S13E02: Bold commitments that built a $100M nonprofit, with Matt Hill (CEO, One Tree Planted)

Matt Hill
Just to get the money going. I said I'll put in 2 million. I didn't have 2 million, but I know that if I used my marketing skills and reached out, we get the 2 million. And then wri and ourself then reached out to other brands to talk about this initiative and already show a commitment. And then we ended up securing 20 million and then another 20 million to create a new blueprint to reforestation.

But call it a leap of faith. Call it, you know, taking a risk cause. You know, so that was one which I didn't have.

Richard Medcalf
Welcome to the Impact Multiplier CEO podcast. I'm Richard Medcalf, founder of X Quadrant, 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. C e o.

Matt Hill, you are the ceo, e o of one tree planted, which I think's got an amazing mission in the world, but I'm gonna get straight to the, straight to the heart of things. What's your, what's the ultimate impact that you wanna make in the world?

Matt Hill
The ultimate impact is to get people to just do more to help the environment, you know, and making the world a better place.

You know, every little bit counts. So that's the ultimate impact. It's not a specific number, it's just about inspiring people, realizing that they can make a difference. And you know, putting a tree in the ground and together we're planting a forest.

Richard Medcalf
Great. So let's go back and set the picture. So the environment is your number one, uh, should we say concern, uh, over and above your family and all those other good stuff.

And I know that you've planted, what is it? Let me have a look. Uh, how many trees is it already?

Matt Hill
50. 50 million trees. 50 million trees Last year. I think this month will probably be over a hundred million trees in total. So started it back in 2014 and the first year was just 20,000 trees, then 50,000, then a hundred thousand, and we'd just been doubling year over year.

So, um, last year we received almost a hundred million in donations.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, that's incredible. So started in 20 15, 7 or eight years later. This is the results you're getting. It's real exponential impact. It's the game I love to play. I love my clients to play. You say it's been doubling every year. 50 K. The first year.

A hundred k. The second year, 300 K a million. 4 million. 50 million. Gonna get to a hundred million. And I know you, you said, uh, earlier on to me, that one, we know one of your goals is to get to a billion, right? So a billion trees in the ground as a result of something which you created from nothing. It's amazing.

Let's go back. What prompted you to, to start this journey? What's your origin story?

Matt Hill
Well, my undergrad was in poli sci way back in the day, so I took a lot of environmental classes and realized, you know, climate change before it was like this big, big topic like it is today or the last X amount of years.

So I was always interested and I said every little thing that people do, everything in moderations has always been my co motto. And then, um, I ended up, Running Canada for eco products and every time I was trying to get, um, big coffee shops or beer companies to buy compostable beer cups, coffee cups, and the price point was a little bit more, they'd always say, oh my God, it's still expensive, but we wish we could do more.

I said, you can plant trees. People don't realize how important trees are. Air quality, water quality, biodiversity, job creation, carbon sequestration, et cetera. And I just had that in my back pocket. Not that I really had this charity at the time. And then a big company, a big grocery store, said, oh my God, that's a great idea.

You should start that. So that was called it. The idea that stuck in the back of my head and I was like, yeah, you know, I know businesses and people wanna help the environment, but when you look around it's very technical or it's very doom and gloom. So it stuck around. I still ran eco products for Canada, but then they got acquired by a really big company and the corporate culture changed.

So I said, this is time for me to make my exit and start this. That's just gonna make it easy for people to help the environment.

Richard Medcalf
And what set the fire in your belly about that. Right? Because peop many people wanna do something, but you are really serious about it, right? You, you made a big shift in your life, your career.

You committed to this project. So what was it that deeply touched you that made you say, I have to do this?

Matt Hill
Well, a couple of things. One, life is too short and you gotta do what you're passionate about and like, do you know what? You wake up every day, it's not a job. So when this new company acquired them, the, it just changed a lot.

So I said, you know what? I'm gonna control my own destiny. I'm gonna start this. I know people and and companies wanna help, but when you look for tree planting organizations, You really have to dig and you don't know if this is Bob's your uncle in Brazil, is he really putting a tree in the ground? You know?

And I found that there was a lack of transparency. So me having call it more of a marketing background, I said, I'm gonna just position myself a little bit differently from all the organizations who have been doing this for decades. And I never would've thought that we'd be this big right now. I figured, ah, you know, I'll get to see some amazing partners on the ground in various countries.

