Sidsel Kristensen, CEO of the LEGO Foundation, on Playful Learning, Collaborative Philanthropy, and Building Impactful Partnerships

Hello and welcome to the Do One Better Podcast in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Alberto Legi from London. Please click that subscribe button and follow us if you're not already doing so and do leave us a rating and a review. It helps us to find this show as well. Today, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome onto the show, Cecil Christensen, Chief Executive Officer of the Lego Foundation. The Lego Foundation focuses on children, especially early years. They've granted out about 1.5 billion euros over the last few years. We'll be looking at a wide range of topics from their quality grant making to building the evidence base and amplifying that evidence base and amplifying the work of their partners across the ecosystem. We look at scale, we look at sustainability and not just within the Lego Foundation, but within the Lego Group as well. After all, the Lego Foundation owns about a 25% stake in the Lego Group. So you're in for a real treat. I'm very much looking forward to this conversation today and without further ado, Cecil, it's great to see you again and welcome onto the Do One Better Podcast today. Thank you so much, Alberto. It's a great pleasure to be here with you. Well, it's so good to see you again. Always this vibrant energy. So I'm thoroughly looking forward to our conversation today and worth pointing out. So you're the Chief Executive Officer of the Lego Foundation. And before we had John Goodwin joining us, when he was Chief Executive of the Lego Foundation almost five years ago. So it's really interesting to see that journey. I'm looking forward to hearing about that journey thus far. And for our listeners, I think most will be familiar with the Lego Foundation. Certainly, I think everyone will be familiar with Lego. But why don't we start about the foundation? What is the foundation doing? What's it all about? Yeah, and thank you for that. And I've also heard the podcast with John, which was really good. So but I'll just start to set the scene as you are leading to here. So the Lego Foundation is a corporate foundation. And we are the fortunate owner of 25% of the Lego group. So the Lego group's success is also our success because that allows us really to distribute funding to the children around the world. But we actually have two purposes. We have first of all a kind of a corporate purpose, could you say, that we are actually set up also to support the Lego group. And secondly, and that's what we are doing every day is actually to support children around the world and also funding research and education that indirectly or directly benefit children. So I think that's what we are all about at the Lego Foundation. And yeah, unfortunately, the Lego group is a very successful company. And again, that's also our success. So it allows us to do a lot of weight work. Yeah, well, you know, I grew up with Lego, I think as many kids do. I had buckets full of this stuff and I just remember thoroughly enjoying playing with these blocks. And then it wasn't later on until I became chief executive of the Novak Jokovic Foundation. And we focus in early years, early childhood development, early childhood education, where I realized the importance of learning through play and play isn't just something that's fun to do, but it's got really important consequences and how a child develops. And so I know your focus is very much in early years. I think that zero to 12 H bracket, if I'm not mistaken, give us insight into the thinking of why learning through play is important and why this is such an integral part of what you guys are focused on. Yeah. And you're right, we are focusing on zero to 12, but actually we honestly believe that learning to play that's a life skill. It's an approach and it's a philosophy to how you see life. And we were again coming back to how we were established. We were established by a very visionary owner family back in the 1980s, who honestly believed that every child and every human being should understand the importance of playful learning. And what we mean by playful learning is really how it engage you in life, how it engage you in learning, how it actually establishes the ability and the opportunity to be a lifelong learner. It also really helps you develop holistic skills like creativity, imagination and curiosity and your ability to collaborate and connect with other people. And that's the power of play. So that's why we're all about play. And of course we are about playing the ecosystem and in the foundation we know that play has a huge importance for all children around the world and adults. Yeah. Excellent. I love how you mentioned the ecosystem and you know you're definitely global and certainly the challenges we face are global as well. And we got children all over the globe. And so it's great to see that you're active across all four quarters. These partnerships that you have, the initiatives that you have, the programs, the grants, give us some insight into what those look like. Yeah. So, you know, we are working with a lot of different partners around the world and we have been through a strategy process and have now a very focused and stronger focus on our geographies and where we work focusing on children's series of 12. But we are still working across the globe and basically because we know that play is important whether you are a child in a refugee camp in Kenya or a child in Denmark and going to a public school where you are more privileged in many ways. Coming back to the partners and some of the partnerships we have, they are, you know, extremely broad, very diverse in many ways and I can mention some of these examples that I'm very proud of. And one of them is what we call the Danish Funders Alliance and that is together with the Nobu Nordic Foundation is together with the current First Foundation and Danish Foundation and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs where we are actually joining forces sending out 75 million two children in the northern part of Kenya and to the refugee camps and also up in the Kekilm Accounts where we are