272 | Overcoming Extreme Poverty with Ethical Creative Outsourcing with Emmanuel Trinity
Our guest this week on the pod is Emmanuel Trinity. He is a social entrepreneur and Founder of Era 92, a youth creative agency training and employing Uganda’s young adults in design, arts and techology. He’s on a mission to create 10,000 skilled jobs for young Africans by 2030.
And a special thanks to members of the Awarepreneurs Community for sponsoring this episode!
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Interview with Emmanuel Trinity on Ethical Outsourcing
NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer this transcription by Otter.ai for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Emmanuel Trinity
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, your profits and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request, if you can hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app that helps more people learn how to have positive impact or values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Emanuel Trinity. And our topic today is Overcoming Extreme Poverty with Ethical Creative Outsourcing. Trinity as a social entrepreneur and founder of Era 92, a youth creative agency training and employing Uganda's young adults in design Arts and Technology. He's on a mission to create 10,000 skilled jobs for young Africans by 2030. Trinity, welcome to the show.
Emmanuel Trinity 00:58
Thank you so much for having me, Paul, all the way from Uganda. It's a privilege to be here.
Paul Zelizer 01:04
We're far apart in distance, but there's a lot of heart synergy. I'm so thrilled by what you're doing and how you're doing at Trinity, and I can't wait for our audience to find out more about you.
Emmanuel Trinity 01:16
Let's see again. So
Paul Zelizer 01:19
to understand this topic, overcoming extreme poverty through social entrepreneurship, and we're gonna get into that our audience needs to know a little bit about you you feel particularly passionate about this topic, because you have some experience here. Is that fair to say? Yeah, sure. Tell us a little bit about that.
Emmanuel Trinity 01:37
The creative, the ethical, creative outsourcing and how.
Paul Zelizer 01:43
Yeah, a little bit about your background, you didn't come from the easiest background?
Emmanuel Trinity 01:48
Oh, yeah, sure. Well, for me, design and technology, rescued my life from the dangers of the slums that I grew up in, you know, I grew up in one of the slums, West slums called Kosovo in the 1990s. And because my mom was, you know, abused at the age of 17, she gave birth to me, and then she was denied by all her parents. So she moved from the village to the city. And she ended up in one of the worst slums, because that's where she could afford a house for $3 a month. And growing up in that slum, if you had no education, you ended up on the streets. And so my mom could not provide for food, because she had no job. And the only money she could get was to feed me one meal a day. And until I was seven years, seven years, I wasn't in school, and I was exposed to the dangers of the street. So I joined the streets at the age of 789. And during that time, when I was in the streets, I go in gangs, I did all bad things at a young age, I was used by big gang guys, to help them go and steal and deliver, you know, drugs, you know, into their deals. And during that time, I was exposed to a lot of dangerous crime, dangers, like violence killings, and the most, the worst of all, was, you know, what we call a mob justice mero my friends who are killed just by MOBE, you know, if they caught you stealing, or they caught you doing drugs, they'll just stoned you today. And that's exactly what happened to one of our leaders who was leading us. And when he was stoned to death, and we saw him dying and breathing his last we couldn't do this stuff anymore. And that's the time when I wanted to rescue my life. So God is story very short. I was rescued by a group of missionaries who had come from Northern Ireland. And so when they had come for my rescue from the slums, they asked me what, what is one thing that we can give you that you never go back on the streets. And so asked for a computer. They were true to their word, they gave me a computer. And that's when my genuine transformation happened. I started training myself to become a designer, a software developer, and a web developer. I did that for about six, seven years. Until I was outsourced by a Coca Cola. I was discovered through Coca Cola talent campaign in the ghettos in the slums. I was picked out given a job, growth of this lungs, and I was put into a corporate space. And in a nutshell, that's how I escaped that vicious cycle of poverty. But when that happened, when I left the slums that I was into this corporate world, I was having a job I was able to provide my mom food, clothing, rent and stuff. That was like one story in a talent stories. We didn't get stories like that often in the slums. Many of the young people that I knew were still stuck in that vicious cycle. poverty. And so I realized, Okay, now, there is done in my community. But that need relies on me at this particular time. So I had to quit my job, go back to the slums. And I started this company, which is, you know, definitely promoting this idea of ethical creative foundries, ethical, creative outsourcing. Why? Because I realized that if young people in the slums are brilliant enough to do these things, if I train them to do websites and logos, and marketing materials for companies around the world, maybe that could also take them out with his lungs. And so the idea came to reality. Right now we've done it for over 1500 young people. And we are having over 60 Young people right now employed at our center today. And so the idea of ethical creative outsourcing is simple is that right now everyone in the world, every company needs some kind of creative work done. And most of the times we do not think about where we get this work from. But in a nutshell, this work can actually create jobs for young people in the slums across Uganda. So if we could ever think about places that people have been outsourcing over the years, places like India and stuff like that, this ethical creative outsourcing is mainly focus for Africa, because many people have not been thinking about Africa as a place to source talent. And so we are pushing this agenda to let the people know that we can actually create jobs and don't just send aid to Africa. So that's what I can tell, you know, in a nutshell about ethical, creative outsourcing, that helped me create, you know, this prosperity that we have for so many young people and create jobs for them.
