By The Horns: A Bitcoin podcast about South Africa
By The Horns: A Bitcoin podcast about South Africa
Unearthing Potential: The Crew for a Cause Story with Matt Koning
What's the secret ingredient to transforming lives through education and community involvement? Together with our esteemed guest, Matt Koning, founder and CEO of Crew for a Cause, we reveal this magic formula to you. Hear how this charity is championing a cause that's close to many hearts - granting scholarships to bright, underprivileged kids. Be inspired by their unique selection process, using psychometric testing and partnerships with schools across the Western Cape and Johannesburg. Sit back and follow MK's journey, their first beneficiary, now making waves in the tech industry.
Ever wondered how charities maintain a steady revenue stream in the face of South Africa's glaring disparities in schooling fees? Matt takes us backstage into the financial workings of Crew for a Cause, and it's nothing short of innovative. From community funding to partnerships with corporate donors, deceased estates and even a bold, new Bitcoin donation strategy, this is a masterclass in creative financial sustainability. Discover how these measures ensure that 100% of member contributions truly make a difference in the lives of the kids.
But there's more! The Crew for a Cause approach goes beyond scholarships. It's about nurturing a community, fostering mentorship, and encouraging local involvement. Matt shares about their unique 'pod system' and how it forms the bedrock of their work. You'll learn how this system aids in providing individual feedback to students and establishing lifelong mentorship relationships. And it's not just about what's happening now - hear about their exciting future plans, including Bitcoin donations, geographic mapping features to boost local donations, and noteworthy partnerships. Listen, learn, and be inspired.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of by the Horns. Today I am joined by Matt Poynone, founder and CEO of Crufler Coors. Crufler Coors is a charity that finds talented and deserving youngsters from underprivileged backgrounds and provides them scholarships to complete top quality high school education in South Africa. I chatted to Matt about how the charity functions, how they select the kids for the scholarships and what all of this has to do with Bitcoin. The charity has been growing from strength to strength and they have recently adopted a Bitcoin donation strategy to grow their donor base and to potentially provide incentives for the kids to perform in their educational journey. Crufler Coors is a refreshing model for our I believe charity should function in the real world.
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Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Buy the Horns at Bitcoin Point West of South Africa, and today I am joined by Matthew Koenig. Matthew is the founder and CEO of Crufler Coors. Crufler Coors is a charity that finds deserving youngsters and puts them through school to get them a great education and give them a leg up in life. Matthew, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks so much, ricky. It's an honor to be on here, lekker man, good to have you.
Speaker 1:I see you dressed up for the occasion. I feel a bit understressed. I did.
Speaker 2:I did. You know you got to look important. No, very true, very true. So, Matt, yeah, tell us before we dive into what Crufler Coors is.
Speaker 1:Do you mind telling us a bit about yourself? Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:So I'll go back all the way to you know, right in the beginning. I was born in Havbe, grew up there. My mom and dad went to Cronindale Primary, had a really great upbringing, went to Wine Big Boys, then had the opportunity to go get my undergrad at Stelenbosch University, did entrepreneurial management there and then came out. I've got a surname as Koenig, but it's actually Dutch and my English is not very good, so, needless to say that my nickname was actually Queen when I was at Stelenbosch.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, and then it was privileged enough to do my post-grad at UCT and yeah, and it's really there that I kind of kicked off my working career. I run currently run a business where we use digital rewards to drive customer behaviors, so very much in the loyalty and reward space and advertising space, and I've been here for the last 14 years. So, yeah, that's just a little bit about me. And yeah, and this is kind of the charity just became a real passion project and something that myself and a bunch of our friends really wanted to give back to this amazing country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so Krufa Records is the charity right, yeah, and I mean I briefly highlighted it, but can you, in your own ways, just tell us a bit more about the charity?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So I mean, we're going on into our eighth year now and it kind of really all started where it started with, with the education that we were given. We were privileged enough to be given a really top class education, both in high schooling and tertiary education, and it really kind of was the stepping stone to allowing us to get into the workplace and to start earning good income and to really kind of set ourselves up financially. And so, you know, once we had finished this and a bunch of us friends were, you know, were working and earning good incomes, kind of took a step back and we said well, you know, is it not our time to stop looking at how we can give back? And and a big part of that was obviously this big focus on education we believe that education is the stepping stone to a better South Africa and if we can do a little bit in it, we can really start kind of making change within this country.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, we really got initially 15 friends, we were all Weinberg boys and we pulled some money together and we ended up sponsoring one boy. His name was MK and and we kind of started sponsoring. So it was it was amazing story. We went and made his mom the only as a mom. He came from the township, he was one of, I think, seven or eight who lived together in a small room and he had a lot of promise at Weinberg. So we kind of worked with the school and we allocated a certain amount of funds to to sponsor it, and that's kind of how it all started and it was a really, really exciting thing. We stuck with him, we helped him, we mentored him, we helped him get extra maths lessons and it was a very hands on experience.
