EP13 - Nina Rauch (Lemonade)

Hi everyone, welcome to a good force, the show where we spotlight the moment that shaped the leaders behind enterprise impact, CSR and ESG, the people turning purpose into measurable change. I'm Ajayas Rashid, founder and CEO at Giving Force. Today I'm joined by Nina Rao, head of Social Impact at Lemonade, a certified B-Corp and public benefit corporation that has built giving into the core of its business model to a program called Give Back. Nina joined Lemonade straight from Cambridge where she had already proven she could build something from nothing and in pink week at the age of 16 after losing her mother to breast cancer, growing it to 10 universities and raising over $600,000 for cancer research. At Lemonade, she has scaled the Give Back program by over 5,000%, distributing more than $12 billion to 100+ nonprofits globally. She was named as the Forbes 30 under 30 list for Social Impact in 2025, her argument that the for-profit sector should lead on impact not because it's good for business but because it's a right thing to do is worth hearing. Nina, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. What an intro. Why you've done a lot. I was like, who are they talking about? Is there anything I missed? No, no, it's perfect. Thank you so much. It was a good feast to the day. Well, I feel like I should intro you back. Yeah, I'm not sure anyone's interested in that part. So is there anything you'd want to highlight along your journey that got you here or anything, you know, well, what I really like to start off with is getting something off your chest. The rant, the rave, the thing that you wish was or wasn't the way that it is. Have you gone and think for us? I do. I have a few things, but I think the main thing that jumps to mind is that younger givers are not a target audience for nonprofits. They are the main target audience for the for-profit sector. So we're constantly talking about Gen Z consumers, how to target the Gen Z market. But when you flip over to the nonprofit sector, the same conversations aren't happening and people are really underestimating the giving power of younger generations. And I think they're missing a key demographic that could really boost donations and could become long term donors. So that is the main thing that I really strongly believe in and I hope that will start seeing more of a shift of that perspective. And there's a lot tied up in the whole generation game. So yeah, we're still looking at more legacy donors or kind of retirement generation donors because you're assuming this is the key time for people to start giving back. But I think if the for-profit sector is so keen on young consumers, then nonprofit sector should be thinking along equal lines. I get it, and I'm bored into that. I mean, I guess that you have nonprofits that are thinking longer term in terms of not just, you know, maximizing the value from donors who, you know, are laid to stage in life, but how they bring a younger generation on board who will turn into that older generation at some point. That's an idea. So take us back to the beginning. You founded Pink Week. That was a very traumatic time. You know, what that must have been a huge learning lesson in life generally, but in terms of, you know, how you set up something scratch. Yeah, I think that Pink Week came across, which is kind of the same story for a lot of nonprofits. More of a founding of necessity. I didn't overthink it. All I felt was that I was a young person who had lost my mother to breast cancer. How come I'd never heard of breast cancer before my mother started advocating, campaigning for better research. And yet it's one of the most common cancers globally and specifically affecting women and now today we're seeing younger women also being affected more commonly with it. So to me, the two things just didn't make any sense and I wanted to start out with a very simple mission. It wasn't actually focused on fundraising. It was really focused on awareness and fundraising was more of an afterthought that happened naturally. So I started by just doing awareness stays at my school. I took it with me to university and quickly we realized that by throwing events where we raised awareness and also sending tickets, we could fund research trials as well and raised a lot of money and a lot of money quickly. And one of our events sold out and less than an hour raising 40,000 pounds within that hour. And this was all from micro donors, young people ages, you know, 18 to 21 or 23 giving around five pounds to 50 pounds. So yeah, I would say was very much founded out of necessity. And I think that's the same story for a lot of organizations. Yeah, I mean, nothing galvanizes you then, then, then, then I can need to do something or feeling you need to do something. Yeah, and that's slightly different now. I mean, I am here because I felt I needed to do something because stuff wasn't happening. Yeah. So it's a very founder mindset, actually, as opposed to a traditional, more traditional employee mindset. So you took that and you scaled it to 10 universities. So I mean, was that again, word of mouth people coming along from different universities again? And we want to do this as well, or did you go out there and say, hey, you know, we can take this wider. I think it's a bit of both. We were lucky that when kind of really brought Pink Week to life during university was also when social media was blowing up. So suddenly people were really present on Instagram, especially small businesses. And we were functioning akin to a small business. So as a mixture of social media, great publicity, I did