You know, give them $10,000 plant, 10,000 trees. Learn, but I think it was a lot of hard work and I think a lot of lucky timing, um, where we are today. Um, yeah.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So I love it. And so what, what were the different levels you had to go through? It started off just you. Mm-hmm. Right? Just you say, I'm gonna do this thing.

So what, tell where did you even start?

Matt Hill
It was just me and I knew nothing. I'm not a forester. I didn't, you know, I, my degree's not environmental policy or this and that. You know, I had an MBA in marketing. Um, And I just was Googling and reaching out to tree planting organizations and calling them. And if some of them gave me the time of day, I would like go out and meet with them and just, you know, get site visits with Cal Fire out in California, what they were doing for the forest fires, you know, some really incredible people that helped me.

Hugh Locke, who was planting trees in Haiti and Tony up in British Columbia. So, and I went to Indonesia. I just kind of was a sponge and, and I remember calling the United States Forest Service. I mean, look, The, like the icon with the green shield for planting trees and Yosemite National Forest. And I used to say one day I'm gonna give you guys millions of dollars to plant trees.

And here we are as an official partner with the United States Forest Service. And yes, giving them millions of dollars, but they must get calls like that every day. But I just had this kind vision in terms of what I wanted to do. And, uh, it was just me. I ended up getting a WeWork office, a, a hot desk because that's all I could afford.

And then when I had, and I was a teacher at the time because I have young kids, you got a mortgage to pay, food to put on the table. So I think I got lucky to be in that spot because when I was teaching, Um, I taught 15 hours a week and I had summer off, so that's where I would then, you know, double down, you know, explore, learn.

But then we had one person come on where I could barely afford their salary and she's here right now actually from Australia. We were joking about it just last night and um, but I said it would help cuz it was so much stuff starting to like grow little by little. And then when I took a sabbatical from school and focused on it for one full year, that's when we went from 300,000 to 1.8 million.

And I went back to school, and then I had to make the choice, do I stay at school and I was tenured, or do I take the leap of faith and and, and do this. But at the end of the day, I love, I love what I do. I have an amazing team around me. We're working with incredible partners around the world, planting in over 70 countries right now.

Um, yeah, so I just said I know it's gonna work. So here we are today.

Richard Medcalf
Oh, let me ask you, in that moment when you were like, oh, do I actually throw my lot into this new thing? I've got my family, I've got my kids, you. Was it an easy choice or was it quite, you know, did you, did you procrastinate on it? Did you, did you have to do some heart searching?

Matt Hill
No, I, it was an easy decision to make it, it was just a question of when. So I got it to the point where, call it economically, I could pay myself a salary and I just said, I'm gonna pay myself exactly what I was making at school and anything above and beyond reinvesting. And I really invested into hiring more stat.

And just wanted to grow the organization that way. Yeah. So making the decision was easy. It was just like making sure that you could, um, cover all the costs,

Richard Medcalf
Right? Yeah. So you built the business up enough that you had at least some basic salary coming in. Yeah. Let's go back to this point about you being a sponge.

What, so what I'm hearing is you didn't just go, I'm gonna do this thing. Let me just build something. You spend a lot of time. Building relationships by the sound of it and getting insight into these different organizations. Were you trying to kind of identify what the gaps were, what the needs were? Or did you already kind of know what you wanted to do and you just wanted to validate that?

Matt Hill
Well, one was, can you really plant a tree for a dollar? If I said one tree planted and then you donate $10 and you're gonna pick British Columbia and you want the trees, is that dollar enough? How does it work? So spent a lot of times being that sponge going, asking questions, what is the cost to grow a tree, site prep, cost to plant the tree, cost to monitor, and maintain the tree?

And. And then just who was doing what, how. And if you're looking at the federal level, to the state level, to the watershed level, I'll work very differently. So yeah, just being a sponge and at the end of the day, yeah, you said it, relationships because when there is an opportunity saying, yeah, I could find you 40,000 trees on a project I'm already working on.

And that they call us and they're explaining to me how it all works because at the end, you have to give that information back to the donor. You have to build their trust, and they, and I felt that there was a lack of transparency in terms of you donate to any charity. Let's just say typically you give them a hundred dollars and you got an email back that says, thanks for your a hundred dollars donation, and the only time you hear next from them is a year later saying, Hey, it was a year ago.