Speaker 2:And so we took a step back afterwards and we looked at this and we said, well, you know, this is really working. You know, and it's, and it's something that we're all very passionate about how can we now take this to the next level? And so and so really, that's where Cruforacours was born. It was born from from this idea of putting talented kids through high school. We thought that, you know, our sandbox in the space of education is obviously there's six different areas and they're all very important, all the way from ECD, early childhood development, all the way to the, to high schooling and then obviously into tertiary education. But obviously we couldn't solve all of the problems with the, with the funding that we had and then the amount of of friends that we had pooled the money. So we decided to focus on high school only, and and yeah and. We looked at the model and we thought, well, okay, let's, let's see how many people we can get involved and see how many kids we can help out. And that's really where Cruforacours was was ultimately born.
Speaker 1:All right, and so I mean the problem you guys are addressing is is obviously that in South Africa, if you don't go to a decent quality school like it's kind of like a binary right Like that the low quality schools are really really low quality and the good quality schools are often kind of unaffordable and yeah, and so I suppose this is really it's finding kids and getting them into those good quality schools that they otherwise wouldn't have an opportunity to get into. And maybe for people who don't really understand, and specifically foreigners, I guess, like what is the schooling landscape in South Africa look like and why is it just such a bad thing to end up going to a lower quality school?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think you know there's lots of problems with low quality schools, but I think a big issue that that South Africa faces at the moment is just lack of quality teachers and and and paid teachers and qualified teachers and and teachers that have the ability to teach correctly. And so I think the ability for a kid, an underprivileged kid, who has a lot of talent in the education space, to go to a more privileged school allows them to get better teaching, which allows them to get better marks, which allows them to go further in the education landscape, and you know that for us is a very big concept of of crew for a cause. So you know there are endless number of kids that that need funding in the education space and particularly in the high schooling. So you know a big part of what, of what we do and this is all a part time kind of project that myself and one or two others are involved in is we've ended up partnering with another organization that does a lot of our vetting on on finding talented kids, and I think it's very important. I think if we're going to make proper change in this country at the moment in the education space is we need to be focusing on the kids that have a lot of talent, and so we've partnered with another organization called the Spirit Foundation and they do a lot of our vetting of the kids and they give us a whole bunch of list of potential candidates that we can then choose and select and it's quite an interesting process that they follow. They do psychometric testing with the kids when they're 12 years old. There's thousands and thousands of applicants that they would do that down and there's a select number that they do psychometric testing with and they they do this on maths, science, english and grit, and grit is always the one that everyone asks. What does grit mean? And I think that it's one of the most important is because, ultimately, if you're going to be finding a kid coming from one school and putting them in a different school and a different environment, culturally different people, etc. A lot of different reasons they need to be able to handle and they need to be able to adapt to that new environment and I think that's that's a very important skill set to have and that's part of why we use grit as one of our metrics to determine the right candidates for us to sponsor. So yeah, you know, and I think A big part of it is, then sorry you haven't asked the question, but I'll share it with you.
Speaker 2:Anyway, we currently have partnered with seven schools in the Western Cape and one school in Joberg.
Speaker 2:The Joberg School was just so that we can stop positioning ourselves as a national charity, but the schools that we partnered with in the Western Cape are the likes of Weinberg Boys, weinberg Girls, norman Henshel, claremont High, bergfleet High, so very, very prominent high schools in the Western Cape and we have great relationships with all of them. And the beauty of the process of these kids is they're all part of this community outside of their own individual schools, and that's something that we take them for camps in partnership with the Spirit Foundation so that they can start interacting with other kids that come through the organization and then just kind of see how the other schoolings are. You get an idea of what they want to do. Obviously, when you start hitting high school, the big question that people start asking is what do you want to do afterwards? So the camps are a type of really nice space to start getting the kids to work with each other and figure out what it is that they want to do.
Speaker 1:So what age are you guys selecting these kids to join the program and when do they become eligible? Is it from end of high school or where? How do you?
Speaker 2:guys do your filtering. Yeah, so it's the beginning of high school, so from 12 years old they would apply and then they go into the high school curriculum, which is obviously from the age of 13 to 18. I'm old school so it was standards for me, but I believe it's grades now. So I think it's grade six to grade 12, I think it is.
Speaker 1:And that's the period. It's grade eight to grade 12, Vali.