helping them solving the extreme complex situation that is there. You know, where, you know, the lack of nutrition is a huge topic, the lack of sanitation and watch facilities as a huge topic and the lack of education as well and play for learning as a huge topic. And we are then coming together as funders bringing in different kind of expertise and we are then funding education, Nobu Nordic is funding health services and the Kekilm refugee camps and and the Grundvars Foundation is funding sanitation and watch facilities and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is focused on, you know, the issues of climate and also bringing girls back to school. And I think by joining forces coming together we can have an extreme impact and really helping those children thrive as much as we can with our funding and also getting the buy-in from governments to understand what is needed, how do we actually integrate their refugees into the national system in Kenya which is also important. So that's the first thing and the first partnership that I'm extremely proud of and we have so many different partnerships but also just bringing like the diversity of what we do a second partnership as well is what we call the best start in life. That is also collaboration with other Danish funders here in Denmark where we have set up a research center focusing on the early years and the importance of the early years and how we actually educate heterogots and caregivers and teachers to understand how they approach children in the best way possible in the early years. Also coming in with the importance of nutrition, the importance of education, the importance of health services. So again bringing different kind of expertise together and helping elevate the game for the early years. So yeah. And in terms of bringing all of these different stakeholders together you mentioned some of the partners from other philanthropic foundations but also the government and getting them, you know, getting policymakers to understand how much insight are you able to share with other foundations with other governments, policymakers so that you really start fostering that ecosystem. What does that look like? Because many people talk about, you know, we need to embrace everyone, everybody needs to be included and so forth but there's more to convening than just convening. I know where it's you got to, if you want to move the needle, right? What does that actually look like? For someone like you who's running this incredible foundation, who if I remember correctly has funded, granted out maybe close to about one and a half billion euros over the last few years. It's an enviable position to be in but it's a lot of responsibility. Yeah, and I fully agree and it's a really really good question also for a very difficult question to answer and many ways because it looks different in the different contexts we are in. But first of all, I think for us it's, we are first of all a grant maker. We are working through partners and the partnerships are extremely important. It's a way to actually gain knowledge, understand the context we are in, understand the learnings but the partners, the grantees are the ones who has the knowledge and we can bring our expertise around learning to play but really how we collaborate and work together. That's how we build the evidence, how we actually get the learnings. And of course that's to some extent based on the reporting we get from the partners but also how we set up the meetings, how we build the construction. communities across the partnerships, we just approved a new grant called Play to Drive. That's actually a grant with five different partners involved in that, in different contexts, and then we have a learning partners as well. So bringing that together, building the evidence, and then we can use that evidence to actually inspire the government to what is needed and how can you actually move the need less well. Because end of the day, we need the government by and we need the. the by and from the communities to ensure that we actually build sustainable models. So a lot of it is really about learning, and also the humbleness about, you know, not everything will succeed, and I think the learnings from the failures are also important. Okay, where should we actually adjust the grant making? I think having those dialogues are so critical. And then we can play a role again, again, together with our partners, to amplify the work of our partners, and to share it to the world. And that's also a big role that we play. Yeah, you took the thunder for my next question, because I was going to ask you about amplification, but I'll build on that because you said you're building on the evidence, right? And I always just think that's fabulous. Like if you can build a body of evidence, that's so important. Now, the evidence itself, I'd love to talk a little bit about amplifying that in its own right as well, because it's great to build a body of evidence, but if policymakers are not aware of it, or they just can't get their head around it, because they either don't have the time or the sophistication to genuinely understand it, how do you communicate what the evidence says to all of those relevant policy makers and stakeholders, A, so that's one bit. And then the second one is, yes, how do you help amplify the message of your partners, because they're doing some remarkable stuff all over the place, they may not have the capacity to communicate the way you folks at Lego are able to communicate. So amplification, that's the thrust of this question. Part one about how you communicate the evidence and part two of those partners for you have on the ground. And really good question again, Elb. So I think, first of all, of course, we can use the brand, and as you are leading to, the brand gives us so much leverage in itself. So when we share something, whether it's on LinkedIn or on our website or two partners, then already there, we have a lot of buy-in. So we can use that in a really positive way also to move the needle. And we're also happy that our partners share that they're working with us if they can help them build and get the buy-in from governments. And then I think, and we have sometimes