Unlocking the origin: The story behind the Time to Give Network
Andrew Kaufmann is the Founder of a game-changing not-for-profit organisation that aims to transform how the financial services industry connects with its ecosystem of individuals seeking a business meeting – all while benefitting charitable causes.
In this interview, we dive into the idea behind the Time to Give Network and how Andrew and his co-founding team are bringing it to life.
Andrew, your background is in the asset management industry and that’s where this idea originated – tell us a bit more about your journey.
I started my career in sales and trading selling fixed income securities and was a market-maker in foreign exchange before making a move into fintech sales.
The Time to Give Network is primarily a tool for business development, to help people that do what I spent 20+ years doing, which is trying to gain access to people that were in my target market, to initiate a dialogue.
Connecting with decision-makers and experts has become increasingly difficult over time. Business development professionals and others spend a huge amount of effort trying to connect with the right people and get that first meeting. This is often a combination of email, LinkedIn, cold calling and other largely ineffectual methods. This frustrating inefficiency is something I wanted to address, but in a completely new way that is beneficial to everyone involved.
As executives progress in their career, they inevitably reach a point where they choose to focus on giving back, and they often have very worthy charitable causes with whom they affiliate. But, the problem for executives is that if they are donating their time to the charity, such as by picking up a hammer, serving at a soup kitchen, or such, the value the charity receives doesn’t usually reflect the specialised expertise and capabilities the executives have developed over their career. They recognise that they are contributing, but wonder if there is a way that they could have a greater impact.
I’ve always loved eBay and one of the initiatives that resonated with me was when Warren Buffett used eBay to auction lunches with him. He raised $50 million dollars for charity this way and it made me realise that the intrinsic value of people’s time can be realised in different ways.
So, I thought – if a platform can help maximise the value of people’s time, perhaps there’s an opportunity to build a dedicated platform that can do this in a broader, but much more structured way. If I can help bring together both the buyer and seller sides of the asset management market and its ecosystem, in a way that also raises money for charity, surely that’s a winning and replicable concept? So that’s what we’ve set out to do.
How does the Time to Give Network work and who benefits from it?
The Time to Give Network engages service providers and executives to drive charitable donations. The platform enables individuals to offer their time and for those who want access to those individuals to make a charitable donation in return for that access. There are a variety of ways to do this, from standing offers all the way to full auctions like Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio and Bill Ackman have all done.
There are three main stakeholders who benefit from the Time to Give Network, but all in different ways.
Firstly, there are TimeGivers who are subject matter experts, C-level executives, departmental heads and middle management – the Time to Give Network gives them a way to share their expertise and time while supporting their chosen charitable causes and helping companies to achieve their CSR aspirations.
The next group are TimeBidders – vendors or other individuals who are seeking expertise or specific connections. TimeBidders pay the agreed charitable donation in exchange for a meeting with their chosen TimeGiver.
And, of course, there are the Charities, who not only receive donations directly from the TimeBidders, but also benefit from a transformative connection with corporate fundraisers and individuals who have chosen to support their cause.
How do you make sure that that TimeGivers’ time is well-spent?
It was important to me to build the Time to Give Network as a not-for-profit organisation – myself and the rest of the founding team are not building any equity from this initiative at all. The Time to Give Network is owned by a charity named in our articles of incorporation. This helps set the right tone for the network.
We’re also building in governance and processes that mean that TimeGivers still retain control over how their time is used. For example, the TimeGivers are able to choose the minimum donation amount that is given for their time, who is allowed to bid for or request their time and which charity it goes to. We only ask them to give an hour of their time for each meeting and it means that both TimeBidder and TimeGiver have genuine interest in any connections that are made through the platform.
When are you expecting to officially launch?
We’re live now, and actively working on growing the ranks of TimeBidders and TimeGivers who are part of our community.
We’re on course to be arranging our first connections between TimeGivers and TimeBidders this quarter (Q1 2024) and have a number of scalability and technology enhancements which will be rolling out shortly after that.
We have been very fortunate that a number of skilled people have been willing to pitch in to help us bring this concept to life. We have room for more companies who wish to play a special role in our formation to join as founding sponsors, but those opportunities are limited.
The uptake has been really positive so far – people especially like that we’re a not-for-profit and that we’re very focused on delivering value for all parties involved.
After the UK asset management community, where will you head next? What aspirations do you have for this organisation?
I moved over to the UK 14 years ago and I love that I can start this initiative here, in a place that’s been so good to me – it’s my way of giving back.
But, in theory, the Time to Give Network is fully transferable to any sector and any geography, provided we can build the relevant communities. Once we get traction in the UK, we plan to bring this to the asset management industry in the US and also broaden the network across other industry verticals.
If someone is reading this article and gets as excited as we have in talking about the Time to Give Network, how can they sign up or find out more?
You can read more about how the Time to Give Network works and how to get involved by visiting the website at www.timetogive.network or reach out directly via LinkedIn.
Interview by Helen Owen, B2B Fintech and Payments Marketing Leader