Speaker 2:Grade eight to grade 12. Thank you, so you can see how old I am. Standards.
Speaker 1:So the kids grade seven, they're seven or five, they're grade seven marks that kind of really and earlier that really apply for when they are getting selected to go into this program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, correct, that's kind of when we look at them. That's the latest reporting that we can kind of analyze and look at and see okay, these kids have potential. Currently we only sponsoring kids with an 80% average and above across the board. Some are more skewed to certain different subjects but we tend to try and take a range. But I think most importantly is all of these kids come from underprivileged areas that need financial support but have a lot of talent in terms of we think that they can go far within the education space and ultimately start getting jobs and in our long-term vision, mk was the first kid that left high school and that was a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2:We've just had a new bachelor that left and the new bachelor will be writing a matrix, writing final exams now in November and they will then be going on into tertiary space and hopefully one day all of them can start filtering in, can start being mentors for the new kids, can have some sort of funding model with them that they can get involved. We're very excited by the future when we start seeing the successes come through and they start getting really good jobs and seeing how we can filter them back into the charity.
Speaker 1:So you've seen a cohort obviously from them the first kid come through. You've seen a cohort go from grade eight all the way through to now he's in tertiary and you've seen a few cohorts now that have finished matric already and have gone well, another one and then the other guys in matric now that have come through. So the project's been running kind of its entire life cycle already for a few cohorts of kids. So you've seen the outcomes and what have those outcomes been so far for you guys?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have. I mean just for clarity. We started, I think, mk. He was in grade nine and we started him, but obviously he's finished matric now and then he's currently working at a backend website company in Frankshok, of all places, and they house him there and he works there and actually today I got a write-up from him and he stays in contact with us and it's a really personal relationship. Currently we're sponsoring 25 kids throughout the organization. So as we grow it's difficult to get that personal interaction with him, but I think MK has a soft spot with all of us just because he was our first. But he's a prime example of somebody that then kind of went on and has now got a job and can start filtering back into the organization. He said he messaged me the other day and he was like oh, when you come into Frankshok, lunch on me. So which was really which I was going, which I was really proud of.
Speaker 2:It's the first part of outcome right there, I know, and I'm gonna take him up on that in Frankshok. So, yeah, so. And then there are some other cases where we're gonna come into some challenges. Currently we have a boy, kevin. His mom and dad are from Rwanda and they came down and there's a whole story behind that and if anyone's interested I'll be more than happy to share with them privately. But they've come down and he's actually in the top 10 grade at Winebook Boys, incredibly smart kid. He's number one chess player in South Africa and he's just been accepted into Acturial Science, into Witt, stelimbosch and UCT. So I mean, we're incredibly, incredibly proud of Kevin.
Speaker 2:There is a complication in that, during the course of, because his parents obviously have refugee status in South Africa. Although Kevin was born in South Africa, there's been some complications with home affairs in terms of his name being wrong on his application for his ID and he hasn't been able to receive an ID and although we've already secured him funding to go to one of those universities, so the funding's been granted and given they won't release the funding because he doesn't have a South African ID. So you know, I think, what I alluded to right in the beginning in terms of in terms of crew for a quarter, crew for a course, and this kind of falls in really nicely with. That is a big part of our vision is to is to build a community of people in South Africa. I think there isn't there's so many South Africans that that want to do good, and particularly in the education space, but don't necessarily have a platform, a safe platform, a transparent platform or nowhere to do it. And I think one of our main goals of proof for a cause is to build this community of people that have a safe space, to Contribute financially to an organization that is putting the money in the right places to the right kids, but also be a part of a community and feel a part of something.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think we're going to get to our funding model, but it's been a prime example of where we currently on about 250 members within the organization, where this issue with Kevin, we opened it up to the organization and and, and so many people have put their hands up and said, well, I've got, I've got a connection and home affairs, I know this, I know this and all of a sudden now we, you know, we, we, we, we having conversations with these people who are part of the community that are coming forward and saying, well, I can help out.
