← Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
Going Big! with Kevin Gentry
Going Big with François de Kerret: Zero-Fee Fundraising and Building Tools Nonprofits Deserve
00:44:40
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- [00:00]
Francois de Carre
I like the optimistic advice to think, if I had a superpower, that whatever I do will work, what would I do? And then think, okay, what's preventing you from actually doing it? But that's probably the right way to know what you should be doing. And I think with Zefi, if I had. We've been optimistic and we believed it was going to work because I think we're very optimistic by nature. But I would just encourage people to be opportunity, because even if you start with a zero fee model and you're young and you're not an experienced entrepreneur, if you do something you really want to achieve and that's really true to your values, I think it's going to work.
- [00:49]
Kevin Gentry
Welcome to the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and this is the place where we celebrate bold moves and big ideas. Each week I sit down with inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs, and change makers who are making a significant impact in their careers and in their communities. Whether you're looking to level up your leadership, pursue your passion, or just get inspired to take your next big leap, this is where those stories come to life. Now, if you're listening on iTunes, YouTube, or anywhere else you tune into podcasts, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode. Now let's dive in to what it means to truly be Go Big.
- [01:32]
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Going Big Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Gentry, and it's great to be with you again. On today's episode, we have someone who's not only gone big individually, but gone big on behalf of tens of thousands of nonprofit organizations. This is an exciting episode. My guest today is Francois de Carre, who is the CEO and co founder of Zefie, which is a 100% free fundraising platform for nonprofits. You may be familiar with the name Zefie. Zefie has partnered with Going Big on a number of occasions recently in recent episodes, and it's a great demonstration of a good definition of partnership because we have shared values and shared principles and shared objectives. And, and it's just a treat to have Francois, who saw a problem, a frustration that he turned into a business opportunity, which is also very much in line with his desire to help maximize the good that social change agents can do through nonprofit organizations. And again, the idea of delivering 100% of a donor's gifts to the nonprofit with no fees, no charges, etc. And, and how he did it and what he's built is really very, very interesting. So Francois de Carre it's great to have you as our guest today on the Going Big podcast.
- [03:01]
Francois de Carre
Thanks a lot, Kevin, for having me. And it's such a great show. I'm really, really happy to be there today.
- [03:07]
Kevin Gentry
Well, can't wait to go into your journey and just the stories about the obstacles that you faced, the risks that you took. But to kick us off, what was the problem or frustration that you saw that you thought Zefie could address, could get to the root causes of.
- [03:27]
Francois de Carre
Yeah, initially, my first motivation, I wanted to start volunteering. And we'll see why it became a frustration. But initially, a lot of my early childhood being a student, I did a lot of volunteer work. It came, I think, from my parents that were really involved in the community, and that taught me that I was part of the lucky one and I should participate in giving back and being useful. So I was growing up in France, and I moved to Canada approximately 10 years ago, and I wanted to keep volunteering. And so I searched online. What were the opportunities, what were the needs in the community and where I thought it would be easy. Like most online SERPs, you know, it was already Airbnb. You're looking for a place to stay. Three clicks and you're in. You want to buy shoes. It's not even three clicks. It's one click and the shoes are at your doorstep. But understanding and finding the needs of the community, it was an entire process of sending PDF applications and not really understanding what I would do. And it was super frustrating because at the end of the day, I just wanted to be useful and give my time for free. But it was more complicated than useless things like buying shoes. And I really felt the frustration. Well, not really for me, because, well, I made it and I found a nonprofit. But that's something so important, like volunteer work was so difficult to do, and I. I thought we could get so me so much more people involved if we made it easier. And tech can make it easier. So that was really my initial frustration that brought to the first version of ZEFC almost 10 years ago now.
- [05:27]
Kevin Gentry
Wow. Well, you're not. I mean, you're dead on. Correct. I think it's funny because we have people who are so passionate about a cause, they see a problem in soc, they want to get to the root causes of and fix it through a nonprofit effort. And we want to help them, but it is often not easy to help them. Websites are just notoriously difficult to navigate. I get so frustrated when I make a contribution and it says, you know, what is your customer reference number? Or something like that. And it's just so complicated. Well, this is the good stuff to really dig into. But, Francois, when did you realize that Zefie was more than just a solution? It was actually becoming of movement? Because what you're doing is really transforming fundraising. And it's aspects of the transformational part that I really want to dig into today. But when did you begin to see, wow, this is more than just a solution, it's a movement?