in our sector, it can be extremely complex, and the problems we're trying to solve are extremely complex. There's no doubt about that. But I think we also need to share it in simple language so that the governments, the world doesn't think that it's the amount of problems that we have in front of us, are enormous, and they can actually also kind of make you think, what does it matter? But it matters. We need that action. And I think if we can share that in simple messaging, that can help as well. And also coming back to our, I was meeting with the Education Minister in Kenya. And he was saying, and I think it's also those connections that are extremely important that we can actually meet and as CEO of the legal foundation, you actually, you can get these meetings as well. And it's definitely not because of me, but it's the role I play. Then you can get those meetings that are important. And then you use that as actually, you know, get the buy-in, also having the discussions about understanding what are the issues that they see. And he had worse about, you know, do we call it learning to play, or do we call it something else? Because what he was saying, if we call it learning to play, then it becomes difficult to get the buy-in from the teachers, the parents, etc. because they don't always think that when you play it, then you learn. And I said, you know, doesn't matter what we call it, it's the approach that is important. It's about making learning, engaging and motivating for children. And you can call it whatever you want. So I think again, it's those discussions and dialogues that are extremely important to understand what context we're in. And of course, the partners will have them because they are also on the ground. But if we can help and support that message, it also really helps a lot. Yeah. So I'm trying to do that as well. Wonderful. Is that a hurdle that the way you're framing things, or the way we frame things in the early childhood space, this learning through play? Do you find that that leads to a bit of headwind or apprehension or.? I think in general, there is much more buy-in to play than you saw it like five years ago. I think I was just at UNGA speaking to a lot of different ministers, also with the education minister from South Sudan. She was saying, you know, speaking to, you know, she was really speaking to the importance of play. And it's just so great to see that play is plays an important role in their minds as well. For a lot of different education ministers. And in society and also the understanding and the need for helping children become creative engaged and able to solve their huge problems we have in front of us. I do think there is an obstacle and we even see that in Denmark. With parents sometimes, you know, if you play, do you then learn? We see that with some educators as well. So I think that sometimes, you know, it's about language. It's about getting the understanding that it's not just play because of the sake of play. It's actually play because we think it's a better way to learn. It's an approach to see life. We also know that play can help traumatize children, deal with their traumas and help them actually thrive in the world. So we know all of that. And we can try and amplify that message even better. But for me, it's not about it for us. It's not about what we call it. But you're right. Sometimes it is a little bit of an obstacle. What do we mean? And we can, yeah, we're trying to broaden like that messaging around what do we actually mean? And why do we think play is important? And I think most will buy into that. Now for us, it might seem intuitive for you, for me, that learning through play, yes, it makes sense. But if I go to your website, there is an abundance of research as well on the merits of this. Not just the intuition, but the evidence base there from highly regarded sources. How do you go about making sure that that body of research keeps on increasing? And that it goes out there. So we are finding different kind of research institutions that are also, you know, those importance of play and helping that now also with new technologies, how do we actually make them even more playful, et cetera, and engaging for kids. So we are, you know, putting it on our website. But we also ask our partners to share their knowledge and engage with the different stakeholders around the world. We have many huge grants who Brookings as well. They are doing a lot of policy work about the importance of ensuring that children play are engaged and motivated in their learning. Process Brookings is, you know, well known and very well respected. Think, think. And, you know, just to them, we can actually also elevate our messaging and our vision and aspiration. Now you got a million things going on here. Always sounds very exciting. So I'm going to ask you a question that's maybe a little bit unfair. But it's something that you're most excited about. You know, it sounds to me like you're, you have this dream job to be perfectly honest with you. What makes you, what makes you lose sleep over the excitement of the stuff that you're either doing or you will be doing or could be doing. Yeah, there's so many things that makes me excited. But first of all, I think you're right. I have a dream job and working for the Lego Foundation and being in such privileged situations to be able to help and support our partners making a different in the world. That is what makes me extremely excited every day when I go to work. And also being part of an ecosystem where I'm working with an extremely visionary owner family who also wants to make a difference in the world. That's an extremely privileged situation to be in and makes me very proud and also humble in many ways. Because we have a, we are sitting on a lot of money and we need to ensure that it goes out to the right causes. So it's also like it makes you extremely humble as well, but also very grateful. And then, you know, I'm excited about the Lego group success because that's also our successes. I was saying and then I'm truly excited about the work of our partners like I was in a refugee camp in Kekuma as I was saying to an in Kenya. I was visiting South Africa earlier this year, but being