Acts of kindness feel good, but they are rarely profitable. Ivo Gormley has spent nearly twenty years proving it's possible while creating an incredible community around helping people.We sat down with him to find out how.
Since starting GoodGym in 2007 with a single newspaper run, Ivo has built it into a movement of 25,000+ volunteers across 60+ cities. He's been awarded an OBE and made GoodGym the first-ever charity to win the Sky Zero Footprint Fund Grand Prix.
Ivo is also a teacher at the Executive Programme at Future London Academy.
Learn from him in-person: https://fla.wiki/3TdVYZlIn this video, you'll learn:
▶ How an £8 suggestion made over a pint became a reliable, recurring source of income
▶ Why he chose to become a charity, not a business, and doesn't regret it
▶ How he built what he needed because no one else did
▶ Why a genuine, acknowledged role in delivering something beats a frictionless experience of receiving it
▶ Why designing for contribution creates more winners than competition
0:00 - Who is Ivo Gormley? GoodGym founder introduction
1:41 - Anthropology, comedy & service design: Ivo's career path
6:03 - The story behind GoodGym: why Ivo started it
9:05 - Quitting his job to go full-time on GoodGym (2013)
12:14 - Group runs & community volunteering: the GoodGym model
14:34 - GoodGym's donation-based business model explained
19:29 - How GoodGym got local councils to invest
24:55 - GoodGym during COVID: volunteering through the pandemic
35:25 - Charity vs social enterprise: why GoodGym chose nonprofit status
44:55 - Design, loneliness & human connection
52:45 - How AI is eroding human identity (the Stack Overflow effect)
1:04:20 - Building a business with AI without losing human connectionSubscribe to our social media channels:
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LinkedIn: Future London Academy
futurelondonacademy.co.uk
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