Over the past six months Team PledgeMe has been working on our values. What are they, how do we express them, why are they important, and what’s the impact. We came up with a whole bunch of ideas, but whittled it down to five values. Our dearly departed Jackson shared our first value: Support Transparency and Trust. Here’s Barry on our second value:
“He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata”
— Maori proverb
What drives us to do more good? It is people, it is people, it is people. Tis true, without people we are merely an empty blue speech bubble. An idea without a crowd is nothing, a platform without people is nothing.
Our second brand value is all about people. The changemakers, the do-gooders, the first followers, the stand-up for-what-you-believe-iners, the encouragers, the nurturers, the constructive critics, the collaborators, the competitors, the supporters, the crowd. Our people believe in crowdfunding in its purest form — funding that is inclusively democratic. Being able to express yourself, put your own stamp on the world and find those that like the way you move.
In what we do, we want to be both innovative and respectful towards the tradition of community. We’re enabled by technology but behind the screens we exist because we want to genuinely connect with the people around us. We’re here to enhance community, not replace it. We see ourselves as nurturing whanaungatanga – a place of empowerment and connection. We take the vital energy that is community and enable communities to come together and grow together online and in real life. Connection is a powerful thing and we love bringing great people with shared passions, ideas and aspirations together.
We aim to defy the exclusive, elitist and centralised systems of funding that have traditionally ruled the roost — how we do that is by embracing personality and by being open and authentic. It’s about ridding the bureaucracy, the manipulation and the nonsense from how projects, companies and organisations are funded. Giving people greater control over how their meaningful ideas come to life and enabling those that matter – their crowds – to make the crucial funding decisions.
Since Anna got the PledgeMe motor running way back when, we’ve been organically assembling a diverse mélange of communities. This intertwined web of relationships has nurtured us in infancy and sparked our growth. It has allowed us to blend outlooks and opinions, cultures and skills and in doing so provides opportunity after opportunity to evolve and move forward, positively surfing on the strength of our crowd.
Sharing experiences and stories with the people around us is what we are all about. Seeing people as people and organisations as the collective personality of the people behind them. We’ve surrounded ourselves with good people and we’re constantly inspired by those around us. It’s the Law of Attraction at work — we reinforce our positive take-on-the-world attitude by immersing ourselves with positive people who are taking on the world in their own right.
Over time things change and great people move on to new pastures. Our values will guide a constantly evolving PledgeMe team to continue to help great people fund great people. People are the foundation of and reason behind what we do. There’s nothing more important than people.
Like the Polynesian discoverers of this fine land, our folk are those that bravely brush fear aside and dip into unknown waters in search of real meaning, honest connection and belonging. They fill our blue bubble.