Speaker 2:And it's incredibly powerful and people want to feel a part of something, not just give their money and not know when it goes, and so it's a big driving force behind us and, you know, within the organization is to build this now, this, this community of people, you know, currently you can sign up at the moment for as little as 50 around a month. You would do it through the website, very, very simple and very easy. You click donate it's a monthly put your credit card details in. We've also got a debit order system and you can donate, like I said, as little as 50 around a month. Our goal is to get a million South Africans as part of this community, giving 50 around a month, and we've got enough funding to really make proper change. So, yeah, just a really cool example of the power of the community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's such a valuable point there. Like you're giving someone money is is is great. That obviously solves a lot of problems. They're giving them a good education. That solves a lot of problems. But often people from underprivileged background don't have a network that we take for granted. You know, if we grew up in a, you know we're into good schools and we're lucky enough to grow up in that environment, we have a network that you lean on all the time and it you know you don't might not think about it, but it's super valuable. And building having a Network of concerned people who are really want the best for these kids and see this kid succeed is actually something super valuable and you never know, like who you can draw on in that community. So, like the example you made now, like having someone who knows someone at home affairs to help rectify the problem there Super valuable or given right now Because that was just a clerical ever error, clerical error that happened at at home affairs and it's caused like such massive downstream problems for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah absolutely the only way home affairs is to have someone on the inside. I could fix things.
Speaker 2:No, he got awaked. No, shame. We. I mean, you know, kevin's dad contacted us and we went for a coffee with him and he shared his last two-year journey and what he's gone through and the lawyers he's been approaching, the money he spent and it's, you know, and it's and this. We were kind of his last option and we came and he said I'm done. We said, well, let's open it to the community and and we have and and the response has been incredible. People want to get involved, people want to do good. They just don't have the space to do that and I think it's really a big objective for us.
Speaker 2:Moving forward as to how do we build this community of South Africans that can contribute financially? Obviously, funding is very important so we can sponsor the kids that we want to sponsor that also. You know, how do we then grow that? And the more, the more community members we have and you know, who knows, maybe one day we build a system where community members can start benefiting from each other. If I need an accountant and there's an accountant part of crew for a cause, then you know, you know there's a legitimate kind of Referral into somebody that's part of the community. So it's a big driving force for us and the bigger the community. Obviously, the more funding we have and the more people to Get involved, the more good that we can do, yeah.
Speaker 1:I understand and and so, speaking of your funding. So so you said you can start from 50 bucks a month and how does the model work? Like what does it cost to to put a kid through the year in school, and like what does it cost to put a kid through like an entire high school education, just because people might not know what that, what that number is. And then how does your model work to to meet those?
Speaker 2:goals. Yeah, cool, I mean that's a great question. And the reality is the disparity of the, the schooling fees per annum, is crazy. It's absolutely crazy. I mean, on one end you've got claimant high who's, you know top ten academic school in in the Western K at, you know between 10 and 15,000 around per annum. And then you've got you know other schools the Weinbergs, the big Pitcher, are 40 50,000 per annum. You know. So you know the disparities are quite big.
Speaker 2:So you know, based on, on, on on the amount of funding that we have, we determine, you know, where we can potentially put the kids. And obviously you know they have a, they have a choice of where they would like to go. So you know it's it's not a dictatorship. We don't tell them where they need to go. It's very much a mutual decision, but but based on the funding that we have available for within that year. But you know, you know, obviously, you know, in any NPO or any charity, you know your funding model is very important. The more funding you have that, the more kids you can sponsor. So you know what. We took a step back and we looked at it as like well, how should we fund for this organization? And you know the the most obvious one is corporate funding. You go and approach them and but obviously there's a lot of education charities currently there's about 8000 education charities in South Africa alone and they're all fighting for the same little corporates that have these little CSI funds and etc. And a lot of the big guys are actually starting their own funds and they're not necessarily funding externally. So you know, although corporate funding is important for us, it's we didn't want to make it our primary, so so we kind of took a view on this concept of community funding and to say, if you've got debit order systems in place and you get somebody into the, into the charity and they're giving 100 grand, 250, 300, 500 around a month, that's far more sustainable in terms of your funding model because ultimately you're going to have them for a lifetime and you know that that income is going to be. And a big part of our growth strategy is to try and grow the number of members as part of the charity because, like I said earlier, the more members you have contributing financially, the more likelihood you can obviously have more money and you can do more good. So so so the membership funding model is obviously a very, very important one.
Speaker 2:But you know other things and you know, in terms of how we we try and do, a big part of it has been going to deceased estates. You know you look at all the different options of how you can do. You approach lawyers and you approach them and you present your charity and you say, if there's, you know any deceased estates and you're looking for organizations or charities to sponsor, use us. We recently got some funding from one in george, which is really exciting. So so you know again, for for any npo or any charitable organization, especially when your your costs are ultimately five years because you're starting a kid in grade eight and you're finishing them in high school, you you can't get funding for three years and then the funding drops off. So you know your funding needs to be sustainable because you've got this five-year commitment with the kids.
Speaker 2:So you know, for me it was really how do we branch out and how do we have multiple revenue streams, or as many as possible, in order to ensure that we've got enough funding to to keep that going? And not only that. You know when you're building an organization, you've you there's fixed costs, there's, you know. If. You know if we want to employ a team. We, you know we've got to pay salaries. There's office. You know there's a lot of costs around. You know the charity space that people don't necessarily always you know, always see.