Do you want to donate again? I felt that if you want to help the environment, you're looking around and you made the donation, you picked the Amazon Rainforest or British Columbia, that you were along for a journey to understand how your dollar was being used. Um, what stage is your donation, how much of it you know, was going to the grounded for what, and we've been successful.

And I got lucky too on a lot of ways. But you know, Shopify allowed you to create a website. Knowing nothing about coding and you know, it was pretty pictures, short description in terms of the project, the community benefits, ecological benefits, et cetera. And when I needed to make changes, I could, versus you gotta go hire a web person and wait days or weeks for them to do it.

So I. A combination of a lot of factors, but really at the end of the day, you know, when I think a lot of the success too, is hiring the right people, you know, not just because they're the smartest person or wherever. It's really like, are they passionate? They believe in what they wanna do, and having a great team, a cohesive team, that's been a big factor.

Yeah.

Richard Medcalf
So let's talk about some of the discontinuities in this journey, because going from one person part-time, You know, in the WeWork office to your current setup. There's probably been a few shifts, and I'm always, I'm sure there's been some gradual development. I'm always curious about courage. So what were the most courageous leadership decisions perhaps you had to make that result, or bold moves if you like, that helped you break through from perhaps one level?

To another, what comes to mind?

Matt Hill
Well, if you don't take risks, you can't move the needle. A couple of things come to mind, but probably the biggest one I could think of is last year or maybe two years ago with AFR 100 and um, there was an initiative to restore a hundred million hectares. And in order to create the momentum, I and I, we work with the World Resource Institute.

And I, um, we're figuring out just to get the money going. I said, I'll put in $2 million. I didn't have $2 million, but I know that if I used my marketing skills and reached out, we get the 2 million. And then wri and ourself then reached out to other brands to talk about this initiative and already show a commitment.

And then we ended up securing 20 million and then another 20 million to create a new blueprint to reforestation. But call it a leap of faith. Call it, you know, taking a risk. Because, you know, so that was one which I didn't have. And then, and lemme just slow you

Richard Medcalf
Down on that. How did you feel doing that? Were you completely confident that you had it or was it like, it was more an act of I will make it work. What, what was going on?

Matt Hill
I'll make it work. That's the way, I mean, another one I'll throw a light. I was in San Francisco with, um, in a walking through and I said, how many in Golden Gate Park? And I'm like, how many people can come.

Here on plant and what's the most amount of people you ever had? And they said a thousand. A thousand people. And they said, wow, we're gonna do an event here and I'm gonna bring in all our business donors to meet us and I'm gonna bring planting partners and we're just gonna make it a little fun couple of days together.

So I tallied up all the costs and it came to about $600,000. And then our ops said, whoa, $600,000. How are we gonna come up with that to pay for it, to get all these partners and organize all these things? And I said, don't worry, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it work. And within two weeks I found the money saying the idea at the brand saying, we're gonna do this amazing event.

We're gonna have all like-minded people, tree planting reforestation together. And we put it on within two months. So we had about 200, 300 people come to San Francisco. We had four days of doing tree planting. We did tree talks. I invited a bunch of people to talk from, like satellite monitoring, drone monitoring, getting Cal fire there, partners from the Oregon Forest.

And it was just an amazing time. And we had brands like H SBC Hyde and everything saying this was the best like conference dealing with sustainability that they'd been to because it wasn't just being lectured to. And you're sitting there for 30 minutes listening. It was a fun four days. We went out on a boat, got a tour, we went to a baseball game, we went out to Golden Gate Park.

People were talking for 15 minutes, get straight to the point. So let's just say, I think unconventionally, I take risks and I think if you're honest and you're talking, you know, not a lot of fluff. Anyways, those were probably two that were big risk take, um, moments that well, what if we didn't raise the money?

We'd have to eat it ourselves. So anyways, a few ideas.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. That's great. I love the, um, is that, it's, what is the sense coming from a place of commitment, right? I often talk about this, it's like when we're committed to something, We kind of make it happen, right? We declare it. Yeah, we declare it happen.

Matt Hill
Have, it pushes you to that next level to make it work.

Cuz you've made the commitment, right? Versus it's just an idea and you keep overanalyze and you, you know, that's one thing that frustrates me is you all these people get together and they talk about all these things and it just stays in limbo. I'd much rather I say, Give me x amount of money. Call it $2,000 and I'll go up tomorrow and plant it.

