, give me feedback, try out the platform. Go to www dot pledge to literally anywhere in the world you can fundraise for 2 million nonprofits. So we'd love everyone to try it out, and if there's anything they need in the impact world, we're here to help.

Richard Medcalf
James, it's been a pleasure. Thank you, and look forward to hearing the story as it evolves.

James Citron
Thank you so much, richard.

Richard Medcalf
Well, that's a wrap. If you received value from this conversation, please do leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. We deeply appreciate it. And if you'd like to check out the show notes from this episode, head to Xquadrant.com podcast, where you'll find all the details. Now, finally, when you're in top leadership, who supports and challenges you at a deep level to help you multiply your impact? Discover more about the different ways we can support you@xquadrant.com.

**Note: This transcript is automatically generated.
Please excuse any errors.

Beyond the podcast...

Once you've subscribed to the podcast, why not go deeper and subscribe to the Xquadrant Insider?

This is our complementary email newsletter that focuses on multiplying value and impact at the intersection of leadership, strategy and purpose.  Originally designed for our private clients, we've made this available to a wider audience of high-achieving and purpose-driven leaders.


More from The Impact Multiplier CEO Podcast...

S1411: Growing a business that’s never been done before, with Karl Andersson (CEO, Motatos)

S1411: Growing a business that’s never been done before, with Karl Andersson (CEO, Motatos)

S1410: The skills you’ll need in an AI world, with Tim Smeaton (CEO, Kubrick Group)

S1410: The skills you’ll need in an AI world, with Tim Smeaton (CEO, Kubrick Group)

S1409: Reinventing the business to add $500M turnover in 4 years, with Michael Riedl (CEO, Team Internet)

S1409: Reinventing the business to add $500M turnover in 4 years, with Michael Riedl (CEO, Team Internet)

S1408: A Net Promoter Score that’s ‘off the charts’, with Logan Naidu (CEO & founder, Kernel Global)

S1408: A Net Promoter Score that’s ‘off the charts’, with Logan Naidu (CEO & founder, Kernel Global)

S1407: How to attack a ‘dominated’ market, with Björn Thorngren (CEO, Meds)

S1407: How to attack a ‘dominated’ market, with Björn Thorngren (CEO, Meds)

S1406: How to land your mission and message with impact, with Jack Murray (CEO, Media HQ)

S1406: How to land your mission and message with impact, with Jack Murray (CEO, Media HQ)
{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}
>