"We correlate our income and impact at a structural level" Vinay Nair, CEO of Lightful

"How can we collectively increase the quantity and quality of giving to nonprofits, to charities, so that they can raise more awareness, raise more funds, deliver more impact in their communities?"

If there's a question that defines Lightful's work, I think Vinay shares it in this.

My guest on the Karmic Capitalist podcast this week is Vinay Nair, co-founder and CEO of Lightful. Lightful uses technology to accelerate impact in the social impact sector.

He'd just returned from an uplifting conference with the Gates Foundation (took some prodding to get this out - no easy namedrop from Nair!), and he shares with us how that works, and the amplification of good that comes from it.

Having a for-profit organisation whose clients are mostly nonprofit can be quite a tightrope to walk, and Vinay shares how Lightful "positively correlate ours income and impact" and the importance of that positive correlation being structural to avoid conflict of interest.

Vinay is also Resident Expert at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School (that's some mouthful!), and I probe into what he's seeing in the generation that is coming through Saïd.

His shares an uplifting observation. When he's doing a session with students on impact investing or tech for good, they'll pretty much retort "of course, what else - Tech for bad? Non impactful investing?".

For them, the default language is "as if it were ever thus or certainly how it must be from today going forward. And I find that powerful inspirational.

Vinay is a thoughtful advocate. We run the gamut of business doing good and being profitable, of being a for-profit serving the nonprofit sector, the role of values, and much more.

He's an engaging conversationalist. Listen in to this episode of the Karmic Capitalist.

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If you'd like to join me, find a date that works for you here. They aren't charged for - you and I will both get value from the conversation.

Only CEOs / MDs apply - strictly peer-level conversation.

Transcript

Iyas [00:00:00]:

Welcome to the Karmic Capitalist podcast, stories of companies that are doing capitalism better. Lightpool has helped more than 2000 nonprofits increase their impact on the world. That's quite some stats. Today I've talked to Lightpool's CEO and co founder BJ Nair. His journey to starting the company took in charities, foundations, as well as the finance and investment world, alongside which he's sitting as a resident expert at the Skull center for social Entrepreneurship inside business school in Oxford. This is a packed episode where we take in how a commercial company can be a multiplier for good, the fundamental shift in attitudes in the more recent entrance to the workforce, and how a theory of change can sit within a commercial organization. Most importantly, though, it's about building a successful commercial enterprise that's found a sustainable business model for creating significant impact. Enjoy. So hello and welcome to the Karmic capitalist podcast. And I'm delighted today to have with me Vinay Nair, who is the CEO of lightful and the resident expert at the Skull Center for social Entrepreneurship at sayd, business school. And that's a mouthful. Love it because it's an intersection between running a business and working with social entrepreneurship, running a business that serves nonprofits, but also it's a for profit business and it also has some for profit clients. So there's a lot of interesting intersections there to explore. Welcome very much to the show. Renee, lovely to have you.

Vinay Nair [00:01:24]:

Wonderful. That's a very kind introduction, even if some of what I do sounds like a bit of a mouthful to get going. Yes, it's lovely to be here. Thank you.

Iyas [00:01:33]:

Fantastic. And thank you. We were hoping to do this a little while ago, but you've been traveling and have just, I've heard, come back from a meeting at the Gates foundation. What was that about?

Vinay Nair [00:01:44]:

Yeah, I think in the last sort of 912 months, there's probably a lot of pent up energy to reconnect with kindred spirits and kind of when you get together in a room, just have so much resonance, build relationships, rebuild relationships. And the summit that I went to in Seattle, as you say, at the Bill and the Gates Foundation, it's called the Greater Giving Summit, really? With the idea of how can we collectively increase the quantity and quality of giving to nonprofits, to charities, so that they can raise more awareness, raise more funds, deliver more impact in their communities. And the Gates foundation is a long standing partner of ours, clients of ours. And the idea of that summit was had a particular focus of how do we help smaller organizations in their language? In the language, I guess, of proximate organizations often looking at a gender lens or racial equity lens and really help those organizations to be able to build the confidence and skills to do more of what we need to support them to do pretty urgently.