What's working well N now? What didn't go so well and what are we gonna do better next year? So going on that thing for San Francisco where I pulled it off, it's actually happening. You know, two weeks from now where we're doing it in Colorado. So just to give you an example on how I was building this brand or this organization, is people are coming in on Wednesday.

We're getting together with 50 planting partners from around the world, the Philippines, Australia, Mexico, like just what can we, how is it working with us? What can we do better to help you? The planting partners outside of just money. Technical assistance, monitoring programs, whatever it might be then, and our brands are coming.

We go to a baseball game on Wednesday, Thursday, we go to a nursery to understand how do we grow trees in a nursery and like Hy Hyundai and Visa and all these great brands, Google, Microsoft, are there. Have any of them ever even been to a nursery? But they need to see that firsthand and talk, oh, who are you?

Where are you coming from? Oh, we're doing this. We're doing that inspires people. They're getting to meet the planting partners, our team. So anyways, Thursday nursery visit, Friday's the tree talks where everybody's just talking about things that are going on, sports, schools, everything's sustainability.

And then Saturday, we're planting 6,000 trees in Colorado where people can get their hands in the dirt. It's an investment. Again, there's a lot of risk factors, a lot of logistical challenges where it could blow up in your face. But the thing is, I say that it, uh, you need to do more of this because when you, you get a lot of people together, it inspires everybody to do more.

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 making time for strategy.com to find out the details?

Now, back to the conversation. And I think you're creating memories and getting people to have an experience, see things firsthand. Right. And that is a powerful story to tell.

Matt Hill
So true. And when you say memories, yeah. I mean such valuable memories that you, when you were out in Colorado, it's on people's wishlists, but we even have this cartoonist that's gonna be there and each day, He's doing little, I'll call it cards and, oh, who are you?

I'm from such and such company, and he's doing that moment. And then he'll give it to you. So here you go, Richard. And you're gonna go back home and you're gonna have that and you're gonna like, oh, I remember that. And like really cool cartoon sketches. So a little bit outside the box on the thinking and things you can do that you're like, that's just not a traditional conference.

Richard Medcalf
I love it. So tell me about, As you're going forward, you've got these exponential goals still ahead of you, right? 50 million last year. Uh, a hundred million. We get to a billion and probably beyond, right? I doubt you're gonna stop and just hang up your shoes at that point. Um, how are you gonna need to change yourself and how you lead in order to multiply your impact?

Matt Hill
Great question and probably the biggest struggle right now. And I emailed, I visited Bob Taylor from Taylor Guitars and he told me, and it stuck with me, it's always gonna stick with me. When he reached 70 people, a hundred people was his biggest challenge because you know, when you're 40 people, 50 people, you know everybody and what's going on.

But now it's 110 people at the organization we're, we're growing. Call it more people come into the organization, I want to know everybody's name, how can I help you? My door's always open, but big challenges. Um, And I'm not a micromanager, but I do, you know, have high expectations and we want to put together quality of product, quality of service, answering calls within a timely manner, being nimble.

So it's a big challenge right now. So yes, a billion trees I think we could do because if we kind of continue this growth, and let's just say we flatten out at a hundred million trees per year, give or take, and nice. Stick around for the next 10, 15 years running the company, we'd, we'd hit a billion. But really, to tell you the truth, it's not my ultimate goal saying, oh, I want to plant the billion trees.

There's two things. Corporate culture is the most important to me, building the brand. So when you ask the average person around the world, What's a tree planting organization that they say one tree planted. And I've been in places around the world where people are wearing a t-shirt and I say, Hey, one tree planter.

They're like, oh my God, they're an amazing organization. I love working with them. Or we donate them. Yeah.

Richard Medcalf
Lemme on that. So why is that important? Is it just because you have such a huge ego or is there something else going on there?

Matt Hill
No far, I'm far from an ego. I'd rather stay behind the scenes and I let other people take the, uh, the, I just,

Richard Medcalf
Yeah.

What's, but just seriously what's going on. Like, I get it. I mean, obviously it's an organization you're really committed to. I understand you wanna get a household name, but like, what's the, what's the benefit do you think of having that as a household name?

Matt Hill
Oh, well, cuz you know, the environment's important and there's a lot of great organization doing incredible work in my, in forestry space and water space biodiversity.