Paul Zelizer 06:50
One inspiring story, I'm so sorry, you had to go through that Trinity, and also so appreciative that you didn't just look at Wow, well, I'm saved, forget everybody else. But you circled back around to your community and said, How can I help others? I so appreciate that choice. When was it that you started are 92 How old is the company?
Emmanuel Trinity 07:11
The company is about eight years right now. And I started at the age of 19. That's when I was discovered. I spent six months doing my internship at Coca Cola, I was a very smart young boy. And I worked myself so fast in the six months that I was able to do big marketing campaigns for Coca Cola in Uganda during that time. And so I collected a lot of connections during that time, and I had saved some money. So one day, when I wanted to start this company, I went back to this slums where I grew up, and they saw, I don't want to say this word, but I saw so many of my friends hopeless, they didn't have any way out of this slum that is that has trapped them with crime, violence, witchcraft, for, you know, prostitution and stuff like that. And so one night, I had my savings, and I reached out to one of the girls called Megan, and she's still working with us today, Megan. And I told her Megan, if you come and join me, instead of you going to sell your body for $5 a day, if you got to come and train me, you can transform your life. So I put my savings, I rented the house, close the slums. And I started with four girls, I trained them for four months. And this is what happened. For just four months, Megan and her friends were able to design a WordPress, or Joomla and Drupal website on our own. And that's brought this idea to me that actually brilliantly distributed, but opportunity is not. And so they were must first employees. After four months, I was able to start giving them work that I was getting from Coca Cola, they are helping me do the work on his side, and then eventually build a team out of that
Paul Zelizer 08:58
airport. And talk to me a little bit about like design and creative, you know, doing creative like there's, there's so much hunger to have meaningful work and work that feels like it's not just you know, doing the same thing over and over repetitive tasks that that it seems like to go to young people and say not only can you get paid well and not have to live in the slums and have a good life and take care of your family. But you can also do work that is creative, that's meaningful that you're you're doing out of the box stuff. I have to imagine that that's a pretty attractive offer. Is that fair to say?
Emmanuel Trinity 09:38
Yeah, it's a pretty attractive offer, but it's very easy to sell. When you look at underserved communities around the world are the ones that actually house upgrade the most salient. When you look in the hood in America. It's why most young people like musicians creatives leave, so they kind of resilient As that is in the slums across Africa, the brilliant young people, young people really passionate about creating NF T's and stuff like that. And the only gap that is in between their creative creativeness and brilliance is actually the opportunity is the exposure, to learn to that remote job to land, that creative job on the internet. And right now, as the internet is equally, you know, is distributed everywhere. There's so many opportunities that young people can face. So I would say, we brought this idea of creative work, but it will find them actually pretty creative. So it was easy for us to implement this kind of initiative in the slums.
Paul Zelizer 10:46
So like, give us a sense of what was the like you said, you were like, 19, you start working for Coca Cola, you're doing really well there, you get some money, you put that money into starting errand 92? Like, what did you have to learn as a young founder of an impact business? You know, eight years ago? What What were you thinking about and what helped you get some of your first clients and just like what helped you get Aaron 92 off the ground?