- [06:26]
Francois de Carre
I think you said it really there's still frustration, and sometimes you want to support a cause and it's difficult and it shouldn't be. And I think there are two important moments. The first moment is when I started to understand why nonprofits didn't have such a great website. And it's pretty straightforward. It's just they won't put everything towards the mission. And building a website is just a step towards the mission, but it's not the mission directed. And so that's really a big moment because that's when we realized we had to be 100% free. We had to find a way to really equip nonprofits with great technology in a way that fit their organization and their structure, where all the funds have to go to the mission. So that's a bit why we started with this 100% free model for the fundraising platform. No, I think when I think of big moments, I think there's one we haven't achieved. Because as you said, there's still moments where supporting a nonprofit is difficult. And what I want is that it's not the case today. If you buy to keep with the shoes, there's no brand where it will be difficult to buy their product online because e commerce technology are so widespread across the industry. So I think the moment where we have made it is that it's always easy to support nonprofits. And you know, you will receive great communications from them after your your contribution. Yet we have a couple of milestones. For example, when we celebrated 1 billion processed by our all those nonprofits, it was such a great celebration. And more recently, we did a market analysis and we realized we were the first choice amongst nonprofit with no technology or just PayPal. So really, the more grassroots nonprofit, the first technology choice is for them. So I think we really found a way to become the go to choice for those that don't have such a great website, that don't have such great fundraising technology.
- [08:47]
Kevin Gentry
All right, okay. So this is terrific. And again, I mean, those of you who are listening, I mean, he took this concept to now helping more than 50,000 nonprofits. And as Francois just said, they just crossed the billion dollar mark in contributions that they've helped facilitate. It's just extraordinary. So Francois, okay, I gotta tell you, so what your idea really ran against the grain in so many ways. It's sort of totally counter to both what fintech and fundraising would suggest. How did you first of all address all those who said this is crazy, this can't be done?
- [09:30]
Francois de Carre
Yes, and there were quite a few because when you know fintech, you know the fee comes with a bet because when someone how we're funded, it's through optional contributions. So tomorrow you, you support a food bank, you give $100, the food bank will get a hundred. And we released funded the fee because people will add a contribution, a couple, two, three, four dollars. And the bet is that for us it costs money because we have to pay Afterward Visa and MasterCard etc. So the fees that we have to cover. So if people wouldn't have contributed enough, we would have been bankrupt like the fastest bankrupt you would because we would literally lose money as we serve more nonprofit. And so a lot of people didn't believe in this model. And I understand and our answer has always been execution and just trying. And even today it's an important value at ZC to just get, get things moving, get things done. And we, with my co founder, we just gave ourselves three months to test it. It was October almost 10 years ago and we just said look, let's give ourselves until Christmas. We want to try it, we want to process $50,000 and see if that works. It's non profit like it if people contribute. And we, we, we met with those great five, 10 nonprofits who fell in love with the model and, and it worked and people contributed us. So I think we just had to prove it with execution. And then after investors where they didn't really believe in the pitch, but they would see the numbers, attraction the love from nonprofits and invest in the competitor.
- [11:28]
Kevin Gentry
It, it's amazing. I got to tell you, when I started, when people said tell me about the Zeffy and when I would explain your concept, the immediate response for people was to frown and say I can't see that working. Like, well, I'm just telling you it's obviously worked. He's not doing this just for free. It's obviously going what was it that you saw that no one else saw?
- [11:50]
Francois de Carre
Yeah, honestly at the time it was not such intellectualized. I think at the time the key difference is we just wanted to make this available to Nonprofits who were 24, just fresh out of university. And probably that's why we thought less about business and sustainability. We just wanted to try it. And we also had this. It was not entirely new because what platform we're selling at the time, it was plus a fee, plus a contribution. So they would charge a GoFundMe at the time, they would charge 3% and then suggest a tip. And so our bet was just people are generous with tip, we can go a step further and be the first 100% platform. And then looking back, we understand that nonprofits are so much pressure on their funding, that this 100% is so important, because sometimes they just don't have any expense at all. So adding a fundraising expense is just ridiculous when they just have literally no expenses.