some opinion pieces for the Guardian, which also helped generate awareness and also community. I had amazing, amazing friends who decided to bring it to their universities and who were inspired by the mission and the message. And I actually knew, apart from two of the universities, I personally knew most people who did kind of start their own local Pink Weeks because they were people I had known previously. So I really think like don't or another thing not to underestimate as the power of community when you're founding something reach out to those people who are ready in your network. Every founder and fundraiser will ask a lot of favors from their friends over many years to make sure that you have very, very good friends, which I'm lucky to have. But that was the true strength behind Pink Week. And I also had an amazing co founder who helped me generate press and publicity for it. So community was the biggest asset. Yeah, that whole comms community element always gets underrated. You can have any great programs, game campaign, but if nobody hears about it, it's not going anywhere. It's only as successful as the people who drive it. I really believe that you can throw an amazing event. But if nobody's there, it's worthless. So, yeah, I think it's really, I always say like the credit of Pink Week was every single person who attention and event or donated. That's what grew the community more than just the people who were leading in. Oh, yeah, thank you. So what was it about lemonade that made you think this is the place where I want to go next? I was looking to make the jump into the for profit sector. And I specifically looked at organizations that were public benefit corporations and becaus. Those were two models that I knew that if I was moving out of the nonprofit sector would still keep me in the impact space and in the impact sector. So I looked up kind of what was local to me in terms of becaus and at that time, lemonade was one of the few very successful becaus early stages of success. And I just loved their business model. I thought it was incredible that this startup had thought to include giving from the very beginning prior to even getting their first policy. They were a public benefit corporation and a B Corp. That is really, really rare. And I just, yeah, I fell in love with the business model. I fell in love with the people. I applied to work there so many times. I think I applied to different roles, marketing roles. I did open applications. I messaged countless team members on LinkedIn. I really kind of hunted them down until eventually my boss and also mentor at replied to me on LinkedIn and said, you know, come in for a coffee. But I just, yeah, I fell in love with them as a company and I didn't want to work anywhere else. Wow, you sound scary. I have to say. I guess I'm determined. Absolutely. So, you know, I need to be it's been great success both the company and you know, the program that you've been running there, the programs you're running there. What made what made it scale was it that because you was there from the start or you know, there must be some war stories, you know, the things that work, the things that didn't work along the way. Yeah, I mean, trial and error, but I would say that for me personally, the thing that has made the impact program so successful and grown it from $50,000 in donations to over $12 million in donations coming up to 14 million by the end of the year. Is because it was there from the very beginning, if it hadn't been part of the kind of the company from the start, I don't think it would have survived through profitability goals or IPO or changing political kind of background in the US and the UK and Europe. I think that that's why I'm such an advocate for impact programs being built into companies from the very beginning because it helps them survive. I think that that's really the key to growth because if you're building with this kind of idea of giving back from the very beginning, people start to feel that it's not. It's a reason that employees join. It's a reason that customers join. It's all they have known of the brand from the very beginning is that this is an impact on purpose driven brand. So to take that away later on is not a shift that most companies would risk. And that's why I really think that what lemonade got right and building it from the very beginning and I would love to see replicated because I think that's going to be our key to really successful corporate impact. Absolutely. 100% agree with you on that. You make it part of the business. It's no longer an optional extra. It's not nice to have. Just talking about the fact that you get push back from political or other sources. There's ESG initiatives that have been rolled back. CSRD being watered down. Accusations of green washing. No, I love it. Accusations of green washing more generally. More generally. No, I don't talk about generally. I should have got that bit in. What do you think? What's going to. Companies like lemonade are not changing direction. But what's going to separate companies like lemonade and others who are doing it properly with those that don't? Is it going to, you know, our company is going to not be not as successful as a result? It's a differentiator that will help companies that might have struggled in some ways. If they've got this embedded as part of their culture. Think that having embedded is super important. But more important is the strategy and the way that you think about it. If you're thinking of impact as more of kind of a nice to have and an afterthought, it's going to be very hard for it to stay with the company as it goes