Speaker 2:So our model at the moment is, yes, we approach corporates and yes, we approach other you know other revenue streams. But what we want to communicate as a powerful kind of message to our community members is to say that 100% of your contributions will go to the kids. So if you're giving 100 round a month, 100 round will go to the kids. And and then the way we fund in other areas is is how we will kind of keep the running costs of the organization go so. So that's kind of how we positioning it at the moment. We've recently bought on two CAs and as our financial controllers, so we put a lot of controls in place just to ensure that we are forecasting correctly, that we aren't over committing to certain costs, because you know that's ultimately the worst thing that you can imagine. You start a kid in high school and you run out of funds.
Speaker 1:So we make sure that we're very careful with all of that yeah, no, like you said, that that's obviously a concern that most people would have is that you put a kid into high school, goes to a great school and then in grade 10 he's got to be pulled out and you know, sent to a different school. Yeah, that's like a terrible situation to end up with yeah, but I mean that doesn't happen. That doesn't happen yet with you guys. Obviously no, no, no, no it hasn't you planned it?
Speaker 2:yeah, I know it definitely hasn't, we've. Also, you know. Another nice thing about the community members is obviously, you know, in the tax year we we've got our section 18A or PBO number, which has took me about three years and three different law firms to get. Obviously, size issues it and it's not easy to to to get, but we we've gone down that road which makes us very legit. So you know you're not as a as a charity, you're not going to get, even be considered in in the corporate space if you don't have that certificate.
Speaker 2:But the same on an individual level, if you're contributing financially, we'll give you a certificate within the tax season when you need it and you submit that. You know. You know when you're doing your, your tax and there's obviously, you know, financial benefits and tax savings that you get from all of that. So you know we really encourage and we try to create and build the, build the charity like a business so that people want to get involved because there's obviously some benefits for them financially and obviously from a tax perspective yeah, for people who don't know, that means that you can write off some of your donations to tax.
Speaker 1:So instead, of donating the money to SARS and to the ANC.
Speaker 2:You can donate it to a kid that needs to go to school, which is a much better cause, in my opinion yeah, yeah, exactly, and and I think one one one funding model that I didn't really touch on, which is something that you and I have worked on, is that you know this idea of and I think for me it's constantly progressing the product, I think, as well, and what we've recently done, thanks to you, is create a platform where people can contribute towards the charity through Bitcoin and with Bitcoin, and I think it's a really, really, really cool opportunity to get international funding to anyone that's in the crypto. The Bitcoin space who wants to get involved. You know, now all of a sudden has a platform that they can contribute with their Bitcoin into the organization, and we're very stoked and very proud about that, and obviously you are a big part of that, and it's something about keeping the product going, making sure that there's so many streams and making it as easy as possible for people to contribute in whichever way they want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that's when we were first discussing this idea and integrate Bitcoin into the charity. Like. The big draw card for me on this is that you've got a bunch of people now who are who made a lot of money off of Bitcoin and they are still holding that Bitcoin right. They don't they're not fiat rich, they don't have like a lot of cash in their bank account, but they've got Bitcoin that's quite valuable and they might want to do something philanthropic with that Bitcoin and now they can donate the Bitcoin directly. They don't have to convert it into into RANS and then donate the RANS and incur you know there's a whole bunch of issues with that but they can donate their Bitcoin directly to this Um and, like you say, the international funding channel becomes a lot easier now.
Speaker 1:I mean you. We were over in London recently doing fundraising and, if sure, you find some. Some people are interested in what you're doing and that's great. But to send money internationally, it's first off is massive friction. Um, any international payments coming in. You're going to pay a few hundred bucks just in processing fees to to get that money in, which means?
Speaker 1:you end up losing, losing cash there, um, and it's a. It's a bit of a headache, you know, to make it do international transfer, um. So for people sitting abroad with with Bitcoin, it just makes it makes it a, you know, a 30 second experience. It's just so much easier, um. The one issue on the Bitcoin side is we haven't managed to set up a recurring model yet. That framework is being built on enlightening, but it doesn't really exist commercially yet. It's something we'll I'll definitely roll out to you guys as soon as it's there. So there's just lump sum payments for now, um, but having having that recurring payment model will be super, super interesting in Bitcoin, um, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so yeah.