together with the partners that are really the ones on the ground making a difference for the children. That makes me extremely proud and extremely excited and also again extremely humble because these are the change makers. They are the ones who are there for the children and are making a difference. And I think that's incredible to meet those people and of course seeing the children that benefit from that. That makes me truly excited. And then just as a third thing, every day when I go to work, I meet the extreme passionate staff. I have in the organization that makes me truly excited as well. And I think also very, very proud because they are, you know, the people. And the reason for why we are here, they are the reason for what the work we can do, and that's also something that truly excites me. I remember being at the Lego offices a few years back, and it is just the energy and the feel. You feel like you're in a little playground somehow, and people are doing amazing stuff. We extreme the privilege by the campus, the Lego campus, and the offices that we have, and that makes you very proud. Now, I have to give a little bit of constructive criticism because I think you used to have these little business cards, and the business cards were like a little Lego person, and in the back it would say, you know, John Goodwin, Lego CEO or something. I think you may have done it away with us. I'm not sure, but I remember I used to have quite a few of those Lego business cards as it were, these little Lego people on my computer when I was running the Novak Jokovic Foundation, and I thought they were great, so if you have done it away with them, bring them back because they always put a smile on me. It's a good call. Unfortunately, they've done it away with them, but maybe we'll rethink it now. That's a good call. Good. Now, you mentioned the Lego group, and you're considerable stake in the Lego group. I think 20, 25%. 25%. 25%. 25%. Business, in my view, but I think increasingly so as well, people recognize, you know, if we're going to meet the challenges from the sustainable development goals, climate, without business is just not going to happen. And so in your case, you are not just a philanthropic outfit, but you have this really consequential integrity within the Lego group because you're a big shareholder there as well. And Lego doesn't just exist as a brand, but like I mentioned at the start of the conversation, everybody has these little Lego blocks and so forth. How can you leverage your position in a corporate space to really work in favor of the global sustainability agenda and make a change through that pathway as well? Another good question. I think the collaboration we have with the Lego group is unique in many ways because they can open a lot of doors for us because they have a huge platform where they reach children every day. And the more we work together, the more we can actually create impact for children the way we work as well. And a good example of that and also, you know, focusing on the sustainability goals, etc. is a collaboration called the Responsible Innovation and Technology. And that was actually a project together with Junicef, the Lego group, and us about creating the best way to design tech solutions for children. And how do we ensure that they are engaging? For children, how do we ensure that they give them agency? How do we ensure that they are still social and that they also are creative when they engage in different kind of tech solutions? And that's one example about coming back to how do we ensure quality in the work? We do, how do we work together and partnerships is also one of the sustainable goals, right? So that's just one example. But, you know, in the Lego group, they have a lot of volunteers in the work we do every day and they are also helping us thereby, you know, in locally on the ground volunteering in different kind of settings and in different kind of projects that we are engaged in. So we really benefit from the work for us they have as well. So that's a huge privilege. Yeah, the talking of technology, my kids have this, we have this little virtual reality meta quest, visor. And there is a pretty cool game, which is a Lego game. And basically you can build Lego building blocks and Lego structures through virtual reality, which seems completely mad. But I think it's really cool. And I've tried it out actually. So I can see actually once the costs are coming down of all of these things, you know, the conceptual beauty of Lego. And this does like unplugging Lego, but I'm just speaking of somebody who's a big fan. You can, I can see how you can leverage that in so many different settings. Yeah, that's, yeah. And, and, and that is something we use as well. Of course, we are much more than the Lego brick because, you know, it's not always that that's involved in our, our, our projects at all, you know, it's, it's all different kinds of projects where we really look at the context as well. But part of it is also like distributing Lego charity boxes to children and want to work that benefits and, and, and want to engage with the Lego brick and, and we're proud as well. Yeah. Indeed. So the last time when, well, when John was on the show, when John Goodwin was on the show and he was chief executive of the Lego foundation, that was five years ago, or almost five years ago. And that was on the eve of COVID-19. It sounds so far away. And that strategy, you know, when you, you've come on board fairly recently, what do you, what do you have in mind for the strategy going forward and perhaps this is just anchored for that 2030, which is the next five years, right? It's not, not that. So we have a little bit of visibility to the last five years. What do you want to go in the next five? What's your thinking now that you're, you're running things at the foundation? Yeah. So what I alluded to before was, of course, I'm more focused approach because we, we are very focused on creating impact for children. So we are coming from doing good and not saying that we didn't, you know, that we didn't also achieve impact by that. But now we want to build the evidence more about how we create impact. We want to make it, you know, have, you