Emmanuel Trinity 11:14
Yeah, there are two things. There was a high demand when I entered the corporate world. So I collected a lot of contacts, because the company that was working with Coca Cola had a lot of people coming in, and I was exposed to, to work with so many one credit, contact, when I connected when I got those contacts. I didn't know exactly how to start a social enterprise. And I always reflect when I was just 21 years, I remember very well that I came across a book for Muhammad Yunus, about social business. And I read another book about called Beyond the world getting beyond. And these two books actually shaped the idea that I had, because by that time, there weren't so many popular social entrepreneurs, such intrapreneurship was in the thing. So when I read this book, and it's told me exactly that, if I'm wanting to run this agenda price, have to stand with the problem first, and then add the solution in the end. So for us, our problem was to solve. The, and we had to go out by training and people, and then on the flip side do as a social business, you have to be able to make a profit. So realize that actually, if we can train these young people up, then employ them to do this work for companies across the world. I think that was the aha moment for us and say, Yes, most of the programs during that time in Islam, so yes, coming, giving skills for two, three days and the gift. But for us, we came in two months, one year, training young people. And then after two, three years, we started having a lot of talent in our pipeline. So then we started building teams around it. And then we started actually connecting some of the young people to other jobs in other companies. And so ideally, those two books by Muhammad Yunus and the other one, I don't remember the name very well, they really shaped my idea. But at the on the other side, I really had some contacts to start with.
Paul Zelizer 13:22
Beautiful and if you remember the second book, do them, you know, the Muhammad Yunus book for those of you who aren't familiar, Muhammad Yunus started the Grameen World Bank, one of the better known examples of using business and using the mechanisms of, you know, a traditional economy to make the world a better place. I'll put a link to that Muhammad Yunus book. It's a fabulous book, and I highly recommend it. I'll put a link in the show notes. So this Yeah,
Emmanuel Trinity 13:47
the one on the other one. Before we go, let me just give it to you. The other one is getting beyond beta. How social intrapreneurship works is by Roger L. Martin and Sally, and Sally something but Roger L. Martin is the main writer of that book. It's really pretty amazing how models of social entrepreneurship work. Because right now when you realize I really want to have real, such enterpreneurs known people who are just running social businesses to promote their business or social business agendas, because it's a cool thing right now. So they're all too cool books that everyone should read.
Paul Zelizer 14:26
Corporate, both of those in the shownotes thanks for that. So did this idea of outsourcing right. This is like I don't know there was a Tim Ferriss book, The Four Hour Workweek you're supposed to outsource your whole life but but not all. Outsourcing is ethical, a word that we've used in our title today. Talk to us a little bit like somebody who's trying to understand the outsourcing economy getting bas hiring people like what does it look like when it's not ethical and why are you passionate about like how it can be ethical
Emmanuel Trinity 15:02
Yeah, most of it, I would say, it hasn't been. It has been in two ways. Most of the companies have been outsourcing I've been somehow seeing an advantage over, okay, let's when we go to China, there's cheap labor, right? When we go to India, those cheap labor, we can take our work there. It has been over that kind of mindset that, actually, we need to go where it's cheaper. But for us, we think we can add another layer on top of that, and how do we do that? Most of the years, that's where we bring the most of the years people have not been thinking about Africa as a place of outsourcing. Why, because of the idea that Africa is poor, there's no talent, people within the world animals and stuff like that. And there are so many companies that try now are really struggling to actually have a layer of social responsibility on top of what they're doing. Maybe this is especially enterpreneurs. Maybe these are agencies that are creating work, and they're really struggling to figure out, actually how do we impact lives using our business. So most times, it's hard for people to maybe say, Okay, we are going to plant trees, but we assume the printers, we are going to feed children and stuff like that. But there is an opportunity today in this world to hire someone in Nigeria. Because we believe that jobs are more important than aid. It's more ethical for us to hire people in, you know, South Africa, in Uganda, in Kenya, in Kibera slums, because there's talent over there. But there is an opportunity that is distributed for these people. So the idea that we're promoting here is, if an agent's if a soldier intrapreneur is struggling on ways they can actually impact the world, using their creative work, is to actually look in companies in places where it's cheap. But also, there is an opportunity for you to impact someone's life. If you know someone in Nigeria can do the same thing as someone in the US. Why don't you send that money and improve lives in Nigeria, because at least one job in Africa can help an entire family, one young person that's happened to me one job that I got changed the trajectory of my family, and my background, and my future. And that the same thing can be done over and over again, is doesn't stop actually, to only these creative work, like posters and stuff like that, there is more work that is costing people a lot of money to put someone do the job in the US. And once they outsource that to places like India or Philippines, it is creating some jobs in that places, but also, it is improving the livelihoods and also having a nice image on your company. So I don't know if that makes sense. But it's a area that we believe that people can really embrace in their organizations right now.