Speaker 1:So one of the things we did for you guys was, uh, we set up Bitcoin and lightning payments so people can make you know 100 bucks, 50 bucks, 500 round, whatever they want, they can pay by lightning. So super easy, no on-chain fees, none of that Um and the. The other thing that's that's really important is that we set you guys up with a self custodial solution so that you guys are holding your own private keys. I mean, I, I, I, I set you up with an ice plate.
Speaker 1:So you got you just seeds backed up on steel. There you guys are doing it, doing it the right way. Um you know the all the Bitcoin is out there. You guys are holding your private keys yourself. You're not trusting me or anyone else to do Bitcoin, and then all the donations go directly to the, to the organization, which is, which is great. Um you guys hold your own.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, yeah, we were very proud of that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean those kids. Then their, their, their money is is safe in their, in respect, there's not being held by an exchange, because these things go bankrupt all the time and I think it was like this yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was your idea to even potentially, you know start creating a tertiary fund with some of the Bitcoin to some of the kids. You know, if you, if you give a thousand rands worth of Bitcoin, maybe, you know, one round or 50 cents goes to each of the kids that we sponsor and we start building a tertiary fund with that, and I think that's a fantastic idea. So I think you know the the concept of of going this route allows us the you know the opportunity to start building and furthering the product and and thinking about the kids further on down the line as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is something I think it'll really appeal to the Bitcoin community, because they are long-term thinkers and one of the the ideas we bounced around was like how about building a fund for each kid in Bitcoin? They have their, their own wallet that's dedicated to them, private keys and all, and then the Bitcoin that gets donated to them goes in there when they in grade eight and they start high school. And then the contributions you know a small percentage goes in every month or whenever the payments are made, and so there's the lump sum of Bitcoin sitting for them as a prize when they finish metric that they can now take this as startup capital to go and spend on, you know, whatever they want to spend it on. And because these kids are not going to have this opportunity, you know, like kids that come from a privileged background, they finish school their parents by the first car. You know these kids cool, they've got a great education, but they, they, they.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately those, those options aren't there for them to have a, you know, some startup capital, whether it's to go to buy a car or to buy a car, or to buy a car, whether it's to go to buy a car or start your own business or whatever the case might be, and taking a five year time horizon on Bitcoin for these kids and having like this incentive structure for them to like if you hit these marks, like if you get straight A's and if you, you know, achieve whatever the, the, the criteria is that you guys set out for them. They get up, they get a, a, a, a, their own Bitcoin wallet that's waiting for them and they can, they can look at it, you know, throughout the entire high school career, if you can inspect it on the chain. Um, it's a strong incentive for them to keep performing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I guess the worst case scenario for you guys is you. You find some great kids. They look really promising on paper, they do well for the first few years and then they just fall off the wagon like halfway through. You know cause.
Speaker 2:There's so many factors it's your living conditions, it's your, your ability, it's load shading. It says that there's so many different factors that can cause somebody to not necessarily perform when they, even if they've still got the potential. So, absolutely, you know a hundred percent and and and I think you know, just supporting what you're saying there is what we've also created in in in the charity is this concept of a pod system. And, um, the pod system really says is currently we, we, we sponsor 25 kids through high school. Is that if you maybe have an attraction to one of the kids, or you want to get a bunch of your buddies together, or you are a particular corporate that wants to do something good, or you are a bit coiner that you know maybe has has some extra Bitcoin, or you wealthy, whatever it is, you can, we can create a pod for you which ultimately allows you to sponsor one kid only and you'll get feedback only on that kid. So you know, when you become a member, we send newsletters out, you get these events that happen is you become part of this community that gets communicated to on on everything that's happening. But if you create your own pod, we'll just communicate a particular scholar or kid just to you that you sponsoring, and so it's another really nice way.
Speaker 2:Even in the Bitcoin world, if you want to allocate your Bitcoin to a kid, maybe you want to build a tertiary education fund alone. You know, whatever there is, I think the options are there and, and you know, we are very flexible and we want to position ourselves as very flexible and and ensuring that we do continue to grow the product. So if that's something we need to build based on, you know, in the back end and things like that, then we must do that. So I think that's a really nice way of of of, you know, an individual or a pod of people or a group, you know, to really get involved in one scholar and kind of watch their journey throughout the, throughout the process.
Speaker 1:I think that sets up the mentor like the mentorship, lifelong mentorship kind of pathway for these kids like really well, you know, because you can just find one person who really wants to do good in the world, he, you know, he's done well, they've done well with themselves financially and then I cool, I want to, you know, pass it on.
