What happens when you combine the tools of entrepreneurship with the lens of social change? Today, we speak with Alex Budak, co-founder of StartSomeGood, a crowdsourcing platform for social impact initiatives, which has raised over $10 Million USD to fund more than 1,000 different projects across 50 countries using a grassroots community-driven approach.

Currently teaching at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, his courses are aptly named “Becoming A Changemaker” and “The Berkeley Changemaker”.

In this episode, we delve into Alex’s passion behind empowering changemakers and reinventing leadership—emphasizing qualities such as humility, empathy, and how a changemaker mindset requires changemaker action.

Episode Quotes:

On the idea for founding StartSomeGood:

“For so long I had thought that change comes from one or two big organizations like the Red Cross. I realized that actually Changemakers are everywhere in the world and that all of us can lead positive change from where we are just like this. . . . So often you couldn't raise money until you can prove your impact, but usually couldn't prove your impact until you had raised money as this terrible catch-22. So we saw an opportunity to democratize the way that we fund social ventures, believing inherently that no one knows better what a community needs than the community itself.”

On being a changemaker:

“So much of change-making is rooted in critical thinking. It's the ability to identify problems, but I would argue it's not just to jump right into solving problems. It's one of the things that I really try to work with my students on—is to kind of sit in the problem, sit in the discomfort that comes with identifying something and not being sure exactly how to solve it. . . . [T]hat allows you to make sure that you're not just solving a problem, but you're solving the right problem.”

On network-based leadership:

“The best changemakers will think of themselves through networks, not just as individuals.”

On helping fellow changemakers:

“[We] rolled up our sleeves everywhere from helping them come up with the videos that they would shoot to helping them write their copy. . . . Now, we had a secret weapon, which is that all of the people we worked with were incredibly passionate. They're change-makers. They wanted to make a difference and that story was latent in them. And so in many ways, our job was just to help pull that story, pull that narrative out of them. . . . Any changemaker who wants to lead that type of positive change—they’re driven. They have a powerful why."

Show Links:

• LinkedIn

• StartSomeGood

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/onehaas/donations