through this like ESG shedding or push back on, you know, purpose driven initiatives. I think if you're always thinking about it as something that you should be doing, that you don't really want to be doing, your customer feels that, your employee feels it, people don't want to buy into it. If, on the other hand, your strategy is this is part of our company. It's who we are. It's what we stand for. And we know that our customers care about it. We know that our employees care about it. That's going to give it legs. And that's going to mean that when, you know, your customer sees you putting your weight behind an impact initiative, they believe in you. And therefore they believe in this program continuing to be part of, you know, a product that they buy. So I really think that strategy is key. I think a great differentiator that lemonade does is that the impact strategy works closely with brand, finance, investor relations, comms, product, you know, our impact reports are a real labor of love from our design team and our product team and our product marketing team. So it doesn't just belong to those who deal with donations. It really belongs to everybody in the company. And that for me means that more people touch it, more people engage with it, and more people want to invest in it. And that feeds its way, you know, all to the top, which means that leadership also believes that it's something that should stick around. And yeah, I think like customers see through things very easily. Like you can tell if a company is just doing good or putting money because it feels like it has to. And then slowly, you don't hear very much about that impact program anymore. And you don't really know where their money is gone. And yeah, I think it just slowly fades into the background. So strategy is key. Definitely, definitely. So you mentioned that, you know, obviously you've nothing happens on it in isolation. So, you know, is there anyone along the way or any people along the way who've kind of helped you kind of acted as a mentor or, you know, you talked about the person who actually reached out to you on LinkedIn or responded to you on LinkedIn. Yeah, she's definitely a huge mentor for me. Her name is Al Wisner Levy and she was the first person who responded. My LinkedIn message when I reached out asking if lemonade was hiring. And it was her idea to have a social impact role. She had the foresight to see that this would be a key role for the company. And she's been a huge, you know, hugely important mentor for me and someone who I really. And grateful to have encountered and I think it's, you know, really important to have successful female leaders and mentors in your life, especially when you're, you know, in a startup world or in a new sector. So yeah, I'm really grateful to have fantastic. So there's there's like, you know, nothing comes easy. So there must be some facts along the way at lemonade despite it sounding like, you know, the perfect place to work. So can you share anything any of the challenges that you've had to come across? Yeah, I mean, trying to think like of them because there's always challenges, especially when you're dealing with social impact because it is something that you kind of continually need to sell. I'm trying to think of like a key challenge. I think without kind of getting into it too much, like kind of like you mentioned, the landscape over the last few years has changed dramatically. So understanding what it is that your customers still care about trying to communicate impact in a way that still relates to them and they don't find intimidating or jarring or dividing. Is something that every social impact lead is is thinking about in a new way in a way that we didn't necessarily have to previously and especially like, you know, ESG has become more of a challenging word when really all that is is being compliant like it's not. It's it's nothing, you know, more denture, you know, more dramatic than that. So I think it's a way of making sure that you kind of going back to this strategy that you brand your impact well. That I think is probably the biggest challenge and that will continue to change because we're seeing it go up and down all the time. And so you just have to be consistent and really know your customer and really know your your market. And so is it is it is it primarily focused towards externally towards customers or is it when we say customers we're also talking internally stakeholders directors shareholders. I would say a bit of both in terms of the funding are customers of the ones who influence our funding because they select a cause or a kind of a cause category. There's one of five categories that they can choose from and within those groups we do donations. So in terms of whether giving the actual money goes that's very customer driven and all communication around donations happens internally as well. But you need to know how to talk about donations to your customers when it comes to internal giving it's a lot more to do with volunteering and kind of how we do good for employees as a company of a role. So I do think there's a difference in it in approach. Yeah, no, absolutely as an example internally. How do you reach out to those people because it's going to be a challenge. There's so many things to look at on any given day. Yeah, how do you how do you cut through as local ambassadors or you. Well, we primarily use slack that's like on main channel. We have a channel called good karma where we share positive updates about social impact. Our employees obviously are very vocal on LinkedIn and there's a lot of positive sharing. I would say something