Paul Zelizer 18:24
Totally make that and and one of the things that you said that I just want to highlight Trinidad Trini is that when you help one person get like established I remember we talked about this with Nora she hab city social enterprise where they were working with Palestinian families. And these are folks without mostly women without a country and they're making these incredible handmade products. Mostly, they started with olive oil soaps, right and they were exquisite products, but they didn't have a country they couldn't have a bank account because they didn't have papers. They were between countries and they really fell through the cracks and city social enterprise would help women you know, start to get a career and and when they turn their lives around. When they study they gotten up similar to us several dozen people. And we'll talk about that in a second. They said when you we turn one person's lives around, they take 10 People with them, right? It was a 10x you know return that when you help one person in a really challenging situation, whether it's on the west bank at a place they're living in a tent with no plumbing, and you help them like land and get a career and have a good livelihood, they would take at least 10 people with them and I hear Norris words as you're speaking Trinity, so it sounds like it's something pretty similar to that you help one person change the trajectory of their life, and they're gonna bring a whole bunch of people with them is that is that fair to say?
Emmanuel Trinity 20:00
Exactly, exactly. But one thing I would add on this is that if you read that book, Getting beyond beta, as social entrepreneurs, we are radical people that are trying to change the status quo of things that are around us. And I would encourage that in this type of thing. It's us that go beyond is as that thing beyond our own surroundings, to say, there's someone out there that can do this, there is someone out there that if they are dying for this job, and here, there are some people who now say, we don't have these jobs, right now, we want free money. So if we have that mindset of getting beyond our own horizon, to reach out to the most underserved communities, with the idea of tapping into potential in those areas, rather than just providing aid and just helping people, you know, remaining the cycle of poverty.
Paul Zelizer 21:01
Absolutely. So let's do this in a moment, I want to come back and hear how you actually work, where your team is. Now also, you have some tips for us about how to do creative outsourcing in an ethical way, and a whole bunch of other things. But before we do that, I just want to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor, do you have a business that's about making the world a better place, and you want it to grow both in terms of your impact, helping more people and your income, so you could live a good quality life? If you do, I'd like to talk to you about some research for a second. When scientists look at what actually contributes to humans reaching their goals, the single biggest predictor, whether it's a wellness goal, or it's a business goal, is what they call social support. In other words, a group of people who are on a similar journey, who can help you with specific strategies that work on that journey at the time and point of development that you're on, as well as emotional support for the ups and downs of that journey. Being a social entrepreneur has highs and lows, right? If you like that kind of support, but we're printers has a community called the AWARE printers community, over 270 really generous and really skillful social entrepreneurs. And that's what we do with each other. We share concrete strategies, as well as emotional support for the ups and downs of the journey. If you'd like to find out more, you can take a look at aware printers.com forward slash community. And thank you to everybody in the AWARE printers community who helped sponsor this podcast. So welcome back, everybody. In the second part of the show, we like to joke Trinity about putting on our social entrepreneur glass. So we've got the top level now now we're going to get a little more specific. So one of the things I've been doing this for 15 years now. And one of the things I know can be an issue, when we're talking about outsourcing, it's happened to almost everybody I know has a story like you start outsourcing, whether it's building an app or a creative project or somebody's, you know, going to help you with social marketing. And everybody gets all excited. And then the person just disappears. He's right there on another continent like you have the all these big dreams that are starting your app, you see, let's see some wireframes. Okay, that looks great. And then like they just go missing an action, right. And I know that there was an outsourcing outfit that that had a Social Impact mission. And they were like trying to get me excited, because they wanted me to help promote what they were doing. And like three different times they set me up with somebody who was going to do a trial project, that person got hired, like they were very part time it wasn't in Africa was in another continent that it was focused on, it was a great mission. But like, I couldn't even meet with the person to do like a trial project because they kept getting hired full time with their skill set. And one of the things that I hear you doing with their 92 that I that I think is different is you're talking about this isn't just like to our project, here are five hours, you're the you're helping people create full time employment. And my sense is that you kind of work together as a team to make sure that things don't fall apart like that. Is that fair to say?
