Who Gives A Crap operates with a deceptively simple model: produce toilet paper, sell it to consumers, and donate half the profits to sanitation charities worldwide.
It delivers results, too. Who Gives A Crap this month donated $4.65 million, its second-largest donation to date, bringing its total contributions to over $18 million.
Co-founder Simon Griffiths is celebrating the milestone, part of the social enterprise’s audacious goal of ensuring everyone on Earth can access toilets and safe drinking water by 2050.
In conversation with SmartCompany, Griffiths said the enterprise is willing to do what it takes to reach that goal — even if it means overhauling its products and sales strategy.
The latest donation will go towards a portfolio of non-profits, Griffiths said, including long-time partners Water for People and Water Aid, and smaller operations like Fresh Life, delivering sanitation solutions in urban Kenya.
Fewer people lack access to sanitation today than when Who Gives A Crap started in 2012, but some two billion individuals go without the toilets and fresh water many of us take for granted.
“There is progress, but there’s a long, long way to go,” said Griffiths.
Who Gives A Crap is hardly capable of tackling the problem of global sanitation by itself, but Griffiths said the enterprise is focused on growing as much as it can to support its profit-donation pledge.
Some changes are already underway.
What started as a proudly online-only business has secured space in independent grocery stores, ALDIs, and Woolworths stores nationwide.
“We wanted to move from being a pure-play D2C into a true omnichannel model, because there will always be the population that won’t shop online,” he said.
It is also venturing deeper into markets like the US and Europe, and re-entering the Canadian market it left as COVID-19 lockdowns rattled international supply chains.
Who Gives A Crap has launched recycled plastic rubbish bags, too, and in 2022 debuted Good Time, its sustainable showercare brand.
The business is willing to make even greater changes, too, should market forces constrain its ability to deliver its classic products.
Take its 100% recycled toilet paper.
While there is no shortage of substrate — that is, the recycled materials Who Gives A Crap uses to generate its toilet rolls — Griffiths said the business is willing to look further afield if even more sustainable options exist.
“I think we have to be ready and willing to reinvent ourselves in order to disrupt our own model and to continue to innovate over time,” Griffiths said.
If that means overhauling its supply chain, it would be worth it, he continued.
“You have to be willing at all times to continue looking at what solutions are out there, and constantly assessing whether you’re on the right path or the best path, or whether you can continue to improve and iterate in order to get to a better place over time.”
Reaching new record-high donations will require Who Gives A Crap to attain even greater scale.
However, the profit-donating model itself poses a tough question.
Is it worthwhile reinvesting those profits to build the business itself, forgoing immediate donations but delivering greater profits tomorrow?
“If we’ve got an opportunity to create more donations in the future, then that is the right way to go,” Griffiths said.
“Our big, hairy, audacious goal [BHAG] is everyone in the world with access to clean water and toilets by 2050.
“So if you’ve got an opportunity to make a $1 donation today, versus a $10 donation next year, you’d always take the $10 donation next year, because that’s what gets you towards the BHAG.”
Still, unlike the product stategy, which might change depending on supply chain and sustainability developments, Who Gives A Crap is unwilling to forgo regular donations to the cause.
“I think it is a necessary need to make regular donations, perhaps not every single year,” said Griffiths.
“There might be years where you choose not profitable, but I don’t think you want to go too many years without making donations, because I think that your customers might find it challenging” to understand the work behind the scenes, he continued.
Griffiths said Who Gives A Crap’s investors, who injected $41.5 million into the business in 2021, are well aware of its plan to intermittently donate profits instead of reinvesting every dollar back into the business.
“When we brought investors into our business, one of the criteria we said was important was that we wanted to work with patient capital,” he said.
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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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