The Story of a Start-up

Since the 12th of March 2015, when we officially introduced Different Life to the world, we’ve partnered with Different Life clients and facilitated donations of over R19,1 million to NGOs on the Different.org crowdfunding platform. 100% of this has gone to the NGOs, and we’ve covered the transaction fees.

As our name implies, we’re all about doing things differently – so it was only fitting that we held our launch in Hillbrow, with a detour via Constitution Hill. The point of all of this was to illustrate our commitment to doing business in a way that benefits not only the shareholders and customers, but  also society at large.

So how exactly does our business model intend to make a difference in society? It allows for every single Different Life client to donate their first monthly payment, and every subsequent anniversary payment, to an NGO project of their choice on our crowdfunding platform, Different.org. This powerful donation mechanism is known as the Different Donation.

Over the past years, there have been a few significant wins, which we think are worth celebrating and sharing with you.

1. Not just talk: R19,1 million, and counting, donated

We’re pretty chuffed that the Different Donation is proving to be a powerful force and that the annuity effect – being a recurring annual donation – is starting to make an impact. We love that we’ve empowered Different Life clients to become philanthropists, all while also looking out for their own interests. We’re also delighted to say that some of competitors have chosen ‘our way’ of philanthropy – we hope to see more businesses doing the same!

2. #WhatIf your exercise wasn’t just for you?

In 2017, we launched a campaign that encouraged people to become sporting activists on the Different.org crowdfunding platform. #Whatif provided a way for five chosen NGOs – Wildlands, Cotlands, Rhiza Babuyile, HospiceWits and Rays of Hope – to receive additional donations. Every activist signed up and subsequent challenge completed, meant more donations for the chosen NGO. 1093 activists and R302,000 in allocations to NGOs later, we think it’s fair to say it was a success. Read more about the #Whatif campaign here.

3. We’re growing

Since we started out in our rather cosy office in Broadacres, we’ve had to move to a (much) bigger space, as we’ve grown from 20 to 98 people. We want everyone who works here to experience the impact of their hard work, so we love taking top performing sales agents to visit and meet the various NGO beneficiaries they have helped by empowering Different Life clients to allocate their Different Donations.

4. Impact made by projects funded on Different.org

As well as helping good NGO projects get funded, we also love telling the stories of the impact made by the NGOs on Different.org. We want donors to see how their money is helping change South Africa for the better.

5. And then there’s the rest…

In the process of accomplishing all of the above, the following also happened:

We like being useful to our supporters (some of whom are NGO leaders), and the fact that we got over a hundred responses to our Different.org blog post “What you should know before starting an NGO”, confirms that we’re doing well at realising this goal.

 We are proud to be a member of Nation Builder, an initiative for businesses wanting to build a more prosperous South Africa.

 Different Life has been recognised as a leader in organisational culture by Happy Sandpit, a think tank on organisational culture, employee engagement and leadership.

Thank you for your continued support, and we’re excited about helping our supporters change South Africa for the better.