Right. Um, but like, If you can make it fun a little bit outside the box in terms of the, that people do it. Cuz I feel that a lot of organizations were doom and gloom. But why? Because I think if you can build that name and people wanna help, they're like, oh, go to one tree plant and you can donate $5 and plant trees in Australia and help with, you know, X, Y, and Z.

It just helps. So, yeah, it's awesome to see. And I see these commercials on TV and our, and our brand starting to be on there and. It's cool. It's very cool to see and I think the teams real loves to see that too. Cuz you work and you meet these partners on the ground and it just has this compounded effect and the snowball effect.

Mm-hmm.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So let me go back one second to that question about shifting. How, how are you gonna shift your own success formula? To multiply your impact. And you talked about this 70 to a hundred people area, which is, it is a classic pivot point. Uh, here it's socially seen, right? There's, I think there's four social groupings we talk about, right?

There's kind of intimate space. It's like two and three, you know, your top two and three people, your spouse, you know, there's friends, there's kind of very intimate and there's like that family size grouping up to about 12. And then there's this kind of tribe, um, that kind of starts to go. Up to about the 70 point between about 20 and 70 people.

Well, you know everyone's name and you know, you feel you're gonna belong. It's kinda a friendship zone, but then once you get beyond 70, uh, it, it really changes. It becomes a public space. You don't know everybody anymore, and it is a different, it's a different thing. So I can totally understand that, but bringing it back to you as a leader.

So that's a challenge you're gonna have to kind of figure out. But. What do you think, how do you think that might change your own style of leadership? Like what might you need to bring outta yourself differently as the organization matures to that next level?

Matt Hill:
You know, the, I'm not a person big on org charts, like we're one team, cohesive team.

We're only as strong as the weakest link. I'm just throwing out things that I kind of sh throw at there, but call it the five key people that I'm working with day to day that they can empower their departments, their team. Always be there supportive and, and not become siloed as an organization. Cuz I feel a lot of companies, you know, both me and you worked at the big, call it corporate big environments and you know, working beside somebody right next door doesn't even know what you're working on.

Um, so yeah, it's a challenge. It's the first time I've been in this. I never expected to be running. A hundred million organization with a hundred employees. Like, and I, we joke when I started this, I said, ah, we'll do 2,000,005 million in donations. You know, we'll never be more than 10 people, but you know, people and companies are calling us, and I would love to be on every single call when a donor comes in, no matter the size, right?

I try and speak on, speak to as many people as I can, but there's only so much time in the day and I'm pulled in so many different directions, so I'm still figuring it out.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Wow. Of course. As, as is everybody, right? That's the secret. Everyone's figuring out their, what their next level is, and I think that's the exciting game.

Not everybody wants to pay that game. Some people are happy to stay on that kind of incremental path, but I think the magic is where we start to think about, well, what does it look like when we 10 x this? When we two exit 10 x? Yeah, things change.

Matt Hill
But that's where that comes. And I, and on that 10 x and a lot of stuff I've seen, I mean, two things are.

For us this year, it's not about growth, it's about doubling down on our infrastructure and our team and making sure everybody has the right systems in place and processes in place. Um, and so quali, that is number one. Number two is the monitoring, reporting, and verification, because ca, how do you 10 exit, right?

And how much can you use technology to help the environment? Right? And it's not drones that are gonna save the world by planting trees and shooting. You know, little pellets into the ground. I think it can compliment the traditional tree planting. It can get the hard to access sites. It can help on a lot of ways to analyze the landscape in terms of where there's, you know, areas that need, you know, higher intensity of tree planting or less, where there might be connected corridors that need more attention.

And then going back afterwards, analyzing a lot of the landscape and seeing did the tree survive. And maybe we need to go back into a particular area so you can get a lot of info. And then you can share that with donors, cuz I think in the past, donors were giving a lot of great organizations out there, but in the dark.

And then maybe five years later they find out that the, the project was successful or maybe it failed and then they didn't know. Now in real time with the technology, the donors can see it and I think they'll add more funding to it if they see the positive results. And then you can also, with technology, crack, all the co-benefits, water quality, biodiversity, et cetera.

So we can scale and is it, you know, is it gonna be 10 x or whatever? And, you know, just seeing all the projects. Yeah,

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Yeah. I, I love the, yeah. These opportunities that are coming up. So one thing that I know about you, Matt, is that you love to keep things simple. I've seen that in a number of places in your writing.

