David Erasmus

On Monday I had the privilege of delivering a speech after Steve Moore CEO of the Big Society Network and before the PM David Cameron at the Launch of Nick Hurd’s Launch of the Giving White Paper.

It was the day we launched Givey – The giving identity that allows Gift Aided donations through Twitter and other social apps.

It was a landmark day for all that have been involved in the Givey journey, it was the day we switched the light on and went past go.

Following the ‘Lean start up’ mentality with blood sweat and tears along with a list as long as my arm of amazing people who have given of themselves needlessly to make this needed innovation a reality we managed to get to live day without significant external funding.

Later in the day I checked Givey’s PayPal account to see the following….

We only take 1.25% of donations so this balance represented approximately the first £80 raised through the system.

Now 92p might not seem a lot to you given that my team and I have invested 18 months thousands of pounds, leveraged every relationship we have and cried many tears, but for me it is the moment that we WON.

Turning £00000000.92 into £92,000,000.00 is simply an issue of moving the decimal place.

Now it is live, people can touch it, they believe it and my job is almost complete as there are FAR more competent people than I fit for growing this vision into all it can be – Joe Crome is the man to watch out for.

This is an amazing video from Derek Sivers Via TED

When you watch it look at the length of time between each ‘stage’ of the movements growth.

Our first stage took me and the team 18 months and it produced £1.

What is the betting that stage 2 will take less time and produce at least £2?

This was arguably the most important pound I will ever generate.

The Night before last I spent the evening with my friend Patrick and a bunch of bright sparks from UCL

I have never been so aware of my thickness

There were 2 other Founders speaking that night. Dave from Group spaces who has raised over $1 mill in VC and Rich from Floxx who’s business is hilarious and got him on the TV news!

They both delivered extremely competent business presentations so I stuck to the softer side of business.

The guys at the UCL Enterprise society are EXTREMELY talented and It is very likely that If I or anyone else can persuade them from selling their souls to the corporation then I will be likely to making Seed Investments into a few of them.

Here is my talk – don’t talk to me about the poor camera work – I know it deserves a FAIL award (PJ)

http://vimeo.com/23686112

I thought you guys might find my response amusing, For the record I think RDF are great and I am looking into doing work with them in the future………

On 14 Apr 2010, at 16:47, ******************  wrote:

Dear David,

Having read about you and your success with www.cubate.com and your other business ventures, I am contacting you to see if the television series I am working on might be of interest to you. I am approaching potential benefactors to take part in the award-winning Channel 4 series, The Secret Millionaire. Given your passion for philanthropy and business, I think you would make a wonderful mentor for struggling charities and social enterprises. We are keen to feature more successful young entrepreneurs in the series and I think you would fit the profile perfectly. I watched a short interview with you on www.ambassadorforphilanthropy.com and was struck by how engaging and charismatic you are – I’m sure you would come across really well on television.
If this is something that interests to you, I would welcome the opportunity to speak to you about your potential involvement as a benefactor for the series. We could discuss the possibility of you doing a programme either individually or with someone you know, such as a business associate, partner or relative.

We have received extremely positive feedback from the benefactors who took part in previous episodes and this is reflected in the attached testimonials of their experiences. In case you aren’t familiar with the series, here is a short explanation:

Channel 4′s The Secret Millionaire is the award-winning and BAFTA nominated documentary series – in each episode a different benefactor is given the opportunity to live ‘undercover’ in some of the country’s most deprived areas. They do not reveal their full identity and immerse themselves in the community for 8 days; meeting the local residents, making new friends, taking on jobs or doing voluntary work – all with a view to deciding who they believe is most in need of their support. At the end of their visit, these modern day philanthropists reveal their true identities to those they ’d like to help and offer their time, their skills and their financial assistance (Channel 4 stipulates a minimum donation of £40,000) to help make a positive change to people’s circumstances. This programme offers philanthropists a rare opportunity to actually meet the people that directly benefit from their assistance.  It also allows our benefactors to highlight and explore specific social issues that may be close to their heart.

This project would require 8 consecutive days out of ones schedule.  I have attached an information sheet about the programme, along with some press quotes and testimonials from benefactors who have previously taken part. Here also is a link to the series where you can get a little taste of what we’re doing: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-secret-millionaire/4od

Thank you for your time and consideration. Please find further information attached, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind Regards,
*************

************* | Assistant Producer | Secret Millionaire
RDF TELEVISION| The Gloucester Building| Kensington Village| Avonmore Road| London| W14 8RF
tel. +44 207 *********| fax. +44 207 *********
**********@rdftelevision.com  | www.rdftelevision.com

From: David Erasmus [mailto:era@me.com]
Sent: 15 April 2010 12:09
To: *************
Subject: Re: Channel 4 series

***********,

Thanks very much for the email.

I know Ben Way and Paul Wills really well and I know they massively enjoyed their time on the show it seems like a great opportunity.

There are 2 hang ups….

1. I am not a millionaire.
2. I don’t think I would be comfortable with the deception element of the show.

I love telling stories and advocating for those in the margins so If there was an opportunity to do that I would be all over it like a bad rash!

I could put up some cash but it would need to be enterprising and attempting to be sustainable and probably wouldn’t be as much as £40K

Let me know your thoughts.
Thanks

Dave

There are very few things as powerful in this life as a stranger putting themselves at risk to protect you.

A few days ago I went on an incredible road trip in ‘Talulah’ our VW Combi up the garden route from Cape Town to East London (SA).

I was lucky enough to have the privilege to act as tour guide for 5 of my friends first trips to Africa! Joe who organised the trip made a way for 3 young guys from our area of North Leatherhead to come too so Martin (16) Lee (15) and Matt (14) joined us on this epic trip.

We had an amazing time seeing the beauty and brokenness that South Africa is so full of. My last task was to drive the 15 minute journey up the N2 from Rondebosch to the Airport to drop these guys off. Me being a Klutz ran out of petrol half way along in Bonteheuwel.

Ok this is going to be too long to write I am going to have to move to vide0 otherwise you will get very bored……………….

This is the view that we saw 2 minutes after we managed to get Talulah started again, It was just perfect – epic, dark, beautiful, moody and best of all a silver lining on the cloud…….Thats Africa!

Last night I found myself at Ogilvy’s office in Canary Wharf.

Here is my short summary video of the event.

Lots of big dogs talking, the Guardian app guy and the flirtomatic guy were on the panel.

It was pretty interesting but mainly nice to feel affirmed once again in my feelings about the way forward in Mobile.

Apps are insanely fragmented at the moment so unless you have a good reason (Geo stuff, driving purchasing revenues or needing offline content) don’t get caught trying to get the big shiny app when its unnecessary.

@SimonGrice who appears to run the joint is a great guy, I had a lot of fun chatting with him.