know, build our framework for how we create impact and outcomes for children and get the learnings from that in a more structured way than what we did in the past. And so that's one thing that we have now built a huge, like huge, but a kind of a framework for how we create impact and what are the indicators that we are looking for. So that's one thing. And then of course, part of that is also the quality now, grand making, like focusing on that. And also with the context-driven approach, because we want to work with the local partners and it's like we will still work with the global organizations, but also to high extent with local partners that are more community-based and that can help like changing the local community in the place that they work and where they are. So I think that's also a big part of what we are striving towards. So it's impact, it's context and it's learning to play, of course, but based on a context-driven approach and then its quality in our grand baking, then a big part of it is also how do we ensure that that the work we do is sustainable and also built for scale to some extent. Not everything can be scaled, but if we bring that approach, that that's part of how we work as well and what we fund, then I think that's a lens to have when you work with the agencies and then sustainability pieces is probably one of the most challenging things in philanthropy and general. I think we have a lot of money, but we cannot fund every project forever. So there needs to be an exit at some point and how do we then ensure that that exit doesn't mean that the work we have done is just doesn't continue after our exit. And I think that's very much on my mind, I think on every funder's mind, how do we bring other funders on board? I think that's the partnerships that we build with other private funders is extremely important for me as well when we look into 2030 because we cannot change the world alone. We need to work together. And then sustainability, how do we get the government buying, how do we get the community buying and how do we get buying from other private funders who might want to take our projects and that's again coming back to the evidence building. If we can show that it works, then that becomes easier. Yeah, absolutely. That's scalable, that sustainable, you know, those facets are very important and difficult, right? Especially the sustainable angle. You know, it's so difficult to find those opportunities where you can come in, make your impact, move a little bit so that others can come in and also do things or the project and itself becomes self-fulfilling, you know. Exactly, it's extremely difficult. But it shouldn't be like a barrier to do work because not everything will be sustainable and sometimes, but then you learn from it anyway and then you can maybe apply those learnings in a different projects that then become sustainable. And I think a huge role replay in philanthropy is also taking risk being innovative and creative in our ways of working and that's what we can do in philanthropy and I think we have a huge role to play that as well. Taking more risk is also a big topic for me, like funding new projects and seeing how they go, we know that some of it will fail, but that shouldn't be an obstacle in itself, yeah. Yeah, well, I love the risk appetite. I always think sensible risk taking is a good thing. You used that phrase a few minutes ago, "quality in grantmaking." And without getting too technical, but I know a lot of people listening, that will resonate with them. It's like, "Ooh, quality in grantmaking." Okay, tell me more. Tell me more. What are we looking at here when we talk about quality in grantmaking? Yeah, so I think this. some internal piece of it in the way we build our processes where we can actually, you know, we have set up an internal review group that can challenge a grand idea and also really challenging buckets sometimes to ensure that, you know, the money goes to the right courses and end of the day goes to the children. So how do we get value for money? How do we optimize that? And I know it's a buzzword, but it's just having those, you know, lenses as well as important. And then of course, quality, I also mean learnings and building the evidence in the way we work and build that community of partners where we actually learn to get them. I think that's also a huge part of quality now when making. Yeah. The risk appetite, this one thing to be a chief executive and have the risk appetite, but you sort of need a little bit of an environment that's going to be conducive to that, right? Because if you're bored and you're execs and everybody's sort of like completely risk averse, you're going to be having a challenge. So I gathered by the fact that you're where you are and that you have this risk appetite, that you are within an environment that is also somewhat aligned with your risk appetite as well, right? And you remember that's why I have a background as a lawyer. So when I'm saying risk, but it's so true, you know, because I think that is the way we can move the needle. If we don't, if we always fund the projects that we have been funding for many, many years and, you know, with the well-truisted partners and, you know, the partners that have been there for many, many years and who are big and global, then we are never really taking any risk in many ways. And so I think also going more to local partners is a risk because they have, they don't have the setup, they don't have the backbone as some of the big partners. And in itself, that creates risk. So we need to help that and, you know, we can work with intermediaries that can help with system strengthening et cetera. And that's also an approach to it. I think that we will take definitely and help them actually do the best work they can do. And then I think, you know, we are in an environment where we want children to be risk takers, build resilience and be creative. And you are not getting there if you don't sometimes take risks. So I think that you should try to live even though for a lawyer it can be kind of challenging, right? But, but I honestly believe in that I'm a very practical lawyer. I love it. Well, that's the sort of lawyer you need, right? You