Iyas [00:02:54]:

Fantastic. And I think that weaves us back to where I would normally start, which is an introduction to Lightful and what it does. But clearly what you've done there is directly sort of related to that. Just a quick intro. What is lightful? What does it do?

Vinay Nair [00:03:07]:

Sure. Well lightful. We're b corp. So I'm loving the kind of business with purpose theme that has always run through, yes, your podcast. We're an organization that really wants to support small charities, nonprofits, social enterprises, to be able to rise above the noise so that they can have the right strategies and storytelling that enables them to raise more awareness for their work, raise more funds for their work and ultimately trust them on how to deliver impact with their end users in the communities that they serve. And the way we do that is we have our main capacity building Learning program is what we call Bridge, an acronym for Building Resilience in Digital Growth and Engagement. And over six months we help build through tools and skills and support these small organizations, people within those organizations. But even actually we work with groups and cohorts of organizations so that they can work in homelessness or work in gender justice and reproductive rights or racial equity and climate change. And the funders of our work are typically trusts, foundations, philanthropists, institutional donors who really want to see how the capabilities of these small organizations who often have the highest levels of trust still can best be supported to drive the impact that, as I said earlier, is needed sort of now more than ever.

Iyas [00:04:37]:

And I have to say, first comment, hats off to that acronym. I mean, finding something that works so well for a word like Bridges, that must have taken some time.

Vinay Nair [00:04:46]:

It was one of those things. Actually. We put it out to the team and asked I can't remember what, maybe a bottle of bubbly or something to come up with, whether it was an acronym or a name and sort of that sense of bridge. I guess, also works really well in terms of bridging with donors, with supporters and often, I guess, in a polarized world, obviously, bridging from that impact perspective. So yeah, thank you.

Iyas [00:05:11]:

It works, really. I've come across some incredibly hackneyed one that are like, oh my God, you really had to work hard to make that one work. But yours was kind of spot on. So that's all for that. I'm always intrigued and we are going to obviously dive back into the business in a second. I'd love to know how it actually works and what it does and what it looks like as a business. As I say, this podcast is very much around the intersection of organizations that aren't nonprofits themselves, that are commercial organizations that are doing good. But I'm always intrigued with these kinds of companies, with the founders journey and how they got to where they got to. And I know you've been in and out of the finance world, the business world, the nonprofit world. How did you get to Lightfill? What was your journey to it?

Vinay Nair [00:05:56]:

Sure, thanks for asking it. And it's now when you've been doing this for a while, you can look back and start weaving a bit of a golden thread. But I guess at the start of my journey it didn't feel as clear. I am one of the co founders, along with two good friends carlos Miranda, Johnny Moran of Lightfall and I'm the CEO. I guess I started originally Indian, grew up in Ireland, moved to London initially to work in the city, kind of stumbled into investment banking and end up working at JPMorgan for almost a decade with some lucky timing. Yes, I went on a sabbatical kind of pre Lehman Brothers, if you can cast your mind back to India. As I say, I'm originally from to really explore the world of what was emerging at the time of microfinance. And even though it hadn't been quite coined as a term yet, of impact investing. And it was then that, yes, I met some inspirational people who had found ways to use their professional experiences to marry them with their values so that they could, in that case, use finance as a force for good. And I think as much as the work that I did during my sabbatical, it was some of the inspirational leaders who I met trailblazers, who I looked towards to say, ah, so there is this idea of it isn't bifurcated to, you know, for profit, non for profit, but actually there's a way around using business as a force for good. And and truthfully, ever since then, I guess now coming up to 15 years, it's been the big driver, the core belief that I think needs to take hold even more. Even though we have seen a fantastic influx of talent and capital into this sense of profit with purpose, it's become sort of my deep passion. So after that sabbatical, I had a couple of different things that I did. I worked lived in Mozambique for a while and worked for the Clinton Foundation's HIV AIDS Initiative. I went back and studied for a couple of years at the London School of Economics and then worked for quite a while in the field of impact investing both in the Global South through a wonderful not for profit organization called Acumen Fund and then a social enterprise called Social and Sustainable Capital working in the UK. And I think it was the combination of those different experiences that led my Cofounders and I to think about all with different experiences in the not for profit world and a sense that this was a sector that matters immensely and needed much greater support. That could we see technology as a vehicle through which we could help the sector to really accelerate its impact. That was the kind of my journey and we set it up therefore, as a B corp using and exploring how technology can be used as a force for good. How social media, ostensibly built for authenticity, can be used as a force for good. How communication, storytelling, fundraising can really be galvanized through digital channels to strengthen relationships between good people and great causes. And that's a lot of my almost purpose led desires that's now manifested into this wonderful organization with some incredible colleagues.

