Most charities sell need as a way of winning donations for their cause. By contrast, Krizevac Project starts profitable businesses in areas of need to fund work which benefits the poorest of the poor. Our approach is a tough love: our enterprises sack people when they steal and we actively close down failing enterprises because we believe there is no love without truth.
Hand Ups not Hand Outs
You’ve heard the old expression “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime”… well Krizevac Project not only teaches people to fish but, to carry on the metaphor, starts a fishing bait and tackle shop, a fishing rod factory, a fish market and fish transportation business: there’s a whole new economy created around Krizevac work. The process of funding is a humanising part of our solution.
Krizevac Project enterprises provide enduring income for education, family support and other development. The not-for-profit enterprises powerfully multiply benefit from donations and address the worst problem in deprived cities: unemployment. The Krizevac approach to development is business-like and yet people are still at the heart of this: everyone who works is a creator.
Donations can be demeaning, enterprise creation makes them empowering. In a transaction, the seller and buyer are equal. In contrast, unless it is as a solution to a disaster or terrible problem, there is inequality in a donation which can take away human dignity. We engage in compassionate transactions across the breadth of our activity and seek to serve communities as customers rather than belittle them as beneficiaries. Krizevac Project’s enterprising initiatives do not reject profit but use this for a higher goal than individual gain. Profit is not an end in itself, it is the means by which social benefit is funded.