Emmanuel Trinity 24:25
Exactly. We we build a strong team and I've learned this from so many trial trials and errors, but realize that there were so many loopholes and not only just in the timing and ghosting of our crap people grant Oh, you know, people losing their money, but also lack of sound quality in terms of if you're hiring people, maybe on Fiverr or maybe you're hiring someone. There's some sense that it wasn't the quality that was Understand that of America of the waist. And so we we have a combination as my background coming from design I was I'm so very keen on the design element that we apply on this thing. So my team cried my team suffered when I was trying to build those muscles within the team and the culture that everything we do here for me design changed my life. And if you can now help other organizations use designed and creative to uplift their organizations and communicate their missions, maybe we could actually help them also reach their mission. So the team is really concrete, over 60 Young people right now. And we have departments in film, marketing digital, we have motion graphic designers, we have filmmakers, editors, we have web developers and software developers. And so and the team is growing. So what we do our model is simple is that you get a dedicated designer, that is going to be working on your, on your files every single time. So you don't get to work with someone different every single day. And so that creates a bit of consistency in your work. And they also get to understand the work that you're doing, you know, we do instant messaging where you can have real time communication with us on WhatsApp or slack. So that anytime we want to change, it can be done quicker. And so it's a model that is definitely creating full time employment here. But it also gives you consistent, reliable, creative output whenever you need it. And we have the ability for you to scale up and scale down, there are seasons when you have a lot of work as an organization, and that season where you have less work. And so we work with you say okay, in the next three quarter in the next quarter, we're going to have less output, could we you know, downsize our subscription to, to the, to the deliverables that we'll be receiving. So it's really tailored that way. And we believe it can help organizations grow, especially social entrepreneurs around the world.
Paul Zelizer 27:18
So two of the things I wrote down as you were talking to the to make this kind of outsourcing work. Number one, you want, like consistency and reliability, right, you can go to site and you can pick somebody randomly. But they may have like 2700, other people your may not be their priority, it can be really slow, you have a deadline, and they can't meet it right? Or they just disappear. So number one, you want to work with an organization that you've really done your homework and that they're going to be consistent, and they're going to be reliable. And the second thing I wrote down that what you were saying there Trinity is you really want to make sure that there's excellence, like if it's designed that that is going to land in the marketplace, if you're putting a meme on Instagram, or you've done a short, you know, video that's promoting your work, that the quality, that there's excellence there that there really reflects well on your business, not just like, well, we got to dawn, it's not that gray, but you know, get it out the door anyway, that could actually harm your business. If you're trying to, you know, improve your you're doing marketing, and you're trying to improve sales, but the product that little short, that you know, meme doesn't look like you know, the quality that the people you want to help expect that can actually hurt your business. And that's something that you and your team have thought a lot about. You have some other tips and suggestions for us in terms of outsourcing. Tell, tell us about some of those.