Tell me about that. Um, cause at one level it sounds like you, you got a lot of moving plate, a lot of spinning plates in your life and in the business or in the non-profit, right? But yeah. In your organization, how. How do you bring simplicity into that and, and you know, do you have any advice for other leaders who are perhaps struggling with complexity?

And I think it's not being simple.

Matt Hill
I've been in where we might pitch a particular project or concept and then somebody is explaining it and then like, I'm confused and you know, that expression I'm remember what is exactly like to explain it to a five year old and that they can get it. So if you keep it super simple, and I always say, I say this jokingly, pretty picture, 70,000 trees California spotted L, and people get the big picture where sometimes they're gonna go into so complex situations and you become paralyzed by choices or paralyzed cuz it's too technical or you're spinning at doom and gloom, right?

It's just like show hope, inspiration. Here's an amazing project was affected by a forest fire two years ago. It needs 70,000 trees. And this is, these are the types of trees that we're gonna go in with. And you know, the spotted owl is dependent on this particular area. And again, people get it. If people want to dig deeper and get more of the technical aspects, they can.

But 80, 90% of people just wanna understand the high level stuff and not get into the weeds of it. And look, we plant with some pretty sophisticated, big companies and they can jump on with the project manager. We can do a Zoom with the partners on the ground and we can do site visits, but just for them to understand it, keep it simple and keep it simple in life.

Richard Medcalf
How do you keep it simple in your own life? What simplicity look like for you at home?

Matt Hil
Again, we're saying, you know, family, I say this to the entire company, family is first and life happens, right? So, you know, I'm not counting sick days, this and that, or family days and I have to, to bring my kids to the orthodontist and you know, sick days at school, take care of that first because then you have peace of mind.

No, you're taking care of the family front. You can focus on your job, right? And then you have a team that's dependent that you can depend on when you are taking care of the important parts of life. And rely because what goes around comes around, right? So, um, keeping it simple, I try the best I can, but you know, now more and more I have to travel.

Um, you know, um, there's just dynamics of life. So I don't have the specific thing. I just try and keep, uh, keep, keep, keep life just like simple. And, you know, at the end of the day too, I would say just be a nice guy and be yourself. You know, like I could be talking to some gazillionaire. And they're solicited probably, I don't even know how many times for day, please give us money.

Please give us, we've never come across of like asking for, because we're a charity at the end of the day and we've never gone and saying, can you give us money? We talk about here's this amazing project in Brazil and here's the impact, right? And then if we meet with them, there's like talking, talking about the project.

And somebody who's got a good head on their shoulders knows when somebody's legit and telling the truth and not trying to be a used car salesman type tactic and blowing smoke up there. But let's just say, right, this is the project. I am who I am. And on the other part, for business as a whole, I've had some big accounts and they've kind of pushed back or call it been unreasonable.

And then you have to find the fine balance between saying, look, we're a charity and this doesn't make sense. And if you kind of push back and explain it the right way. I think we have a hundred percent success record. They just didn't see it that way. And they think, okay, sure, yeah, we're in because we understand the circumstance.

Everybody's been very fair, you know, and I wanna work with the right types of companies and people that wanna do it the right way. Because in the space that I'm in, I don't think that companies call it, or anybody can afford to try and do it as cheap as possible or greenwashing. Uh, you can't. You can't, and like to me and our company, it's all about amazing team around you.

Quality pro projects, and amazing partners on the ground because at the end, the one tree planted business model, we're a charity and we plant in over 70 countries around the world, but we're just relocating the funds to the ground. To the ground, and I wanna make sure that that money's going direct to the ground and not getting siphoned off.

And only like 30 cents ends up going to the ground and rest, getting caught up in red tape bureaucracy. So we re, and as a charity, 80 20 rolls very important to me. So you as a donor gives a hundred dollars. At least 80 cents is going to the ground and we can cover our operating on the 20 cents. And last year we did 83 cents, went to the ground, and we managed to operate on 17 cents of every dollar, which I think is a big thing and, and the company can be proud on, on doing that.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, I dunno the way that you monitor that and really focus on that as a key metric. So Matt, this has been, um, a great conversation. I do have one more question for you, um, but I wanna just recap a little bit cause I think there's been a lot of, a lot of great insights here. I think what I learned was that you actually used your marketing background and really that, you know, you looked for positioning what's not being met, right?