Iyas [00:09:12]:

And it's interesting you mentioned at the outset that it's looking back at it, it seems to kind of make sense and weave to a place. It reminds me of that. I'm not going to quote it directly because it'll come out horribly wrong, but Steve Jobs is fantastic quote about being able to see how the dots connect when you look backwards rather than when you look ahead. And it is I mean, you can see that in your own trajectory because of that weaving in between all of those various areas, sort of eventually ending up ending up where it did. And similar story for your founders as well.

Vinay Nair [00:09:44]:

Yeah, very much so. Johnny is actually a friend of mine from university days, stayed very close, kind of post university and had a similar kind of background. And Carlos, who I met when his twins were born and my daughter was born, and that's how we first really connected. But he was working in the space more on the consulting and advisory side as well. But all of us, even though we had different but similar career experiences, were united in our shared values, our shared why. And I guess in some ways, even maybe I'm the one butchering others, but in the Simon Sinek language, probably a shared how as well, we really continue to evangelize on this important sense of tech for good and profit with purpose. And I think that's what united us, to set up lightful and continue to drive our continued growth.

Iyas [00:10:43]:

It's interesting you mentioned Sinek and the why. It is one of the things for me is I remember the phase where the book had come out and it had caused this huge sort of noise around it. And what I found interesting is probably like most books, it was probably more bought than it was read. And so there were a lot of people who were going around and there were those cringe making moments where you'd meet someone within nanosecond before they'd even asked you what your name was. They'd tilt their head towards you and just say, so what's your why? But the interesting thing for me about it is that there was that great focus on that word why. Clearly because it was in the title and because it was the most attractive thing in terms of the book. But if you actually read the book, there's a lot in it about the how, which I think is essential because I think there's a clue in the title. It says start with why rather than start and stop at why. Once you've got your why. That's just the start of the journey. You then got to figure out how to make that why happen. And that's a really big deal. And I think the crux of it, if you obviously, if you actually want to make an impact rather than just talking about making an impact, how did that translate when you guys came together and decided that you were going to set this thing? How did that journey translate into what Lightful actually was going to do in terms of its direct business model and how it would serve its customers?

Vinay Nair [00:12:05]:

So I totally agree with you on the book and kind of the approach and I guess that's been the consistent that's flowed through for seven, eight years that we're doing it. Our what has definitely changed, evolved, pivoted, excuse me for that word and so on. What we always sensed was that nonprofits have incredible stories to tell with authenticity, impact, resonance, and they often struggle with how to do that. And we explored different ways. For a while we thought is it more around videos and YouTube and multichannel networks? Then we thought is it more around kind of large scale projects that involve from service delivery technology to kind of digital products. So we always had the kind of same desired outcome and we were trying to establish good steps forward, a couple of steps forward, a couple of steps back in doing that. And a few years ago, pre pandemic, we really established on this sense of learning and learning and doing and helping organizations to be able to better use tools. Oftentimes we'd have to build them, develop the skills often, as I mentioned, build the confidence as well to be able to achieve those outcomes that we're talking about. So if you have even have one, I was going to say a better digital strategy, if you even have a digital strategy, good starting point. If you're able to storytell more effectively, then you can again raise more awareness and raise more funds for your important work. So it was kind of as we evolved it that we realized that it was a time bound program, was kind of what was needed. Having a mixed method of delivery, whether it's self learning, self paced learning, whether it's kind of cohort based master classes, making sure that there's a real human element that stays involved, you can't just build it and think you have to really make sure people are supported where often they're isolated and lonely in their organization. And that makes methodology I think proved really effective during the pandemic as we all kind of lock down and as we emerge and we all figure out what Hybrid looks like in our own different ways. It's really putting the people at the nonprofit, at the center at the Heart and solving for their pain points challenges and continuing to listen, authentically, evolve what we do, how we do it. Again, all however, to that same desired.

