When Martyn Ryan spent ten years travelling the world on a motorbike, he saw first hand how humans are hard-wired to help each other.

He marveled how those living in subsistence economies traded goods to help each other and to get what they need. In India, he was amazed by the generosity of some of the poorest people on the planet.

Fast forward to today, and Ryan is immersed in the fast-paced world of internet start ups. Yet helping others, and enabling others to do the same, remains his focus.

Ryan has taken charity online. His web site, Benojo, is a single cloud-based portal where charities, businesses and individuals can connect. Charities can describe what they do, and what they need. And businesses and individuals can offer their services and resources.

“Benojo set out to build the world’s first dedicated philanthropic marketplace,” said Ryan.

Ryan said businesses and individuals can offer all manner of things on Benojo, including volunteering, money, knowledge, or even influence. And charities can describe what they need on the site. Benojo provides a space where charities and businesses and individuals can ‘find’ each other, bring the two parties together, and manage the benevolent work they do together.

Benojo offers the ability to transfer funds, schedule volunteers, or simply communicate between givers and givees.

“We give the businesses all the tools they could ever need to actually contribute, so they can give them their payroll, or they can donate, or they can organize volunteering, or they can fundraise, and it’s all in one place,” said Ryan. “It’s all very simple.”

Aidan Beanland, marketing manager of Benojo, said, “We’ve seen in some big organizations that the CEO might have agreed to get involved, but by allowing employees to request charities that matter to them, the uptake and employee engagement just goes through the roof.”

“To keep your employees engaged means less staff churn, attracting the right people, especially millenials who are much more interested in a company’s ethical standpoint,” said Beanland.

The other key feature of Benojo is the reporting function, where all a party’s good deeds are tracked and stored online, and can be packaged up and presented in one place.

“Everything they do (on Benojo) is captured,” said Ryan. “It’s all in one place. It’s really really simple.”

“The beauty of it is,” said Ryan, “that they can share all of those outcomes, all of those stories, all of those things they’ve done with their customers, and with their communities, and it positions them in the eyes of their key stakeholders as contributors.”

Ryan hopes users will take a long-term view, so that over the years they can build significant contributions. He anticipates that one day everyone will have Benojo on their phone or their desktop, with a profile showing what they’ve given, or what they’ve received, how they’ve collaborated, and what the outcomes have been.

“We want Benojo to be where your philanthropic profile’s stored and shared,” said Ryan, likening the engagement to that of LinkedIn.

Benojo is not a charity itself. “We are a for-profit company,” said Ryan. “But our primary existence is not about us making money, it’s trying to help other people make a difference in the world.”

Ryan believes Benojo can improve the way the real estate industry is perceived.

Even small real estate agencies in local areas can have a significant impact on the community, he said. “We can provide a method by which real estate agents can support their local area and have a direct and meaningful impact,” said Ryan.

Beanland said the franchise nature of most real estate businesses also fits well with Benojo, because the work of individual offices can be rolled into a single report for the region or group.

“If everyone in the franchise group is using a common system,” said Ryan, “they can roll it all up and say ‘look what we’ve done in Victoria and NSW and Queensland, look what our people have contributed’.”

Little Real Estate is an early adopter of Benojo. The company, Australia’s largest privately owned real estate group, is hoping to give employees the tools to contribute to causes that are important to them.

David Little, engagement manager Little Real Estate, said the Benojo model provides a framework for the company to make charity work easier and more effective, but also to show you have a caring organistion.

“There are disparate efforts going on around the place,” said Little, “but they’re not being coordinated and seen clearly by everyone internally. This platform allows for everyone to see there’s consistency of this attitude.”

Little said Benojo ‘uses a familiar language to our workforce, and it’s making it (charity work) very accessible to them.”

“When the company itself has a caring theme and wants to change the industry, it’s vitally important to have a way of establishing and substantiating that focus,” said Little.

“I think we’ll probably be able to be a little more focused in our giving and also I’d like to think we can have an impact in areas that are related to our essential service, things like homelessness” he said.

“It’s a new space,” concluded Little with enthusiasm.

Benojo seems to be turning our innate benevolence into real charitable giving.

www.benojo.com

Read more:

Laing + Simmons provides counselling for stress, depression

Real estate agents raise $133,000 sleeping rough

Local filmmakers take animal-friendly estate to a global audience

Real estate helping the community