An Open Letter to the Ignite Alumni

All,

I wanted to let you know about an announcement that we’re going to be making next week. Starting from the next Ignite programme in April, we’re going to make the founders pledge a standard part of our investment paperwork.

Founder’s Pledge is a platform that asks entrepreneurs to commit at least 2% of their personal proceeds from an exit to the social causes and charities of their choice. You can donate to any cause, but their team will help you find causes that will make the most impact.

There’s a simple legal framework to handle the pledge, but most importantly — the trust is funded through partners and sponsors which means that 100% of any donation you make goes to the charities of your choice.

So why are we doing this?

Ignite has always been about supporting the best founders in building the best businesses possible. We do this through programmes but we’ve also done this by reinvesting our personal profits into initiatives like Campus North.

Our model is designed so that when our founders succeed then the investors and Ignite itself make a financial return. But success is not just measured in the amount of money you make, but also in the difference that you can make to others in the world.

So here’s the point of all this: I’d like to ask all of you who’ve already been through the programme to sign up to the Founders Pledge.

We invested you in because we we believed in you as teams first and foremost and I’m sure that most of you share the same ideals. As always we’re putting our money where our mouth is, and the whole Ignite team is signing up to the pledge.

Signing the pledge is only a part of how you can make a difference. Everything about how you run your business, from the people you hire to the deals you do, can have a big impact on the world around you so think carefully about the kind of company you want to build.

To reiterate — this isn’t about handing over equity in your business, it’s about donating a tiny part of any profit you personally make if you exit your business.

If you’ve got any questions then give me a call, but you can sign up the Founders Pledge here.

All the best,

Tris.