Emmanuel Trinity 28:51
Yeah, you know, I've actually made me mentioned some of these things over as we're going but you know, for any organizations out there, maybe it's a startup, maybe it's a big organization, there's always going to be need for creative. And so ever might you can be having in house creative or marketing department, there's always going to be a time right now where you need maybe more input more team members. And we actually know how hard it is right now to hire the cost to hire and every time. So for everyone who is you know, trying to battle you don't buy the tickets or increase output. I think these few things can help you really achieve that. So one of them is creates a creative subscription. We call creative subscriptions. This is one of the services that we offer, but many other organizations that are offering it but the creative subscription is you setting is set of creative that you need on a monthly basis. And then you get companies that are offering these subscriptions and then you pay a flat rate. So what this offers you it offers price stability tea, you know, no hiring hassles, no increase in overheads, no internet costs and stuff like that. So we believe like if you're cutting costs, or you want to increase your output, but you don't want to spend more money, you're looking at having creative subscriptions could actually help you scale the organization. And if you get companies that offer scaling up and scaling down, you just feel like you having an external team whenever you need it, but you know, it's not on your payroll, you just pay one flat rate. So that is Kritsa. Subscription. We have creative automation. And this is a more detailed thing whereby clients, if you get an organization that is offering this is that you can actually automate the process of your creative from the, from the process of view, creating the content until it's it's posted on social media, and LinkedIn or your blog. So this could be you get an idea of a blog, you get an idea of a marketing idea. You create it, you know, from your Zapier, you know, this is usually done in Zapier where you can connect other things like Asana, blogs, and stuff like that. So that helps you save time, if you're an early stage, social entrepreneur, this can help you save a ton of time. Because most of the people I know I've been there, you're trying to create this ad, you're trying to create this video, you're trying to create this blog. And if you do not have a big team, having a company where you can automate your your creative process, it will be huge. Another thing if you're trying to cut budget, or increase your output, better look into outsourcing. But as we say, look into places where you can ethically associate creative, so that maybe your sourcing can actually create an impact in those areas. The other thing would be offshore hiring right now there are so many places you can hire, you can hire someone in Nigeria, you can hire someone, anywhere in the world. And as a social entrepreneur, if you can have that heart to source out and create jobs in areas that need jobs like Africa, would be happy. So those are some of the tips. You know, I know, they're kind of selfish to Africa. I know anyone who is hearing from India and stuff like that, I believe they have enough exposure. So we have to send some of this to Africa. So and if you get to do that outsourcing, please don't just take the advantage of it's cheap. If you can pay people fairly, please do it. Because if you're outsourcing ethically, that job is creating generational wealth, that job is breaking the cycle of poverty in someone's family. And so those are the kinds of tips I have. But these can actually help you have you kind of social responsibility arm and also it can motivate your team members that you're hoping someone with your creative, and it can also help you save a ton of money. But on average for us the retainers that we have, people are saving at least over poor data than dollars. Because they would be hiring a designer with a video editor, it will be a web developer. And if you just you know trained to have all of those people in house, you'd be at least spending at least $150,000 a year at least. But with us it can be one simple flat rate. So these are some of the tips that I have. And I would encourage each and everyone to think about ethical creative outsourcing the next time they are thinking about sourcing their creative work
Paul Zelizer 33:55
awesome. They're one of the things I think I hear I'm a pretty granular guy Trinity really you know like to get into the specifics so I'm a podcaster so I think about you know each episode, you probably want to have an episode graphic for that podcast you might want a lot of people are doing either audiograms or little video clips you know that one minute clip of Paul and Trinity talking that's going to go on social media or or whatever and like when you know what those things are and you have a relationship in like you're talking about in a subscription kind of a model you can those things can happen pretty smoothly right? But you don't have to have the expense of everybody's on your team right you guys whether it's the video person or the person writing copy for the social media post or creating the episode graphic those could be three different people but you have them already in house but there's somebody who knows. Oh, this is the AWARE printers podcast, Paul wants an episode graphics and copy for that graphic. A little audio gram of you know or whatever it is, and it can all happen pretty smoothly, but I still get all those talents of a larger team is that fair to say?
Emmanuel Trinity 35:08
When I represent most of our clients, when you check our reviews, it feels like it's an extension of that team, you know, and they meet regularly. Every week, we have weekly meetings with the client, so it's barely gonna feel like you just outsourcing it's gonna feel like you having an offshore team in Uganda. That's
Paul Zelizer 35:31
awesome. So you guys are up to like 60 people, congratulations, you're a year 860, you know, employees or team members? Like, how does their 92 work now? How has your role as CEO changed? And where did most of your clients find out about you?