Speaker 1:There might have a lot of experience and skills to pass on and they can act as mentors for these kids, which is which is phenomenal and this is how, like this can work, like you can actually like see their report card at the end of each term. It comes back and you take like an active interest and it's not just I'm funding some kids to go to school. It's like I'm funding like Kevin to go to school and I'm concerned about Kevin as a person and how he's doing and like this doesn't end when he finishes high school, right, like it's like a it's more of a mentorship thing, which I think is is awesome. And that's what I really like about proof, of course, like the personal touch you guys put into this. It's not just another faceless in pure and you know, it's very cool what you guys are doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Now it's obviously very time consuming. You know the personal touch better and a big part of us and our growth strategy at the moment is is to look at our website. So you know we're looking for funding for our website. There's a lot we want to do. You know there's lots of other different ways that you can help. You know, potentially we're looking at building a geographical map of all the local schools, probably first focus on the waste and gate and going to them and finding out from them what do you need? We don't sponsor a kid through your school. It's an underprivileged school. But what do you need? And if it's school books, then create a geographical map on the website that somebody could click on. This school in this area is looking for these books and you can then get involved yourself and kind of go and deliver books and you all will build a process that is through us.
Speaker 2:So I think at the moment we are looking for funding to really build a slick and amazing website, potentially even as we grow as a community members, to build in loyalty points.
Speaker 2:So the more you contribute financially, the more points you get, the more benefits you can get and, as I said in the beginning. That's kind of the space that I come out of, so there's always those opportunities. So I think it's very, very important that we continue to grow the product as the charity, but don't lose that idea and the identity of the personal touch and really feeling like you're involved in this kid and mentorship is. A big topic of conversation for us is how do we get people that want to mentor kids to get involved, and particularly even after the high school period probably, when it's more important to be mentoring them when they're living on their own, they may be moved out of home. They're in university. They don't have as much structure as the high school link system. So I think for the members that want to get involved, this personal touch is a very good selling points to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the other thing I want to chat about is just the community you guys have built of people around this charity. Like obviously you guys have events where everyone gets together and it's like I've been involved in many organizations in my life and I've seen many kind of charities in my life, but this is quite something special that you guys have managed to build, like it really is a crew for a cause, like it's a tribe of people that are emerging, which is very cool, and like how have you guys cultivated that and built that community spirit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you touched on events. I think events are a very important way of doing that and just constantly communicating. I think, as you know and you've been to the first two we started this concept of monthly member meetings and we're choosing every first Tuesday of the month. We might change it to a Wednesday when people are not so hungover still from the weekend, but you know, and I think the aim of them is just to share the fact that there's a lot that's happening behind the scenes that people don't necessarily see. So, you know, because we want to be a charity that's very transparent, we want to constantly share. So once a month, come to a meeting, we'll share what's going on behind the scenes. And then a part of that is we ask community members to one. We choose a business topic and somebody chooses on a business topic.
Speaker 2:Last month we had this concept and the concept of time in the workplace and in life, and it was you were there. It was a really, really brilliant speech. And then the second one is something more fun. So maybe somebody's done a really cool adventure. We had a mate who was a game ranger for two years, so he kind of spoke on his five tips what to do if you want to become a game ranger, which nobody would have ever known that and I think it was really cool.
Speaker 2:So you know, a big part of this community is, you know, if we want to do good, we got to have fun at the same time, and so you know how we've cultivated.
Speaker 2:That is through this concept of we can still have fun and do good and we can still join forces and we can still have these events that we have a lot of fun while doing good at the same time, and I think that really is the driving spirit that you know through the organization. You know people want to be a part of something, but they also want to have fun. You know the world's a very serious place at the moment and I think it is important that we have this concept of fun coming through the organization and the events have been amazing. You know we do an auction, we do quiz nights, we do there's a bunch of different events that we like to do and then people start mingling amongst different community members and you know, kind of there's growth there as well. It's really our big strategy on how we try to grow new members. Obviously, it's very time consuming and we need people to get involved and we're looking to grow significantly at the moment.
Speaker 2:But you know, I think you know, once you've come to an event, you can really start to see the benefit of what we do and the personal touch and you can see that people are really doing this because they want to do it and they're passionate about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the charity event is the charity auction is the events of the year on the social calendar that I've been to the last two they are.
