We turned 2!
How many things can a 2 look like?
Last week happened so fast we barely had time to blink before it was over, but we officially turned 2 last Thursday, which (as the co-founder) is pretty great to see.
In case you didn’t know. We launched in 2019 after years of me freelancing, and were in a pretty okay position to carry on as we were when the pandemic hit, despite the turmoil surrounding us. Nov 2020 rolled around and I spent our first business birthday in lockdown celebrating with some Hetty’s Brownies on the sofa. It was a small moment but I felt grateful we had survived the year.
This past year has looked very different - November to April was spent largely in various forms of lockdown, and then the world started opening up a bit more, and with it we got a bit busier. Olly joined me in April to help to move things forward and we’re currently in what I keep referring to as a test laboratory ‘phase’ that I don’t think we’ll ever really move out of, as there will always be new things to learn. While having lots of chats with people we do and don’t know just to say hello and see how we can help each other out.
This has been tricky as an introvert, I’m inclined to just shut myself away and crack on with what’s needed, not really wanting to shout about what we’re doing but rather just hoping it’ll show for itself. However, I recognise the value of putting yourself out there, so we’ve had to learn to do it in ways that feel comfortable and right for us, and so, we test, in our imaginary lab.
One thing that I wanted to mention for sure is that it’s incredibly worthwhile seeing the impact of our work from the last year or two.
I wanted Kireli to exist to create a positive impact in the world and to inspire other startups, nonprofits, charities and B Corps to do nice things. We are a small business right now, and a young one at that. But already, we’ve been a part of Good-Loop’s journey in raising £3million for charities which is truly amazing. We’ve also had the opportunity this year to see our work indirectly help to improve the health and wellbeing of over 800 people who are living with dementia as well as supporting around 500 people working in care homes, alongside a project for the University of Exeter. A project that’s also been close to my heart, as my mum (the lady who this business is named after) was a carer in a care home, and my grandma in Finland also has Alzheimer's. We’ve also worked with the National Literacy Trust this year to design their series of Connecting Stories books through which we’ve helped to turn over 500 children into published writers with stories and letters written throughout the pandemic in 2020.
It feels so so heartwarming to know that nearly 2000 people have most certainly been positively impacted from our work (that’s not even counting the ripple effect of the work Good-Loop have contributed to).
That doesn’t include the teams working on these for good projects and our work with them to collate all of their hard graft into something with a life of its own, that they can feel immensely proud of to look at and shout about themselves.
It doesn’t include the people who have felt the relief of knowing their loved one is benefitting from more support in their care home. And it doesn’t take into account all the parents and grandparents who felt pride at seeing their little ones writing and drawings printed in a real life book after such a tricky year trying to balance life, work and homeschooling.
And those are just three of the projects we’ve been a part of this year.
I don’t want to waffle too much. But I’m so proud, I wanted to do this shout out about reaching this little milestone as it has been a struggle recently (growing pains and finding our feet) but it’s oh so worth it to look back and see what we’ve helped to make happen.
Let’s see where the lab takes us in year 3.