- [13:04]
Kevin Gentry
It's amazing. I mean, essentially you're saying, hey, look, I can Increase your revenue 5 to 8% above what you would ordinarily raise just by eliminating the fees that you're having to pay. Which is extraordinary, by the way. I love the fact that you started this when you were fairly young. I hear a lot of about, I want to get into risk taking, but I do think people at an earlier stage in their careers do, are willing to take on more risk. Let me ask you this, because what I also love about this, you know, the Going Big podcast is very popular in the nonprofit category. And we obviously work with a lot of nonprofits, we're speaking to them and fundraising comes up. But you've did this as a business model, as an entrepreneur, which is in and of itself so much we want to learn from. But back to the nonprofit side. Do you think that we in the nonprofit sector tend to think too small?
- [14:04]
Francois de Carre
It's a great question. I think people in the nonprofit, I think sometimes think small, but it's so important to think small because what's happening in the community sometimes that small. But it's so important and so key that people take actions locally. But I think there is the small and the good small. But I also meet with nonprofit director and I, I feel like talking with startup entrepreneurs who want to build those billion dollar companies because they want to solve problems so deeply, such as they want to literally solve homelessness or they want to solve like they want to find a cure for a disease that affected them. And so they have this great ambition. And so I would say they still have this amazing ambition. But where I see the challenge is finding sometimes, and that's the key difference between for profit and nonprofit is that for profit they can raise money and Waste a lot of money in the process before having the impact. Whereas you want to solve homelessness. But you're saying, look, the first 10 million I will just use for marketing and website and awareness because I have a plan for what's next. Even if the plan is great and you will exactly solve it, it's just not acceptable. And so I think that's part of what we're trying to solve with bringing the technology piece for free. But that's really the challenge in going big for nonprofit, I believe. What do you think? I'm curious to hear.
- [16:00]
Kevin Gentry
I think we tend to think too small. And I, and that's, and that's why I'm doing this podcast in many ways is to encourage people to cast a big, bold vision. You know, one of the most famous stories I cite is there was a group called the Variety Club of New England about 100 years ago, and they raised money. Generally they were kind of like the early days of a community foundation or a donor advised fund. But they would raise money and then award it, give it, grant it. And they did it through telethons and dinners. And they went to Boston Children's Hospital and met with the head of the hematology department and said, look, we're willing to make a significant contribution to Boston Children's Hospital. What would you do with the money if we were to give it to you? And the head of the hematology department said, I'd probably buy another microscope. But Dr. Sydney Farber, who was down the hall, heard this and came running out of his office and said, with that kind of money, I, I would find a cure for cancer. And of course, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard is significant. Dr. Sidney Farber, considered to be the modern father of chemotherapy, addressed so many childhood cancer issues. But that idea of, you know, make no little plans, as the architect Daniel Burnham said, well, here's a related question. Do you think that nonprofits struggle in how to scale their impact?
- [17:27]
Francois de Carre
Yes, definitely. It's definitely a challenge I've seen and discussed. I'm just thinking the reason maybe you're right is that it's less cultural to go big and think about big plans. I'm wondering if there's no also cultural pressure on nonprofit, that failure is worthlessly seen in nonprofit than in a private company or, you know, the risk taking approach. Because at the end, if you fail, you are wasting donor money and wasting philanthropy money. And it's, it's bad. And failing is part of trying. So it shouldn't be bad, but probably it's related to this pressure.
- [18:18]
Kevin Gentry
Well, thank you, Francois. Yeah, I pick up. Yeah. That there is more of a risk aversion. I can't quite put my finger on the why. But now let me bring this again back to Zefie, because this is what makes having you on this conversation so fascinating. You know, Dan Pallotta, famously the nonprofit innovator and disruptor, famously said as part of that TED talk that nonprofits were too fixated on overhead costs, and we're not thinking. And in a way, it became a constraint to going big. Do you think that Zeffie has effectively addressed his critics? That is to say, you're helping to demonstrate that there shouldn't be these constraints, these boundaries.
