Just Peoples

There are three key opportunities that have excited us about applying for the Elevate Prize: 

1:  Mentorship opportunities - we LOVE personal and professional development. Our team at Just Peoples has a strong learning culture and growth mindset. We're very keen to upskill ourselves and learn from experts how we can think, work and do better. 

2: The tailored marketing and media campaign and opportunity for networking and connections will be of huge benefit to us. We have spent the last 5 years building strong partnerships with our project leaders and a solid platform to enable people around the world to support their vital work, and we're now ready to shout about it from the rooftops and SCALE! This support could enable us to seriously spread the word.

3: We’d like to invest the cash prize into employing skilled, paid(!) staff which will enable each team member to focus on what they do best, rather than the founders trying to do everything themselves. We'd also set up a revolving fund to ensure we can meet our project leaders' urgent needs as they arise - ie, fund more poverty-solving work.

I’m Christey, the co-founder of Just Peoples. I want my time on earth to matter. I want my time, skills and unique talents to be used to lift the overall wellbeing of humankind, and I want to inspire other people to do the same. The more people that actively work towards improving the state of the world, the better off humanity will be as a whole, and people in poverty specifically will have more opportunities available to lift themselves into self-determined, fulfilling lives.

This may sound idealistic, but you did ask what my vision is. 

Just Peoples is the vehicle through which I support local changemakers solving poverty in their own communities, and also inspire more fortunate people to contribute, and feel great about contributing. 

My goal is to grow Just Peoples to a point where we have the networks and resources to support every entrepreneur running a grassroots project, so they can get their work off the ground and accelerate their impact. 

And when I’m a dear old lady, my dream is to be wise. I want to be able to share a lifetime of lessons learnt with the next in line who are taking on big issues.

Our problem is global poverty and inequality. The world's richest 1% have more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people. Effective solutions that are ready to be implemented, simply don't happen because people leading them can't access the funds they need. So people remain hungry, uneducated, unemployed.

Just Peoples breaks down poverty into tangible chunks and addresses it at the local level. We partner with project leaders who have viable solutions to their community's specific needs, and source donors to fund their projects.

For example, 56% of Kenyans can't access clean water, and 80% of all diagnosed diseases are waterborne. Water filters are expensive. Just Peoples’ project leader Beth developed a water filter that is cheap and effective. We inspire people to donate to Beth's work and buy water filters for Kenyan families. We pass the funds on to Beth who then makes and distributes the water filters. 

Beth provides feedback to her donors so they feel connected to the people they've brought clean water to. Donors' understanding of their contribution motivates them to keep donating.  

We support 20 project leaders in 13 countries. Their solutions tackle period poverty, disabilities, clean energy, nutrition, mental health, education, and employment.

Unlike traditional donor organisations, our project leaders don’t have to prove their ideas work in order for us to fund them. That may sound reckless, but once we’ve established a partnership based on trust and the knowledge that the leaders have the capabilities to solve complex issues, we're excited to back their extremely innovative pilot projects. And it pays off.

One key example happened at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Wizkit, a local NGO we support in Bangladesh had utlised an open-source prototype (from MIT actually!) to 3D print PPE and ventilators for frontline workers. Because of our dynamic relationship with Wizkit founders Bushra and Mushfiqur, and trusting they could pull it off, we immediately funded 5x 3D printers so they could implement their solution. 

After serving thousands of doctors with 3D-printed, effective PPE, Wizkit then created PAPRs from upcycled snorkels. Again, we backed this innovative pilot project and as the pandemic continues, Bangladeshi Covid hospitals and makeshift ICU units are relying Wizkit’s life-saving PAPRs so doctors can work safely. Wizkit relies on Just Peoples to provide the funding so they can protect doctors.

We regularly support and enable innovative projects like this, that wouldn't happen otherwise.

We're passionate about eliminating global poverty. We've funded over 100 grassroots projects that have offered tangible improvements to more than 86,000 lives globally. 

Our personal connection to project leaders, and our ability to speak passionately about their work, inspires people to take action. It makes poverty feel relevant and real to people who don't witness it in their own lives. So our role is to motivate everyday people to care about global issues and do something about them.

We aim to inspire 1,000,000 people to join our community of donors and supporters, so we can fund ever more grassroots projects. But to reach new people with our message, we’ve had do some soul-searching.

Co-founder Jo Peek and I are engaging in visibility and business coaching, to adjust our mindsets to growth and abundance, while removing the subconscious blocks that have limited us previously. Through this personal development we're attracting large numbers of new supporters, and have bigger and more consistent donations flowing in.

In practical terms, we have a new blog that inspires readers to connect with our mission; we host effective fundraising events, invest in digital marketing, and bring in talented people. We're also applying for the Elevate Prize!