Iyas [00:14:39]:

And so if I look into what you do and how you do it, so is Lightful as a business internally, is it a technology company, as in products or technologies and custom technologies built, is it marketing, is it training? I mean, there's an intersection, a whole bunch of things there in terms of how it achieves that goal, what does it actually look like for an NFP to engage with you and what are the capabilities that are within the organization to make that happen? What are the lines kind of look like?

Vinay Nair [00:15:10]:

Wonderful. So it's interesting how you ask that question because I guess from the NFP, the not for profit engaging with us, it almost shouldn't matter to them. They need to understand, particularly because philanthropists and foundations are paying for this, what the journey looks like. And so, from their perspective, I would give the answer of they see a team of relationship managers who they can speak to, who can help them set their smart goals and objectives, who can help direct them into delightful academy to do self paced learning who can direct them into the right master classes and digital drop ins to join, to understand, maybe who a buddy might be in a cohort of organizations involved that they can very easily given they are very stretched and time poor and resource constrained. Click through to setting up their next invite and calendar with the relationship manager again. So always putting them at the heart, understanding what the activities look like, what the outputs can be like, that strategy canvas for example, all in service of them achieving the goals around the outcomes of raised awareness and funds. So from their perspective, I think they see this combination of people who genuinely care and engage with them and then can continue to support them and coach them through the six month bridge program to achieve their goals. I guess then from a different perspective, how we do that is philosophically, keeping the human centered design approach I think is key. But as a technology company it's then to organize our teams, our objectives, our key results in service of achieving those goals. So the way the team is made up is a combination of engineering and user interface, user experience design. The team of relationship managers that I talked about, partnerships who are working with the variety of donors and funders that we speak to and aligning really around. We use the objective key result OKR system to be really clear around what it is we are pulling towards. What does success look like giving the autonomy and space for the teams to work out how best to achieve the key results in service of the objectives. And from a not for profits perspective, they can see all of that in terms of what we do. But it's not about us. We're in the background, we're the plumbing, we're just enabling them to do what it is that they want to do. So I guess it's the different perspectives of our investors will see us in one way and our participants see us in a different way because of how we're set up. But ultimately everybody's aligning in that same direction.

Iyas [00:18:14]:

I think success comes when it looks to the customer, if you will, like what the customer wants. But internally we configure ourselves to whatever the right way is to achieve that outlook and that outcome. And that may actually look quite different to what the customer sees because the configuration needs to look a bit different in terms of who we're pulling together from where in order to achieve the outcome. But for them it needs to look as simple as humanly possible in terms of this is what I want and you're going to help me to get there. So you've got technologists, you've got effectively, it sounds like coaches, you've got an academy, you've got all of those things that come together essentially to try and resolve the key issue that the nonprofit comes to you for with regards to its fundraising initiatives. And behind the scenes, or rather it's the old swan above the water elegantly, while underneath all manner of activity goes on, some of it that looks elegant, some of them that look slightly less elegant, but all of that that isn't seen by the customer because it's to get to the outcome that they want.

Vinay Nair [00:19:16]:

The other thing I would add in probably is that not very commonly for a B Corp or a profit with purpose organization. We also have a theory of change which is I think important as well. If you want to authentically, make sure that the not for profit executives are your customer as simple as possible perspective, that the funding partner can understand exactly what good looks like, what the inputs and activities are, what the outputs are, what the outcomes are and what the impact is. And that's not to bring in jargon, rather it's actually that's then what everybody can understand, like I say, what good looks like and then you figure out what are the organizational structures, reporting lines, Sprints, OKRs, all of those things can come from that.