- [19:05]
Francois de Carre
Exactly. But it's funny because there's really two opposite arguments here. Because at the end of the day, I agree with Dan, many of them. I think he has an example of scaling a nonprofit and investing probably, I don't know, millions in marketing and being a scandal because people say, look, it's overspending in marketing, but without understanding that this marketing was just generating more impact and more scale for the nonprofit work. So with this, I agree that nonprofit should be able to invest overhead for technology. And so being free in that situation, that nonprofit have the opportunity to invest for technology would not be needed. So deep in my heart, it would be okay that there are technologies that are costly for nonprofit, but I think how it's done, we have to understand donors behind them, that it's so natural as a donor that you want the big part of your money to go to impact and not overhead. And so probably there's another thing to do, which is educating donors that it's normal that there are fees involved, but we'll never make it totally that you give 100 and you're like, it's okay and invest whatever you want because it's so human that you want to help. And so I think Zephy, in a way, is solving this overhead issue by just giving the technology for free so that they get more funds for other overhead. And so what's fun is that you could say, look, we're giving 5% more to nonprofits. And 5% compared to 100. Well, it's still nice, but it's just 5%. But the truth is, a nonprofit, they have on the 100%. They have access only to 20% to scale. And so what we're giving with the 5% is huge compared to the 20%. They just have way more available to scale because we're giving more overhead. So I don't know if it's too technical, this specific part, but we're just giving more overhead to nonprofits.
- [21:30]
Kevin Gentry
Yeah, well, it's. I mean, you know, we don't complain about how much Starbucks spends on marketing. I'm not going to complain about how much Effie spends on marketing because you've got to reach 50,000 customers, etc. But it's a weird thing. Okay, let me. Let me tap into something else. What was it that you saw that no one else saw and what I mean by that, because you. Because you came up with this amazing discovery, what do you think it says to the human psychology that you can build this off of tipping, off of voluntary tipping? You're not charging more. I mean, what was the belief that you had? And what is the discovery that's been made about how humans behave? Because obviously they're doing it, or Zeffy wouldn't be around, and it certainly wouldn't be growing.
- [22:20]
Francois de Carre
Yeah, it's just behind this is transparency. That's super important to discuss because most of the time, the 5 or 8% fee, it was just in the background. The nonprofit wouldn't tell the donors. And sometimes they would realize.
- [22:38]
Kevin Gentry
Right.
- [22:40]
Francois de Carre
And so what we did is particularly forefront, like, look, 100% will go to the nonprofit. And then at first, we had to even more educate donors that were saying, like, well, it's always the case and. But no, they just didn't realize. And so just putting in the forefront that a hundred percent would go to the nonprofit really motivated donors to add a tip. I think that's really the key driver in this equation.
- [23:13]
Kevin Gentry
It's really fascinating. All right, so what was the scariest decision you ever had to make? I mean, again, you took this concept and you've gone big. Obviously, it wasn't just an easy path to where you are. I get the impression that you continue on. I'm guessing you want to grow beyond North America, but tell us about what the sort of scariest decision you ever faced as you looked about building Zafi.
- [23:37]
Francois de Carre
Yeah, it's funny, a big decision we made. Well, two big decisions that were made approximately at the same moment is when we decided to launch in the U.S. oh, so you.
- [23:49]
Kevin Gentry
You started in Canada? You just started in Canada?
- [23:51]
Francois de Carre
Yeah, yeah. We started only. Even only in Montreal, Quebec, and then we scaled to Quebec, Canada. And then obviously we wanted to have this impact at scale. And there's so many great nonprofits in the US we wanted to scale. And so what we. It was a big decision because we were still small at the time. It Was, I don't know, a couple years after our launch. And we went to see investors who told them, look, it's. It's risky. You have this free model. You don't know anything about the US what's your marketing plan? And we're just giving them plan. And they would not be convinced that wanted more details, go to market step by step. And I know I don't like doing plans for. To precise where you don't actually, you don't know. You have to launch it and you'll see. And so what the big risk we took, we said, look, let's launch in the US with no investors and then come and see investors. And we actually launched in three weeks with the engineering team being amazing. We launched in three weeks. We asked all of our nonprofits in Canada if they knew any counterpart or friendly friend of them in the US they introduced us and in a month we had traction in the US and we went back to those exact investors to. And we raised money in, I don't know in two months. It was really great. So that's a first decision.
- [25:28]
Kevin Gentry
Amazing. I mean, and to go from Canada to the US you're effectively 10xing because I mean the US population is 10 times that of Canada. That's a big market.
