I’m a very unlikely ‘disruptor’. I’m in the fat middle section of any adoption curve worth its salt and I approach New Music Fridays with the enthusiasm of a rainy Monday. But I do love creating things. I love those intoxicating moments when you urgently grab a pen and scrap of paper because you have a new idea that absolutely must be captured. I’m no stranger to the frantic and tenuous beginnings of a thing when it is still literally nothing and yet, the potential for it to be something feels suddenly so urgent. Once, in the throws of disruption, I wrote a full business plan on the back of a paper bag I found in the seat on a Virgin Pendolino Train. I have three book concepts tapped frantically into the notes app on my phone and at least as many half-completed ‘business canvas’ templates.

But only once has my relationship with a ‘disruptive’ idea survived past the heady honeymoon phase. The ‘meet cute’ happened whilst I was out on a run. I remember exactly the route I took, skirting around Clissold Park one evening after a long day in the office. At the time I was working in an advertising agency, creating incredibly glamourous Vietnamese fabric conditioner ads. I loved my job but I was definitely tired and my mind had started wondering. Anyway, I’m out on this run and I start thinking about our client. The cash they’d spent, the energy and resources we were pouring into this project. I couldn’t help thinking; all they really wanted was for their brand to matter to people but instead of doing something that actually mattered they just kept making more fancy ads. It seemed like such a broken feedback loop. Such a waste of potential.

By the time I arrived back from my run, the idea was almost fully formed. I was going to redesign the system through which brands and people interacted. I was going to align the incentives; people wanting to do good in their own little way, and brands wanting to have a purpose that’s bigger (and more interesting) than the products they sell. I was going to create a value exchange through which we could give brands some of our precious attention and in return, they would use their ad dollars to fund the causes that matter most to us.

That evening I ate dinner sat on the floor, surrounded by the scribblings of mad woman, as I sketched out different models of the platform in a red felt tip. I downloaded some app wireframe templates from Google, I mocked up a terrible logo and by 2am I had a slick-ish PowerPoint presentation articulating the idea. I called it ‘Snapchat for Social Impact’.

The next day at work I emailed some of the smartest people at the agency and offered to buy them a coffee in exchange for their time and advice. I showed my presentation to a handful of people, all of whom reacted somewhere on a scale from polite-but-confused to lukewarm-and-still-a-bit-confused. I’d sit at my desk, desperately trying to concentrate on the latest insights from our Vietnamese focus groups whilst lost in thought about the idea burning a hole in those PowerPoint slides at home. There was no escaping it, I had hit upon a problem I was genuinely excited to fix. Advertising is a $300bn industry and I had an idea which used that money to fund amazing causes around the world. Unlike the self-serve spin classes and the international hostel chain I’d written business plans for in the past, this idea used my skills and my network and it harnessed the industry I loved in a way that made it an industry I could be proud of. I was falling fast.

Within a month of that run around Clissold Park I’d handed in my notice at the agency. I booked a one-way flight to South America and, in retrospect, to a quarter life crisis. I took a fantastic and very challenging entrepreneurship course, learning from incredible mentors such as the Futurist and Technology Philosopher Nell Watson. I wrote, scratched and re-wrote that PowerPoint presentation so many times cntrl+Cs and Vs started filling my dreams. I felt like a contestant on one of those celebrity Comic Relief shows, training to climb a mountain in some foreign land. I was putting in the hours and getting gradually more confident whilst also being painfully aware that the tough part hadn’t even really started yet.

Almost six years later, I’ve perhaps arrived at base camp. The business I ended up founding is almost unrecognisable to the ‘Snapchat for Social Impact’ I scribbled down in red pen. I started Good-Loop in 2016, alongside my fantastic business partner and CTO Daniel Winterstein. It’s not an app and there’s no snapping or chatting. Good-Loop is an ethical ad platform which distributes ad content onto premium websites and social media platforms. If people choose to engage with one of our ads, they get to unlock a free donation, funded by the advertiser, to give to a charity of their choice. So people get to do good for free and brands get to connect with their customers in a genuinely positive and meaningful way.

Here’s an example of a campaign we ran recently with Omnicom client Co-Op:

The product may have evolved beyond recognition but the mission is the same. So far, in partnership with amazing brands like Unilever, H&M, Bose and Cadburys, Good-Loop has raised over $1m for charities around the world. We have funded nights of homeless accommodation, mental health support, vaccines, clean water access, beach clean-ups and global conservation work. We are proudly disrupting the industry for the better – making advertising a force for good in the world and proving unequivocally that brands with a purpose see a stronger commercial return.

Like any long-term relationship, we’ve changed each other over time, but the reason I love this idea is more true today that it ever has been. In a world faced with uncertainty and crisis, good business matters more than ever. Right now, several global brands are working with Good-Loop to fund people on the frontline in the fight against COVID – from Meals for the NHS through to the World Health Organisation and The Hygiene Bank. And as we start to contemplate a post-COVID world, there’s a renewed sense of responsibility, community and kindness that will no doubt accelerate the shift towards sustainable business models.

So I’m renewing my vows, I’m doubling down and alongside my amazing team, we’re going to change advertising for the better.