Speaker 2:They're really high. You DJed at the last one. I think it's infectious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's infectious though, you know like, because it's an auction, people get excited and next minute you're raising a couple of hundred grand for to put kids to the school. You know like it really is a very cool thing to see. And the other thing is just the business network that forms around us of people that you wouldn't have met otherwise. So, for example, the venue that you guys have the monthly meetup at Paisley Bear Wine Club. So Andre, the founder is he started this wine club, which is like they go out and find bespoke small wineries and they like hand curate a selection of wines for the month. And you sign up for the membership and you get, is it? Six bottles of red and six bottles of white.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you get 12 bottles, like one of each, six of each, send you every month and it's from like, these tiny little bespoke wineries and it's just such a cool concept that they have and then to go in there every month. You have your beat up there. To not be in the space that Andre's curating, he's giving you a spiel about the wines that he's like hand selected, incidentally, that he started out of bootlegging wine during allegedly bootlegging wine during lockdown, but like it's the business out of it now, like it's very cool what they've done there and that's just, you know, it's just one of the things that are happening.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's very, very cool to see what you guys are doing, and I think adding the Bitcoin layer on top is you guys might be surprised by what you see coming out of the Bitcoin community. It's a group of people that might really take a shining to what you're doing, and I think the idea of having this fund for the kids that they can only access once they finish high school and have succeeded could be really good, because if Bitcoin keeps doing what it's doing, you know, over a five year period, there's no one who's lost whose Bitcoin value has dropped over like a five year rolling period. So these kids could end up with like a decent lump sum of cash sitting there waiting for them, and then if you could incentivize them to further hang on to that and not spend it till they finish university, for example, now you're looking at like a 10 year time horizon- Like this could really be like a big deal for anyone yeah?
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's very cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, we're very excited about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I'm glad I could be a part of that man. Like it's my contribution is, I'm glad I can help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's a big part of the success of the organization. So that is that you know, without the community this doesn't exist, and so it's not about me, it's not about anyone else in the charity, it's about the full community of people that are getting involved and that are putting their hands up and are saying you know what? I want to do something good. This is an organization that I want to be a part of. So you know the success of where we're going and hopefully we can continue that it's not up to an individual, it's up to the community, and that's very exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So tell me where can people find out more about the charity? If people want to find your websites, social media, how can they track you down? Yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:So we, you know and I think it's worthwhile just mentioning partners, you know, because you know we're out there myself and I run a business and one other, matt, is also Matt, he also runs a business, so it's very part-time. What I've tried to do is I've tried to look at all the departments within an organization and try and outsource those. So we currently outsource our social media. So we are on Instagram at crew4ocourse and organize the ad agency Dentsu. They do all of our some of our social media stuff. So, pro bonus, it's really, really exciting that they've kind of come on board. We're looking at one or two other organizations who are going to hopefully help us build the website, but I think the web address is wwwcrew4ocoursecoz. It's a F-O-R, not a four, and you can go then and I think it's Closet. Yeah, we really try to create a landing page that explains everything and a big part of why you can sign up, you can donate.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I alluded to mention is that we've also partnered with fundraising organizations. In our case it's called Given Gain. Another one that everyone might be familiar with is Backer Buddy, and so on our website you'll see Donate, where you can go through the donation page and you can put your credit card details and there's an debit order systems kind of happen. But there's also a fundraising button and when you click that fundraising it goes to the Given Gain page where we've signed up. And if you want to run a marathon and you want to do good and you want to raise funds for us, that's a really nice way of and again, another revenue stream of how people can get involved and start fundraising. We recently had someone in the UK wing walk on one of those Red Bull planes in the UK and fundraised through that way. So it can be anything. It can be if you're doing a hike, if you're doing an event, if you're doing a race of some sort. It's super, super easy and super quick to create a thing and then you distribute that throughout your social media platforms and hopefully somebody and people sign up and sponsor it.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, really the main place to go is the website. Also, check out our social media. We're getting there. We're posting lots of things. We post updates on the monthly member meetings and all the different events and some of the kids we tend there's a fine line of sharing too much about the scholars on our social media. So we just manage that as carefully as we can. Obviously, we need consent and things like that. So a lot of the content that you'll see is about the community and what we're trying to do, and then every now and again, we post something on the kids and the success of them. So yeah, social media we do have a Facebook page. We do also have LinkedIn, so you can find us on LinkedIn, but I would definitely say the website and Instagram are the two best ways.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I'll put all those links in the description of the video below, as well as the Bitcoin donation page. I'll put the BDC PayServer link in there, just for any Bitcoiners listening. It's running through BDC PayServer with on-chain and lightning, so it's all self-custodial. So you guys don't have to worry about the sets going down on an exchange hack or anything, which is great, and all of the funds go straight to Krupa Records, so they're not losing anything to friction. So, yeah, and on that, matthew, thank you so much for your time. This has been great.
Speaker 2:Krupa Records is very, very cool.
Speaker 1:It's a very cool project, my pleasure and yeah, we'll see you again soon. Chat soon.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Great Thanks, matt. Take care, matt. Look for yourself in old��, shoot yourself in theokos, intasamps, endang, ок's, et cetera. Have a great day, a nice day with you.