Emmanuel Trinity 35:52
Yeah, three questions in one, I'll answer the first one. Right now, yeah, we ran on my role is definitely to promote this thing. Ethical, creative outsourcing. And internally, with the team, I'm trying to build the departmental leaders, I'm raising other leaders within the organization. Because you know, you didn't hear it, but we have another section of a school, right, we have the academy that's continuing to train. So we My role is to work with these leaders that are, you know, fostering the creative. And building the business, we have operations managers, we have quality control officers like to have them. And then we have digital projects managers do that they can actually I'm working with to make sure that our clients are getting a smooth service. And most of the grants right now hear us from podcasts, and blogs, and also word of mouth. So at the first time our business model really grew was when I was featured on a podcast by cause artist. I didn't know I, I just shared my story. And a bunch of student opinion was just reached out to us and this say, this is what we're waiting for. Yeah, but right now, we are doing a lot of social media, we're doing a lot of blogging, but the word is starting to get out through word of mouth, and also the awards that we've been able to get. Yeah, so was the was that or the equation? Or you had some other questions? No, that
Paul Zelizer 37:28
was that was great. And I'll put a link because artists is another great social enterprise podcast. I'll put a link to that. And yeah, we're printers community, I, let's do our part. Come on. And let's do our part and lifting. So go tell people about Aaron 92. It's a fabulous service. And yeah, let's help spread the word. So tell us about the academy part. So that's what it looks like now, about 60 team members, you're like building the, you know, support so that the business can run and some people might call you tryna you're the Rainmaker, you're the guy who goes on the podcast, or the guy who tells the story, you're the guy who people interview for a blog, etc, etc. And now you're building leadership. So that's cool. And the company is running as a social enterprise and doing quite well. And then you have this academy of training, the next generation of youth. Tell us a little more about that part of your work.
Emmanuel Trinity 38:21
Yeah, that is Aaron. And just to elevate, we are so glad that over the period of eight years, we've created over 1500 skilled jobs, that is a lot of jobs for young people. But when you look at the scale of the problem, in the places that we come from, that's like one drop in the ocean, at least in the research that we have over 60 to 60,000 young people right now are trapped up in the slums across Uganda alone. And so what we believe that for our next growth of the business, the more we make money, the more we can create these ethical jobs for young people across Uganda and East Africa. So right now our goal is to create 10,000 skilled jobs. And this is through directly our employment partners, and also the platform that we are building that is going to be able to help companies around the world to hire someone that has gone through our program through our website. So right now, we are still selling the subscription model. But within the next year we the academy, you'll be able to hire someone directly and give the young person in Uganda or East Africa a job over the internet. So that's the kind of thing we are doing, but it's just uplifting and we we believe that if this model can be replicated in each and every industry, of virtual assistants in the software development, you know, cloud computing each and everything that can be done on the internet. I pray I believe that the world should start thinking about sending some of the jobs to Africa.
Paul Zelizer 39:59
You know, Cool. So what what have you learned like one of our big kind of two buckets of listeners Trinity, we have the more experienced social entrepreneur like yourself, it's up and running and having impact and working on scale and helping more people. And then we have a wonderful group I talked to an incredible young man last week, late last week is, you know, the next generation of social entrepreneurs with big dreams, but it's not, you know, maybe they're pre revenue. And they're, they're just getting started, what what would you share with somebody who's like, where you were seven or eight years ago, you've got an idea, you're excited about it, you're just getting started? What are some of the top tips for somebody who's just getting going?
Emmanuel Trinity 40:43
I would say that, as an as a social entrepreneur, right now, it could be easier, but it's not an easy job. One, one of the things that as such intrapreneurs face is that we are known just turning the budget or revenue. For an investor, we have what we call the return on investment. And we also have the social return on investment. And what does that mean, as a surgeon that Rinoa, you have to have those things to carry on. And so one of the things that I would advise each and every social entrepreneur in the early stages that you should understand those metrics, you should understand how much social return on investment that you're creating with each and every product. So selling at a studio intrapreneur. And you should also benchmark on creating a return on investment. Because I believe without profit, there is no impact, you cannot create the impact you want to create in this world, if you cannot stand the profit. So we have to be profitable to be able to do the impact you want. And so I would encourage people, that is that at least an increase. Think about it as running a business, which is hard. And then on top of that, add on something, the impact that you have to create. And so that is one of them, or the other thing that I would think of would be start with the problem. You know, most of the times today, there are so many intrapreneurs, who think you can just add the social enterpreneurship part, when you go in, there is the thing we call authenticity, right? As an associate or printer, you have to be authentically about the cause that you're after. Because most of the times where now you can see so many situata printers that are just in the game, because if you label your organization, as a student, or as a social enterprise, you're gonna get clients. But what's going to help you stand out as, as a social entrepreneur in this age, is how authentic your story is, and be able and willing to share that story wherever you go, because that's what's going to help you stand out most of the decisions made the struggle to share an authentic story. But if you have one, please benchmark on that, share it. And I believe that will help you open as many doors and also open so many people's hearts to buy your products. And for me, I've seen it happening to me, my story has really opened up doors that I've never, ever, ever expected. Because it's authentic, I lived it and it resonates with my audience.