need that not to always going to say no to everything, but the one who's going to think about how we make the deal done. Yeah. That's it. That's it. The journey? How did you end up where you are? I mean, it's not normally you don't think if you do law school, you're going to end up running a family. Well, sometimes you do actually. Yeah. And so, you know, I have, you know, I come from a background where both my parents were teachers and, you know, everyone I knew was kind of in the family was teaching or doctors. So I think, you know, that that's had a huge impact in for me as well. And and and the way I saw life like, you know, growth mindset in many ways, you know, you need to learn, you need to be educated actually to achieve something in life. I ended up in law more or less by coincidence, went into, you know, working as a lawyer for like, I guess 16 years or more, became a partner doing MNA. And I've never really been that person who had made a career plan. So everything has just kind of developed over time. And then I was approached and was asked if I wanted to join currently, which was the holding company of the co-crisons family. And I joined that company back in in 2016 and was doing MNA, being part of the leadership there, team there, and then moved in to also the foundation and was appointed as a board member. And I that was kind of where it all got together in many ways because I still, you know, had that huge passion for education, making a difference for for children. And so that was yeah, three years ago. And then I was asked whether I wanted to be the CEO. And I was like, yeah, I like challenges. And that's, that's, you know, why I'm here today. And I really truly love that. It's it's it's it's it makes me proud as I'm as I was saying before, you know, to be part of an ecosystem where you also get opportunities and where, you know, you're working with the next green division area family that honestly really wants to make a difference in the world. And that's what gets me up in the morning besides all the great employees that I have in the foundation. Wonderful. And I'm delighted you decided to make that that shift into the into into that chief executive post at the foundation. I think it's great. And I love the fact that you mentioned you never really you're never one of those people who had a career plan. And I have to tell you I understand that very, very well. And there is something to be said for having a little bit of a healthy taste for ambiguity and not necessarily knowing exactly what you're going to be doing 40 years from now. I agree. I think it's so important that you actually just sometimes go with the flow and and just learn and just I think that's really what I try to give to my children as well. A growth mindset that you know challenges are only opportunities. And I think we can all learn from that and then have an open mindset and being you know willing to learn because you know I landed as the CEO and I truly enjoy it. But I also came into the role with a very open mind that I needed to learn every day. And I spoke to a lot of different CEOs in different organizations both in the business and also in philanthropy and learn a lot from them. I also learned and I still learn a lot every day when I speak to to the staff in the organization. And that's I think that's what yeah again gets me up in the morning and how I develop. And also from feedback because I think we all need that kind of feedback. And the thing is that there you know this it didn't really resonate with me. What do you actually mean? And I think that that approach that we have in the organization is extremely important that that people can come and actually have an honest discussion and open and transparent. Absolutely absolutely. And if we go full circle you know we're looking at the early years it's about having those strong fundamentals right not being highly prescriptive about everything but just just get the foundation right. Yes I fully agree it's extremely important yeah. I wish we had more time I really do. So you're going to have to come back on this show. I would. But in the meantime let me ask you a key takeaway what's that one thing that you love for the audience to keep in mind after they finished listening to today's episode. So if I'm allowed to say two things about so then first up the importance of playful learning you know for everyone especially in the early years we know that there's actually you know I'm also having a commercial background here so a 13% return on investment if we actually invest in the early years and playful learning is a key way to actually help children build their resilience. So that's one thing. The importance of playful learning the importance of playful education for everyone is so important and the next thing and the second thing is collaboration. I think we need to collaborate both inside our organization across teams but we definitely also need to collaborate across the board between different funders coming together we cannot change the world alone it's not about funding my project or your projects it's about funding our collective projects together and really moving the needle it's about looking up looking out and joining forces. I love it Cecil thank you so very much for joining me and joining us on the new one better podcast today. I can't tell you how enjoyable it was today looking forward to our next chat and here's to your continued success I hope you do great things. Thank you so much Elberta a great pleasure to be with you today thank you. Perfect and that's our app thanks very much for joining us you've been listening to a great chat with Cecil Christensen Chief Executive Officer of the Lego Foundation. For information about this conversation in more than 250 other interviews and case studies which remarkable leaders in philanthropy sustainability and social entrepreneurship just visit our website at leg.org that's l-i-dj-i.org please click that subscribe button and follow us if you're not already doing so and do leave us a rating and a review it helps others to find this show as well. Thirdly enjoyed producing today's episode for you and I very much look forward to catching up with you again this coming Monday.