Direct-to-consumer toilet paper titans Who Gives A Crap is celebrating the donation of more than $11 million to charitable causes, as co-founder Simon Griffiths adopts a “never say never” approach to business initiatives likely to drive donations towards the billion-dollar range.
Who Gives A Crap, a social enterprise that donates 50% of its profits to charities improving sanitation and hygiene worldwide, says donations have tipped into the eight-figure range after 10 years in business.
Those donations have flowed to projects like SHOFCO, which provides aerial water pipelines to impoverished communities in Kenya, and Splash, which aims to ensure all schools in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Kolkata, India, have access to adequate sanitation services.
“We’re very proud of where we’re at, but also excited about what the future can look like, and what we need to do to get there and really make a serious dent in the problem,” Griffiths told SmartCompany.
Griffiths kept revenue numbers close to his chest but asserts Who Gives A Crap is still enjoying “consistent growth” among its global customer base.
That reported growth comes despite the end of COVID-19 lockdown protocols which briefly made toilet paper one of Australia’s hottest commodities and drove a massive surge of Who Gives A Crap subscriptions.
Those purchases led to Who Gives A Crap donating $5.85 million in the 2020 financial year alone, followed by $2.5 million in FY21.
“A lot of companies that saw sales increase during the pandemic have seen a reversal of that, in the last 12 months or so,” he said.
“And that has certainly not been the case for us, where we’ve just continued to grow.”
With the goal of driving “hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars” towards charitable causes, Griffiths says Who Gives A Crap is gradually transforming how the business operates to improve efficiency and broach new markets.
After securing its inaugural, $41.5 million raise in September 2021, the businesss turned to onshoring much of its production in the UK and US. Griffiths says that move not only improved the resilience of its global endeavours to supply chain shocks, but reduced environmental impact compared to shipping products from China, where Who Gives A Crap’s Australian-bound products are produced.
The recent launch of sister company Good Time, driven by customer appetite for plastic-free hair and body wash, has also expanded the company’s reach from the toilet to the bathroom — and into a niche occupied by DTC competitor Zero Co, a brand that has returned serve with its own competing toilet paper line.
“I think it’s gone really well, we’ve been really impressed with the feedback that’s coming from customers”, Griffith said of the new product line. “And so we’ll continue to look to find new ways what customers solve problems in other parts of their houses in the future.”
Beyond shoring up production lines, branching into new geographical markets, and building out its product range, Griffiths says Who Gives A Crap is open to short periods of unprofitability if it means greater profits, and charitable distributions, down the line.
“I think there’ll be years in the future where we won’t necessarily be profitable, but we’d like to this year be able to be profitable and continue making donations,” he said.
“At some point in the future, I think we’ll want to invest more heavily in marketing and make a loss for a year, or something along those lines.
“But the goal this year is just to continue making those donations and growing the business in a profitable way.”
Griffiths says he’s happy for the company to stay “nipping away at the heels of some of the huge multinationals” with its profits-for-good model, but did not rule out a future merger or buyout by one of those players should it accelerate the cause of global sanitation.
“I think with the big questions like that, we always come back to, ‘How do we have the most impact?’,” he said.
“So you know, I think we’d look into the future and say, ‘Will this other pathway allow us to get to our goal faster, or be on a faster path to our goal than we’re doing today?’
“So we never say never to anything, because I think there are lots of pathways in the future that could allow us to go faster.”
Senior Business Journalist
Focused on the small business sector, David’s work covers the political, regulatory, and economic issues facing Australian entrepreneurs. Prior to joining SmartCompany, he was a reporter for Business Insider Australia. You can follow him on LinkedIn.
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