In late May, SeaFreight Labs joined the 1%-Pledge Movement to provide our crowd-solving service to global humanitarian non-profits on a pro-bono basis, in partnership with private donors. What does this look like? How should it work? Can the program be designed to ensure that it delivers tangible benefits? There were countless questions.
You would think it should be easy to give something away, right? Who doesn’t like receiving something for free? However, it turns out that giving away a professional service that requires a significant commitment of the recipient’s time is not simple. The same sales process used in a regular sales cycle is necessary to find a qualified prospect that could benefit from the free service. It took focused effort to find suitable organizations and find the right people for engagement.
The good news is that this hard work paid off. In the coming weeks, we will be announcing two different crowd-solving projects for global humanitarian non-profits. They will begin the real-world execution of our 1%-product commitment.
Initial discussions for both of the projects started before COVID-19 lockdowns. But surprisingly, I think the COVID-19 restrictions on travel made them move more quickly to closure than would have occurred in a normal world. In one case, we began our brainstorming on the back of a napkin at a local coffee shop. In the other case, it was a friend of a friend that got the project rolling. In both cases, there were Zoom calls, demos, and business discussions that eventually led to the execution of agreements.
I am SUPER excited about the Pledge-1% movement and what it has encouraged us to do. As other logistics/seafreight companies take the pledge, the potential for a global impact will continue to grow. Join me in a #SeaFreight1percentPledge!