that we also do is we do kind of either annual or by annual social impact surveys just to touch base to understand what it is our employees care about. So is there a cause you're passionate about name me a nonprofit that you care about and we also have the neighborhood fund, which is newly launched. It's a lemonade fund where every quarter we open up nominations to customers and employees to put forward organizations that they care about and we will designate a certain amount of give back funding to that. So that's something that will see employees and customers applying for similar funding at the same time and I'm really interested to see how that unfolds. But even our local offices have different identities like the office in Amsterdam is really sustainability. It's kind of sustainability focused and environmental course driven and I feel that from the employees. So it's kind of like I said, knowing your audience also applies to employees. Fantastic. Is there a you've got a lot of people around the world that you know wanting to go in you know the same direction but in slightly different ways. Is there anything that you you use as a north star to kind of go that you know we've got our strategy we're going to head towards that. Is there anything personally that you use to to go okay this is where I need to be doing next. I think the numbers that I'm always chasing is more people helped like that might sound obvious but we're very data driven and I keep a running tab of numbers of people that we've supported over the years broken down really specifically. So if we built a house how many people are living in that house if we donated a meal or food how many people benefited if we sent medical supplies how many people got access. So seeing that number go up is my goal. So for example, one of the projects that we've just centralized impact on is we were spreading ourselves very thin when it came to climate organizations. We supported around 17 different climate organizations and I really wanted to focus on water access as a key goal and I wasn't seeing that number move in terms of how many people were getting clean water year after year we were obviously growing we've I think we've hit 40. 52,000 people help since 2017 but I wanted to see bigger movement so what we've done now is we've reduced the amount of climate organizations were working with and we're really going to focus in kind of like in that effective altruism model on donating to clean water projects so I can hit a goal of at least 500,000 people donated clean water by a key date. And so I think seeing that number move is always the goal that I'm chasing and will continue to chase. Yeah, I am a data nerd. Yeah. Exactly. - Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, if you can't measure it, then how do you know you've made any? - Yeah, but you see so many companies talking about it and they say hundreds of people helped, thousands of people helped, and you kind of want to say, how many, where are they? Do you know that they received the support? Do you know that they received the access? So I think data is super important. - Absolutely, absolutely. So is that your main target for the coming year or have you got a particular project to use you, or the project that you're working on? - Well, we recently re-halled our give-back program. So we are trying to focus a lot more on prioritizing causes. So I would say my target for the coming years, making sure that we're maxing our impact in terms of people as much as we can. So what we've done is we've moved from supporting, we used to work with over 60 to 70 different organizations and we're actually streamlining that to fight. Like I said, these five key course groups, and I'm really already seeing the impact in amount of people we can help. So we'll see how this year unfolds, but that's my main target is to see, has this revamped worked? Are we helping more people? Is the money going further? - Fantastic. So anything, you've clearly come through a particular route into sort of the impact space and sounds like you've got a busy year, years ahead. Is there any advice you'd give to someone wanting to get into space? I mean, do they just need to turn into a stalker and get that position that they want? Is there any advice you'd share? - I think outside the box, I only thought that the trajectory for me would be non-profit work and I didn't really think about the for-profit sector and I didn't really believe that there could be truly impactful purpose-driven companies. So whenever I talk to people who are looking for jobs in the impact sector, I always say the same thing, which is look at a company and even though on the surface, it might seem, it might not seem obvious that they're doing good or that there's one person they're working on doing good. That doesn't mean that that role doesn't exist for you there. So really kind of think outside the box and impactful companies can take so many shapes and forms that people might not think of climate tech as a key company that they might want to apply to when they're looking for an impact role. But if you're part of a company that its mission is doing good, there's probably more space for you as an impact employee. So that would be my key piece of advice. - Thank you for that. So thanks so much for talking to us about scaling impact in some of our business. Now what separates a genuine business, trying to do good from those that maybe not and the lessons that you've encountered and learned while you've been on this journey. Nina, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for joining us. - Thank you so much for having me.