Iyas [00:20:06]:

And commercially, how does it work, who pays for the work?

Vinay Nair [00:20:11]:

As I was saying, so let's say the Gates Foundation, where I was you were asking earlier recently in Seattle, the Gates Foundation does a lot of incredible work in the area of gender equality and they support a lot of not for profits and organizations directly working that space. But they also recognize, as we know, women's rights are under attack globally and more needs to be done. And so we've been speaking to Gates, who we've been working with for very many years now, to say we can find with another partner's partner of ours global giving hundreds of incredible small not for profits who are working in international gender justice and reproductive rights whom the Gates Foundation will probably almost certainly not directly fund. However, in service of the collective advocacy and impact goals around tackling gender inequality by helping them to by Lightful, helping those organizations to build their capabilities, skills and so on, so they can again back to achieve more awareness and funds for their work. That Gates Foundation then funds Lightful to work with those organizations in service of that overarching piece. So that's one example, hopefully clear. Yes. In terms of the commercial model, who pays and why? We work with some of the biggest and most wonderful philanthropic funders in the world. I've given one example and we work with several others across the Global North and across the Global South, by the way, importantly as well. So that's how kind of the funding and commercial model works and how we're sort of scaling our growth.

Iyas [00:21:59]:

Yeah. I've just discovered, and this will be a surprise to you, Vinay, this was all a ruse. This isn't a podcast. This is just me because I run a charity by the side and I'm looking at this and thinking, will the Gates Foundation pay for us to get engaged with this? Anyway, thank you for the sell. I'm in.

Vinay Nair [00:22:19]:

Yes. What does the charity do?

Iyas [00:22:21]:

It works with traumatized children, primarily. It works with children in refugee camps and war zones and we help them to essentially regain normality, come back to a childhood rather than what none of us want for any of our children, which is to live with the continual trauma of being in a war zone. But that's by the way, I'm not going to pitch the charity here.

Vinay Nair [00:22:45]:

The charity sounds great and I will say that sounds wonderful, by the way. Yes. I would also just say we are working in a couple of different areas, including, by the way, hopefully soon we will take this offline. Dear listener, when it comes to working with charities, working with refugees, we're exploring increased work around climate change, which obviously has a big intersectionality, mental health, the same and so on. So delighted to hear that. And my objective, there are one half million nonprofits in the US alone. Actually, globally, there are at least 2 million. Like, this is a big part of our everyday life. Last year in the UK, 95% of people said they either supported or received help from a charity. So this kind of ubiquitous part of life and I think it's important that organizations like yours and very many other high impact organizations get the support they need for these vital cause areas, including the one you mentioned.

Iyas [00:23:44]:

Yeah, and I think again, for me, that's why I always find the sector that you work and quite attractive because it's effectively it's a multiplier right, it multiplies donations and goodwill and turns it into something much bigger than it would have been without the involvement of an organization like Lightful. And that's a great place to be. So we mentioned that the funding from the grant giving organizations. I know you also do work with for profit organizations. Is that a similar thing? What does that part of the business look like?

Vinay Nair [00:24:12]:

Yeah, it's a similar model. So for example, we'll work with UBS or JPMorgan Foundation or Patagonia or large organizations. But I guess ultimately all of what I described earlier is similar in that they are looking to support a specific cause area or potentially a specific place. So we do a lot of work, I'm proud to say, in Ukraine and we are scaling that out with one of the funders I mentioned. And so that is a similar version of what we do. But again, when we're able to use languages, language like you quite rightly said, it multiplying impact, sustainability, return on investment. I think there's a broad tent of types of organizations for whom our message resonates and hopefully we'll continue to do so.