- [25:41]
Francois de Carre
Yeah. And people give more in the US than in Canada. So I didn't even like 20x with this in mind. So yeah. Now nowadays we work now, I think with 80,000 nonprofits and 70,000 of them are in the U.S. so it was a key driver in our growth.
- [26:01]
Kevin Gentry
Well, my data is out of date. You're at 80,000 nonprofits.
- [26:05]
Francois de Carre
Yes, we're growing fast.
- [26:06]
Kevin Gentry
Oh my gosh. Well, okay, so I don't want to jump in too much, but. But what did what you did teach you about growing at scale? And for. For the benefit of everyone listening, give us some advice because these are bold moves. And we all were talking about how do we grow at scale. What advice would you give? What did you learn from this?
- [26:30]
Francois de Carre
First thing is very obvious, but it's the importance of hiring the best people. And, and you know, some. We see those social media posts, I don't know where like large companies are only 40, 50, 60. And I think I understand that if you recruit the really 40 people that fit your vision, that are driven by your mission, that have the right values and skill set, you can do amazing things. And Today we're only 40 at the sea, but I think we managed to recruit those kind of people. 40 people.
- [27:12]
Kevin Gentry
You have 40 people and you're servicing 80,000 nonprofits.
- [27:16]
Francois de Carre
Yes. So it's a very small team and probably five years ago we were 20, which was for the size we had at the time, regular size. But it's just we did some mis hire. I think it happens to all funders and we realized how costly and how inefficient we would become and how people would be unhappy because they had those small friction and debate. And so just hiring incredible people and just there's no incredible enough. It has to be so difficult. I tell the team a new hire is a miracle. Someone we managed to find is a miracle. We want to be at this level of talent, at the miracle level. So that's probably my first advice. And everybody tells it, but I just want to reinforce it.
- [28:18]
Kevin Gentry
Let me jump in here. Okay. So you're very positive. I got to think you make it sound too easy. Yes, we all. That's great advice. We want to hire on values and.
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Skills, passion for the mission and the.
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Ability to get the job done. It's not an either or. You got to have both. How do you find those people?
- [28:42]
Francois de Carre
I hustle. It's even today as a CEO, probably a third or 50% of my time is meeting with people, networking with. When I meet someone super talented, even if they are not available to work with the she, I stay connected. I try to meet their smart relatives. I. I try to spend time with people that I find incredibly smart and that have the right values and eventually they bring the right person. But it's a long term hustle and some jobs have been opened for a year at the sea and it's okay. And so there's almost no other answer than yes. So evaluating the skills, you do a case study. Values. You have to understand your values, what you're looking for. But at the end, you have to understand that it's a huge amount of work and it's okay. And I think that's, that's really the key. If it's easy, you're not doing it well enough. Right.
- [29:48]
Kevin Gentry
But you're spending a third of your time networking and meeting with people and you're always on the lookout for just good, smart, passionate people.
- [29:59]
Francois de Carre
Yes. And when we find one, it's okay if we don't have the perfect job description at this time for the person, we just try to. To hire them.
- [30:09]
Kevin Gentry
Do you have any recommendations on how you stay in touch with people? I mean, how do you organize all this? Is that all in your head or is it a very sophisticated CRM? Are you tapping artificial intelligence? What's going on.
- [30:22]
Francois de Carre
Honestly, it's not super sophisticated. It's a mix of CRM and in my head, just trying to catch up with great talent. But it should be. It's a great point. I think I should have a better technology to make sure I keep track of those top tenants.
- [30:40]
Kevin Gentry
Yeah. All right. Well, okay. So as an entrepreneur, as a founder, how do you stay true to your mission and grow? I mean, are there times when you say no to certain suggestions of growth.