Paul Zelizer 43:21
Couldn't agree more Trinity. Sometimes, like you said, social entrepreneurship has really grown tremendously over the past 10 years, and I'm so glad. But sometimes it feels like people take you know, a product or a service that maybe didn't start off that it didn't it wasn't born in a social entrepreneur context. And they just like ADD, maybe we'll give a few percent of our profits to a cause. Right? Or you know, yeah, it's it's a story that isn't really getting people very excited. And then I hear from people that Paul, you know, it's social enterprise and but I don't understand it's not growing very fast, or, you know, my profits aren't going up what's going on and, and what you just said, Trini, to really make sure you've thought about your story, you tell it authentically, it's not just like, well, this is like a cool way to like, get your profits to grow. And therefore we're gonna like throw this on on top of something that wasn't really started this way that might not work so well. Because there's a lot of people like you Trinity where you started. Very clearly, I want to help a certain community, I have a unique idea to do it. Like that social enterprise that just kind of throws on I like we're gonna give 2% to a cause. But otherwise, it's just business as usual. They're gonna have a hard time in the marketplace of social enterprise because right now, there are a lot of kick ass social entrepreneurs like yourself, who have a more compelling story. So if you're, you know, if you haven't yet worked on that layer, like, don't just like, you know, put a green layer of paint on something like you may want to go and do a little deeper work and how does this relate to the DNA of your company that that would be some my vocabulary for what you're talking about. And I couldn't agree more, make sure the story is clear, it's baked into the product, you're comfortable telling it, you know, making something up trying to, like, get people to, you know, feel pity for you, and send money your way, like, none of that is going to work in today's social enterprise economy, that would have worked 10 years ago, it doesn't work now. So I love what you said. And those are some of the nuances I made out.
Emmanuel Trinity 45:38
Yeah, and if I could add on one thing, you know, all the things that really said, but those who people who are who haven't, who haven't actually started on the idea, oh, they have this heart for social entrepreneurship, but they actually don't know how to start. This is a very, very simple, you know, you know, way that I think everyone should think about such enterpreneurship if you look around yourself right now, in your community, in your workspace, in your, in your church, in your in your in your home, and you think that there's something that you're uncomfortable about, and you want to see change, maybe your agenda Panola, the original thing that people had to do, they used to start charities around those issues. But as agenda printer, if you have those things that make you uncomfortable, and you believe that this shouldn't be happening in our world today. Maybe you can design a business around it. And if I was just starting today, I will just look at any issue around me and see how can I build a business model around this issue? I think that's where I will start. So if someone is out there, they haven't figured it out. They are they Jenny, if this, if something is money in you right now, do a business around it, do a business to solve that issue. That's what I would say.
Paul Zelizer 46:56
Great suggestions. So today, I can hang out with you all day, and you're busy human. And our listeners are super busy, too. If there was one thing that you were hoping we were going to get to today, and we haven't touched on it yet, or there's something you want to leave our listeners with, as we start to say goodbye. What would that be?
Emmanuel Trinity 47:18
If one of our listeners listening in today, I would want them if they have a heart for Africa, if they have a heart for the underserved communities, please think about the potential that is in those communities, rather than hoping the people in those communities, so many times, people want to help, but they don't want to hope in a very uplifting way. So if you think about Africa today, I would love for you to think about a place where you can actually outsource your creative, where you can take your business where you can hire someone from because you are living in this global community. So think about it, think about Iran, it to think about bringing your work to Africa. That's all I have for you. Thank you so much.
Paul Zelizer 48:07
Thank you so much for being on the show today. And then,
Emmanuel Trinity 48:11
thank you so much for having me, Paul, this has been a great time. And we need people like you who can amplify our message to the world. Thank you again.
Paul Zelizer 48:21
So there'll be links in the show notes to their 92 site, cause artists podcast and all the books that we mentioned. So all that will be in the show notes listeners. Before we go, I just want to remind you, we love listener suggested topics and guests. So if you have an idea, and you'd like to say hey, we'd love to see an episode on blank, just go to the AWARE partners website. And on our contact page, we have three simple guidelines, what we're looking for, so we try to be really transparent. If you have an idea, please send it on it. So for now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.