Iyas [00:25:02]:

And increasingly clearly in the ESG space where they are, a lot of these organizations have ESG targets and a couple of them are even embedding them in their quarterly reports which is lovely to see that it's actually happening. And yes, some of it is probably a bit of purpose washing but the fact that it's got the profile that it has I think means that the direction at least is definitely heading the right way. I'm triggered looking at looking at the organization itself again, Lightful itself. It's a commercial organization. I always find it interesting some of the dilemmas that we face when we're running a commercial organization that serves nonprofits. There's a couple of that that I actually work with personally where sometimes there's a bit of unease about am I taking money from them from a nonprofit that should be doing something? A lot of them with the model is different, that's more direct. The charity itself is paying for a service. My take is always like, well, it's paying for it precisely going back to that previous world to multiply the impact of what it gets. So actually nobody's taking anything from these organizations. It's helping them to multiply. But are those dilemmas that either you or I'm intrigued even within the team itself? Because it's quite often the team that sometimes feels this and feels like, oh, we need to give more of this away or whatever, without realizing that actually no, but we're still a company and we need to pay your salary and you need to be fed and your family needs to be fed. Do any of those kind of dilemmas come up with you guys or have they come up as you've evolved as an organization?

Vinay Nair [00:26:39]:

Yeah, it's certainly something we hold tight. I guess the way we think about it is a couple of folds. One is, I guess fundamentally we look to positively correlate our income and impact. I mentioned that we're working in international gender justice and reproductive rights and the program we launched just before International Women's Day was with 170 nonprofits helping 340 nonprofits will increase their income but it also increase the impact. And so the positive correlation I think structurally is really important towards addressing your very, very valid and good question. Another thing that we also do is we're not trying to, I don't know, take a percentage off the top of donations, for example, which is maybe sort of one of the examples that you were considering or organization that you work with. Ours is more to use the sort of SaaS language of b to B, business to business. And we are really funded by the donor, the Trapper Foundation, the corporate that's looking to achieve this in order to enable the small nonprofit to achieve the ROI resilience sustainability to for example, raise more funds so that they can in turn multiply their impact. So again, to use some of the language, you rightly said yes. And in so doing, I guess we positively can grow the numbers of funding partners we have. We can deepen those relationships and because of that positive correlation of income and impact that's I think how we are continue to always think about that piece but are very comfortable in terms of the service that we and products that we can provide to help the organization to achieve their impact. Okay.

Iyas [00:28:29]:

And I wonder touched on how that plays out and in fact how the purpose as a whole plays out with the team. So clearly the founders came together with this sense of purpose of what you wanted to achieve. I'm always wary of trying to put the weight of purpose on everybody's shoulders because quite often people in a working environment actually the purpose may simply be I need a job that pays an equitable wage. That means that I can go home and put food on the table, look after my family and actually that's enough for me. I don't need to feel like I am solving world hunger or inequalities or whatever and I don't think anybody should stand critical of that personally because people shouldn't be healthy. But I'm intrigued in terms of the team and the employees that you guys get on board, what's the feeling there? Is it very much the interest of the job? Is it the drive of the purpose? Is it a mix of all the above? How does it play out through the team?

Vinay Nair [00:29:26]:

It's a great question. I think ultimately the critical one. Technology company, my mentor and former boss Jacqueline Novogratz has a great adage which is great people every time, no exception. And I find that really, really powerful and we're very, very, very fortunate Lightful that I think it is a combination of all of the above that is what attracts people. So I think it's the ability to apply their professional experience as a full stack engineer, as a UI designer at an organization that pays very much an equitable wage that shares in the future success, current and future success. Of the organization but also is in service of a customer base that are tackling some of the most urgent challenges we have right now whether that's climate, whether that's in Ukraine, whether that's in gender equality. So I do think actually everybody at Lightful is very much driven by, attracted to, maybe in the first place, driven by and sustained by the work of these smaller organizations and what we enable them to achieve. Because it gives you that sense of purpose and alignment that no matter what your role is and how you tie in, your key result ties into the objectives and so on. It's very clear when we work we worked with over 2000 nonprofits that you can see what's transmitting and what they're achieving. So I think that we talk about our values a lot, we talk about our purpose a lot. We're releasing our Impact report later on this year so I think it's important to keep those aspects of conversation front and centre in what you do and I think that is part of why we have sort of lucky to say an exceptional team at Lightful.