- [30:57]
Francois de Carre
On a daily basis? No, maybe not. But I think there are two kinds. Three kinds. I won't make it too long, but the first, of course, is our deed values and belief. And of course there's investors who I don't know could me. Hey, Francis, but why don't you charge just the 3% fee, which is what people do from PayPal and Stripe and ask for a tip on top. I think you will grow your margin. Or hey, Francois, why not do a premium plan when I know you did? You can do donation form for free, but if you want to do a gala and membership, you have to pay an extra. So all those things that go against our belief, we have to be strong. And sometimes it's difficult because when the company is not going well, things in the market happens. That's where it's difficult to be true to your belief. But that's, I think the first category, second one is more cultural, is just not to have too many priorities. And as a CEO, I really think of my responsibility as making sure that we, we grow on the right fish and we know what's important for impact, for nonprofit, for our growth. And we don't do all those ideas that sound well on paper, but it's just you can't do. There's just so many things you can do well. And people, especially smart people, they have great ideas all the time and you want to encourage it, but you have to say, look, what is our focus? What will build the best technology ever for nonprofit? And yes, we could add this, I don't know, new kind of very niche fundraising. But if we do the best donation from the best ticketing, the best membership, that's where we're serving within. So that's the second category. I don't know if you have. If that makes sense.
- [33:02]
Kevin Gentry
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but by the way, do, do you. Are you the one who says no? Or do you need people around you to remind you to say, to say no?
- [33:12]
Francois de Carre
That's when you hire great people. Of course. Because sometimes I say yes and where I shouldn't Say, and my co founder and really great hires that really own those values, too. Now.
- [33:27]
Kevin Gentry
All right, one more question about talent. What do you think separates small thinkers from big thinkers? I presume that part of the values and skills mix, you want people who are going to think big like you have. What do you think separates small thinkers from big thinkers? Or does it matter?
- [33:48]
Francois de Carre
I love this question because we don't ask the questions the same way, but it's the same we ask ourselves. We want to hire ambitious people. So I think that's exactly the same. And maybe I can share how we evaluate it. And it's very specific. I know people will know in our interview, but they will have the drive to listen to your podcast, so it's okay. And we ask this question about what do you want to achieve? You know this, where do you see yourself in five years? But we just ask it again and again. Like in five years. Maybe you don't know, but when you retire, what do you want to have done? What would make you say you're proud of your career? And we just want to see something in their eyes that they want to achieve in their life. And, and it's okay if they tell us, look, right now I'm a software engineer, but someday I would have a bakery and I would do the best breads ever or any dream they have. But that's how we evaluate it. We just want to see something they're passionate about, how they want to achieve. It's very simple, I think. But it has worked pretty well.
- [35:00]
Kevin Gentry
All right, ladies and gentlemen, now you understand why I wanted to have Francois declare on the Going Big podcast. This is great. Okay, so the other nice thing is because you work with tens of thousands of nonprofit causes, you get to work with some really great causes and founders and leaders who have extraordinary ambition to do great things and live a life of tremendous purpose and meaning. I see your posts on social media. You're liking a lot of great causes all the time. Are there one or two that stand out that you would like to share with people listening about why you think they're doing something special and important? I know I'm asking you to pick your favorite child and you've got 80,000 nonprofits, but is there one or two that jump out?
- [35:52]
Francois de Carre
What. What really strikes me is the stories of the founders often because I. I can't. I can't pick between the causes because it's really just to sometimes heartbreaking. And you know those people literally supporting child that have diseases that won't be cured and, And Sometimes there's people that are addressing macro issues in such a smart way that they want to literally bridge inequalities and get the driver that will allow people that grew up in misery to become successful in life and become great people and just so much things that they do. But what strikes me is the drive of those founders that say, there's one guy, he decided to, to run from Montreal, Quebec to Mexico to just raise awareness on a space, a bird species that's just going extinct and he just decides to give himself this crazy challenge. Or there's just almost every fund does. You see them the weekend they wake up at six and they take their truck and they go drive to pick up the food that they will serve at the, at the food bank. And I think that's probably what strikes me the most is the level of energy that those nonprofit people put in in their work and just connecting to D Pelota is that sometimes people think in non nonprofit leaders are, are overpaid or any misconception compared to the private sectors. But what they do is. It's just remarkable.
- [37:39]
Kevin Gentry
Wow. I couldn't agree more. And for those of you listening who are leading nonprofit organizations, and we know you are leading with tremendous dedication, just know people like Francois and I are taking notice and are cheering you on. So thank you, Francois. I want to begin to bring this to a close. This is really fascinating and inspiring as well. Where do you see fundraising going in the next five to 10 years? I mean, what you're doing is adding a remarkable element of disruption and innovation. Do you have any sort of thoughts on where things may be continuing to go?