There's transparency issues. Let's resolve that. I mean, how many. Impact organizations around the world might learn from that. And, and actually like, how do we, how do we show ourselves in different light and how do we focus on transparency and follow through? I think we talked about, you know, your, we've talked about your sponge research project, building relationships, um, uh, and also in the way that you kind of bootstrapped the whole thing.

You didn't just launch into it. You had an income source, gave yourself a bit of breathing space, proved out the concept so that then you were in a position to go all in. Looked at these, this question of courage, right? Times where you put 2 million on the line you didn't have because you believed in the project and you were committed to it.

And that all in nature I think is one of the reasons why you're seeing this growth because you are committed and it comes across. And then, you know, we've talked as well as well about sort of these growth phases that organizations go through. You're being honest, right? The moment there's a new growth level that you need to break through.

And then we talked about, you know, simplicity on one hand. And I think what I took away from what you said just now was speak to impact, speak to the vision, keep it simple. Paint in the picture of what we're looking for here. And don't come across as just the NDPs giving money. But actually, look, this is the vision.

Are you in? Are you joining us on the vision? And I think any leader in any organization, That's a great way of operating, right, is to say, look, this is the journey. Isn't that inspiring? I've been running a program with a, a customer actually, um, called Ownership Accelerator. They wanna make sure their whole management are really, are, own it and buy into the, the vision of the company.

Well, the first thing I did was I talked to the executive team and said, you know what? Like, you need to be giving them the inspiring vision. Um, Engagement and motivation and ownership is not a fixed quantity. It's not like you just hire somebody and they have a fixed amount of ownership, right? They don't that your level of ownership engagement responds in terms of the vision that you are painting them.

So are you actually just telling 'em about your, your investor goals or are, you know, and, and your targets the way you're actually giving them a goal that makes them a hero and they get them excited. And I think you, you really spoke to that in, in, in that as well. So before I ask you my final question, um, where do people get in touch if they're curious, if they're inspired, you know, how can they get in touch with, with you or, or with your organization?

Matt Hill
Sure. Matt, m a t t@onetreeplanted.org. Happy to answer any questions. Happy for people to come out and see a site. Visit a nursery.

Richard Medcalf
Perfect. Yeah. Well, it's been, yeah, I mean, I'd love to get to one of these, uh, one of these experiential events. It sounds amazing.

Matt Hill
Yeah. The forest vest. If you weren't, if you weren't all the way in France, I'd say Come next, come in a couple of weeks. I'd love for you to join us.

Richard Medcalf
Oh, there you go. Oh, you have to tell me about that. That sounds fun. Um, okay. And so my last question is, is very simply this. What would you want to say to a leader who. Who does wanna multiply their impact to make a bigger difference on the world, uh, perhaps hasn't got started yet, or perhaps hasn't had that exponential growth that you have.

You know, what, what would be one thing that you'd want to lead them with?

Matt Hill
Do it. I think you gotta, you gotta just take action. Action is, is one thing. I think, um, relationships are so important because people have lots of options, but they want to deal with the person that's just, you know, more genuine. Um, and I think, you know, in my space, for example, you know, with leaders that want to help the environment, you know, they think, well, it's too big of a problem.

I can't do much. But you know, if you are in a particular industry and let's take fashion or tech and you put in $10,000, but get a bunch on board, you can have a dramatic effect. Um, yeah. And then I read a lot of books and then, you know, you learn from your failures too, right? And it's continuous improvement.

So I think at the end of the day, You know, I'm not one who's just about talk, talk, talk. Just do it and then figure out, just keep getting better.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Yeah. So let's not overanalyze, uh, but get clear about what we wanna focus on and just start to move the ball forward. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Matt, thank you.

That's been a, a great conversation. Uh, I wish you all the best, uh, on your mission. I'm looking forward to seeing the chart, um, of trees planted, hit the hundred thousand mark, and, and let's face it, it's not gonna stop there. So, um, to billion and beyond, um, Matt, thank you and, uh, to your impact.

Matt Hill
Great pleasure to be here.

Bye-bye now.

Richard Medcalf
Bye. Well, that's a wrap. If you received value from this conversation, Please do leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. We're deeply appreciated. And if you'd like to check out the show notes from this episode, head to x quadrant.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. At Xquadrant.com.