Iyas [00:31:17]:

Yeah and it's interesting because we talked earlier about the translation of a nonprofit that comes and wants to get something done and there's some clarity around what the outcome is and that gets translated beneath the surface to a whole bunch of skills and so on that go to achieve it. What we're talking about here is essentially the reverse of that, which is I've come along. I don't know, I'm a Python coder, which may look like it has nothing to do with resolving some of the issues or opportunities of making a better world. And through lightful, you're effectively providing that translation mechanism to say, take that skill, and here's how that's going to turn into a thing of impact. And so both ways that middle layer does its purpose of turning one to the other and that's a fantastic thing. As we touch on those, it takes me to your other role that we mentioned at the outset that you are at the Skull Center in Oxford and as a resident expert there, you've been doing that for nearly a decade. Have you seen any changes in terms of the priorities, how people are thinking about the role of purpose in organizations as they come through the center? Is that a noticeable trend that you're seeing at all?

Vinay Nair [00:32:34]:

Yeah, unquestionably I've been doing it, as you say, for ten years and I think the pace of evolution has been thrilling to see. I think in the earlier days it was definitely sort of a case of what is this thing? Let me understand it a little bit more. Can I really build a career here? I typically work with MBA students. As you touched on, what is interesting is kind of a bit of a pincer movement, because the grand swell of interest that we saw from students resulted in Oxford and Sayeed recognizing that already with this goal center, they had a competitive advantage and a lot of experience, but actually that it shouldn't just be an over there or on the side piece. But this is something that they had to consider right across what they do. And then, of course, what we've also seen is then people applying want to see that that is something that courses through the entire program. The opportunities, the connections they can make, the relationships that they can build, and the opportunities they get afterwards as well as during the time. And I think the final point I would say yes when I say sort of unquestionably is what strikes me as a lot of that has kind of worked through the system. Now I don't even think we're doing a process. I feel like that new normal is established, is that I often find and get struck still that I'll be doing a one on one session with a student and for them, a social enterprise impact investing, tech for good. Of course, it's that like, how could what are you saying? Tech for bad? What is it? Non impactful investing. And so almost that default language is as if it were ever thus or certainly how it must be from today going forward. And I find that powerful inspirational, and I think that even that framing of thinking of, well, maybe impact investing is just investing and non impact investing should be called non impact investing. And that, I think, is what I'm excited to see work its way, what the transmission mechanism of that might look like over the next 2510 years. And if that groundswell and as these students start as leaders and evolve into even more senior leaders, I think that's to some of the ESG and purpose washing that exists, it becomes more authentic, real and genuinely embedded. That excites me immensely, of course.

Iyas [00:35:01]:

And likewise, I mean, it's interesting for me, when I started my own businesses back in the day, and values were always front and center, it was a thing I inherited from my parents that they would always be front and center in every field of life, including in work. And so it became a real thing at work. But it was always looked at at the time as a bit of a strange, strange thing. Why would you do that? People are like, I get why you do Values. We can make money and then we'll go and donate to charity, right? And so I'm doing my mum values, that individual. And I get that everyone can, but there wasn't that link apart from in the occasional bit of marketing blurb that went no deeper than the marketing blurb, that values actually had a central role and a central and positive role within an organization that would turn into actually how you do things. And I've loved in the work that I do over time, just seeing that being normalized. Whereas previously, I remember in one occasion I was called the conscience of the board and it wasn't said as a compliment. We're now thankful in a better place. And it's interesting when I talk to CEOs as well, when you talk about values and purpose. And I think it's interesting what you say about the demographic that's coming through, where it's becoming thinking about are we doing for impact or not for impact? Because the thing for me always want to have a CEO and we to have the purpose and values conversation. I think ultimately it's a choice. You can make money by being British. American tobacco. God, they're my nemesis. They come up in every podcast episode. You can make money by being British American Tobacco or you can make money by doing something good. And actually, ultimately, what you do and how you do it comes down to it. It is a choice. You can still make money while doing incredibly heinous things. And I'm not saying that most companies do that, but they can not put it as a consideration. They can put very much the profit motivation as being front and center and don't have to think about it. And they can succeed commercially, they can succeed. And I'm loving the fact that we're increasingly making it harder for that to be acceptable. And that's a fantastic thing. We've talked a lot about lightfall employees coming through the journey you've been on. Where are you seeing it going over the next few years? Where do you guys want to take the organization?

