This year on International Women’s Day (March 8), I’m reminded of the incredible power women hold as builders. Builders of businesses, communities, opportunities, and change. On Friday 6 March, I spoke to a room full of businesswomen at the Whangarei Business Women’s Network. In preparing for my talk, I realised the message I most wanted to share is the same one I want to offer to social entrepreneurs and charity leaders across the world:
You do not need to chase purpose.
You can live it, right where you are, with what you have, today.
This wasn’t always obvious to me. My own understanding of purpose took shape slowly, beginning when I was teenager and ran across a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson talking about ‘What is Success?’ The end of that quote says success is:
“… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived—this is to have succeeded.”
At the age of approximately 10, I cut this quote out and tucked it into my wallet and carried it with me for 25+ years. Those words quietly shaped how I viewed contribution, success, and what it means to make a difference.
As I’ve discovered over the years, purpose rarely arrives with fireworks. More often, it forms in the small decisions we make long before we realise how significant they will be.
Where Purpose First Took Root
I grew up in a family where generosity wasn’t talked about. It was simply practised. As a teenager in my tiny community of 900 people, generosity meant giving time: delivering meals, mowing lawns, helping families after hospital stays. Time was easy to give then.
But money? As I started earning money, and eventually a salary, I found giving away money was a lot more challenging. Money was measurable. Money was finite.
And then I met my husband, probably the most generous person I know. He’s someone who stretched my understanding of giving simply by living it. His example planted the first seeds of a more expansive view of generosity, though I didn’t know yet where it would lead.
Business Success… and the Questions Behind It
Fast‑forward a few years. In 2004, after moving to New Zealand, I founded my PR agency, HMC Communications. The business grew. Awards came. Our clients expanded. It all looked like “success.”
But inside, nagging questions kept resurfacing:
Is this what a successful life looks like?
Is what I’m building actually making a difference?
Is anyone breathing easier because of me?
My husband and I, both business owners, has no kids, but we were building up savings and investing wisely. But we kept asking ourselves the uncomfortable question:
What are we building all of this for?
We wanted our lives to count for more than what we were accumulating in our bank account.
The Spark That Changed Everything
In 2017, while attending the Global Leadership Conference in Chicago, we heard social entrepreneur Liz Bohannon, who founded Sseko Designs, speak about her journey to Uganda and the business she built to help women in that country access education.
Something clicked instantly when we heard her story, which included a generous person helping her by buying her a plane ticket to Uganda so she could go find her purpose.
I scribbled in the margin of my conference booklet and showed Rod:
“We should fund and support people like that!”
Rod looked at me, and without saying a word, I knew he felt exactly the same.
At that moment we realised it wasn’t a cause we were searching to invest in. It was people. The brave, early‑stage social entrepreneurs who needed someone to believe in them at the very beginning.
We wanted to be the people who bought the plane ticket, provided some sound business advice, connected them with others who can help. For social entrepreneurs who were starting business ‘for good,’ we wanted to walk alongside them.
The Beginning of All Good Ventures
So, that was the spark that led us to establish All Good Ventures in 2018 with one goal:
to equip early‑stage social entrepreneurs with the business support, mentoring, and start‑up funding they need to turn purpose‑driven ideas into high‑impact ventures.
That first year, we started out with only $10,000 to give. But we coupled that with a lot of effort and favours from others!
Yet even small beginnings can grow into something extraordinary.
Since then, All Good Ventures has supported 25 entrepreneurs across 15 countries, and their collective work has already impacted more than 375,000 lives. And we’re aiming higher: our big, audacious goal is to see 10 million lives positively impacted by 2030.
And because big dreams can’t fund themselves, in 2018 I made a decision many people still find surprising:
I turned HMC Communications into a social enterprise and committed 100% of its profits to funding All Good Ventures.
This decision wasn’t easy. It still isn’t easy! Generosity is rarely comfortable. And let’s be honest . . . the little “greedy monster” voice often surfaces and whispers:
“You’ve worked hard.”
“You deserve this.”
“Why give it away?”
But I intentionally keep choosing generosity. And as I do that, the ‘greedy little voice’ gets a bit quieter. And something far more powerful takes its place:
Alignment.
Clarity.
Peace.
A sense that what my husband and I are building finally reflects what we believe.
Five Lessons for Anyone Wanting to Live Their Purpose
Whether you’re already running a social enterprise, leading a charity, or simply dreaming about the impact you might one day make, here are five things my journey has taught me:
1. Stop fretting about “finding purpose.”
Purpose isn’t something you discover after years of searching. It’s found in the small, everyday actions you take with the intention to do good.
2. Don’t wait for the perfect moment.
“I’ll give when…” is a trap. Start where you are, with what you have. Someone is waiting to breathe easier because of your decision.
3. Your purpose doesn’t have to be huge.
World‑changing impact often begins with supporting just one person, one business, or one idea.
4. Not everyone will understand your choices.
And that’s okay. Your purpose is yours, not theirs.
5. Expect doubt. Expect wrestle. Give anyway.
Generosity isn’t meant to be effortless. If it cost nothing, it wouldn’t change us, nor would it change those you are looking to help.
A Call to Those Building Something Good
If you’re reading this because you feel the pull toward purpose, toward giving, building, leading, launching something, then here’s my encouragement:
Lean into what moves you.
Start with what you already have.
Decide whose life will breathe easier because of you.
You don’t need to reshape your entire business model, like I did. You don’t need to fund entrepreneurs in 15 countries.
But you can choose generosity that stretches you slightly beyond comfortable.
Because I believe our world needs more courageous, generous people. People using what they have to make life better for others.
Today, I know this: success is not what we accumulate. It is what we release.
And if even one person breathes easier because of how you lead - - then that is success.