- [38:18]
Francois de Carre
Yeah, well, it really loops back to the example I had with E Commerce and Shopify. Like today every non profit is in, every E Commerce is in Shopify or a good competitor. In five years, what I want and what I think is happening probably ZHI will have an impact. But I think there are other people pushing technologies and building good technology to nonprofit. I think in five years we won't have this experience of you want to support a cause and it's not a good experience, it's not freedom. And not only on the front of those fundraising forms, but also in the back end and offering a CRM and a way to manage donors. And that's by the way, the other part that ZCI is doing today. It's a fundraising platform and a CRM. And it's so great when you do both because you know, right now you contact donors at labs, donors from 2025 while in ZC it's easy because we, we know who are your lab donors, and so we can tell you in the CRM part what you have to do. But so in five years, I think most entrepreneurs will be on a great fundraising technology and a great CRM, and it will give them so much power compared to Excel and so much more impact. So that's, I think, bridging the gap. But my other bet and dream is that the AI gap won't happen. I don't want to see in five years private technology, private companies with powerful AI driving more impact and not nonprofit. And I'm pretty sure this won't happen. And nonprofit will have as great technology to operate the emission well.
- [40:05]
Kevin Gentry
Francois, as we were talking at the beginning, I was just in Montreal last week and offering training for a number of nonprofits there in Canada, and my colleague was leading a substantial discussion about how to use artificial intelligence in your nonprofit work. Because we don't want these great causes to be left behind and instead to be leading and blazing the same trails and innovation. So thank you. That's a. That's a great word of encouragement, too. I want to. In bringing this to a close, I usually ask these two questions. The first, the first one is thinking back on a younger version of yourself. Would you have done anything differently? How would you advise that younger version of yourself to do anything differently? Francois, I know you're still a young person, so I don't know how far back you want to go, but looking back, how would you do anything differently?
- [40:59]
Francois de Carre
The tip I would give myself is, and it's not to give the name again, but I would take bolder bets because I think Diffie worked because, well, we've been bold and we worked really, really hard. But I think if we had been even bolder, we could have just worked less and be a bit easier. It's fast, tough, but had the same level of impact or even more impact, you know, being even more radical in what has to be done. What has to be done well to scale impact and what is just what shouldn't be done. So I would have been even bolder if I had to give a tip to myself.
- [41:44]
Kevin Gentry
Wow, that's great advice. It's funny you say that, actually, and I don't think anybody has actually given that advice before, but we wish that we had invested more at an earlier age. We wish perhaps we had exercised more at an earlier age in fundraising. We wish that we'd invested in more acquisition efforts earlier on. And you're saying you just wish you'd gone bolder? That is extraordinary. So with that, for everyone listening around the world who, by the way, should be looking into using Zefy, but what advice would you give to anyone listening based on all that you've done and intend to do, the ambition you have to accomplish more? What advice would you have to think about how we should all live a life of purpose and meaning and go big with respect to that?
- [42:33]
Francois de Carre
I like the optimistic advice to think, if I had a superpower that whatever I do will work, what would I do? And then think, okay, what's preventing you from actually doing it? But that's probably the right way to know what you should be doing. And I think with Zefi, if I had, we've been optimistic and we believed it was going to work because I think we're very optimistic by nature. But I would just encourage people to be optimistic because even if you start with a zero fee model in and you're young and you're not an experienced entrepreneur, it should do something you really want to achieve and that's really true to your values. I think it's going to work. Well.
- [43:25]
Kevin Gentry
Here we are going into the holiday season and I'm sure that the charitable spirit that people have will intensify and hopefully they will be thinking of ways to give that 100% directly to the causes they want to support. Francois Decraz, it's been a real pleasure getting to meet and spend time with you today and encourage you to keep doing and Going big. We really appreciate what you're doing.
- [43:49]
Francois de Carre
Thanks a lot. It was a great moment. Thanks a lot for having me, Ken.
- [43:53]
Kevin Gentry
All right. And I guess I should say Joy and Noel, Merry Christmas.
- [43:58]
Thanks for tuning in to the Going Big podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling energized and ready to tackle your biggest goals. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps spread the word and it gets these inspiring stories out to more people. You can also find more content, resources and updates at our website, goingbigpodcast.com Remember, the only limits are the ones you don't challenge, the limits that you impose on yourself. Keep pushing, keep growing, and above all, keep Going big. See you next time on the Going Big Podcast.