Vinay Nair [00:37:12]:

Thanks yes just to say conscious of the board it's interesting when I heard that before you said that was said as a negative thing I was like oh great. And now I guess what we want to see is that I think similarly it isn't just a person to be the conscious of the board or to be the impact person or the values person how do we kind of embed it? So I think I agree. I echo all of your views and happy to see that direction where travel we're in. I guess from lightfill's perspective, we're working with, as I said, a couple of thousand. Incredible. Not for profits. 80 plus countries. The work that we've done in Ukraine has been challenging. Initially, to get everything, all of our tools, all of our training, translated into Ukrainian. But very vital that we did it, and we've done it also. With the train, the trainer approach, with an incredible set of partners we have in Ukraine as well. So I think that part of what I see happening is the ability for us not to just be English based, but also being able to we already customize our programs to different cause areas in different places but to have even more versatility in doing that. I think we have made it through the guts of a podcast without talking about artificial intelligence, which is probably nowadays. But I think there are roles for AI in our product and program roadmap, including in that translation piece in low resource settings that I think will be vital to Lightfall's short and medium term horizons. And I think with the domain experience that we're accumulating in areas like gender and racial equity and climate, we are keen to just continue to expand that work more and more, funders more and more nonprofits. And that's something that we're doing with sort of very strategic funds in those because areas and then including, for example, your charity working in a vital area and its intersectionality with a bunch of other areas. How can we continue to develop that deep domain experience that comes from experts we work with, but also comes from co creation with the small nonprofits that we support in even more areas and in even more places. So I think the direction of travel is a continuation of what we do in many ways. The types of donors may involve. We may have more institutional donors. For example, we work with the German government's aid agency GIZ. I think we'll probably work with more. Instead, we work with UNICEF, so maybe more UN agency, more overseas development, ODA funding. So some of that may change and some of the language may change. And the how, whether it's AIpowered or kind of responding to customer demand, it's just to really broaden and deepen the work that we do in service of increased impact.

Iyas [00:39:56]:

And again, I love that. It's for me, I want to look at what I want out of beyond the quarter. It is growth, but it's an impact growth agenda rather than necessarily the revenue and the profit are hopefully will come with that we can't get away from profit is essential. We're not going to be able to do the things that we want to do. We're not making the profit within the organization, but the primary goal really being about an impact growth, which is essentially what I'm hearing from you in terms of where Lightfall goes. And that's fantastic.

Vinay Nair [00:40:27]:

I think that positive correlation of income and impact is for us, and I think that's exactly right. They have to grow and scale in lockstep, and that's what we're working towards and hopeful for and looking forward to in coming sort of weeks, months and years.

Iyas [00:40:42]:

Fantastic. Vinay, who should be on the lookout for you and how do they find you?

Vinay Nair [00:40:47]:

We're always keen to find fellow people on this journey, whether they're nonprofits, whether they're philanthropists, whether they're foundations and so on. Definitely connect with us on LinkedIn. We have an active presence across all social channels, of course. And Lightful.com, lightful.com, if anybody wants more information, do get in touch. It's going to take all of us. So keen to continue to build alliances and partner shits to do that.

Iyas [00:41:15]:

Absolutely. Vinay, thank you so much for making the time. It was a particularly dense one. There was a lot of ground that we covered there and I felt we could have gone on for two or three times the time. Thank you so much for making the time, for sharing the story, for sharing the inspiration behind it. And love.