Max Friedman didn't set out to build one of the most widely used fundraising platforms in the nonprofit sector. He and his two co-founders, Ari Krasner and Leon Cohen, started with a simpler observation: the tools available for people who wanted to raise money for a cause were either expensive, hard to use, or both. And the fees were rarely transparent.

That was 10 years ago. Today, Givebutter has processed nearly $10 billion in donations, acquired nonprofit media brand We Are For Good, launched financial products for nonprofits, and is pushing past 150 employees with plans to hit 200 by end of year.

Friedman joined the Disruptors for Good podcast to talk about the journey, the hard stretches, and what the next decade looks like for Givebutter and the broader nonprofit tech space.

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Disruptors for GOOD is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet.

Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention.

By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

The technology for harvesting critical minerals from the ocean floor has barely changed since the 1960s. Big tracked vehicles.

Vacuum dredges. Sediment plumes.

The same architecture, decade after decade.

Oliver Gunasekara looked at that and saw an opportunity.

He's the CEO of Impossible Metals, a deep tech startup building a fleet of autonomous underwater robots designed to collect polymetallic nodules from the seafloor with a fraction of the environmental disruption of conventional methods.

On this episode of Disruptors for Good, Oliver walks through the technology, the regulatory landscape, the environmental tradeoffs, and why he thinks the first commercial deep sea mining operations are closer than most people realize.

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Disruptors for GOOD is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet.

Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention.

By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.

Grove Collaborative is one of the most ambitious experiments in mission-driven consumer commerce of the past decade. Founded in 2012, it started as a subscription delivery service for eco-friendly cleaning products and grew into a publicly traded company with a $1.5 billion peak valuation.

Along the way, it became the world's first plastic-neutral retailer, earned B Corp certification, and pioneered transparency tools no other retailer in the category had attempted.

Then it nearly fell apart.

From 2022 onward, Grove faced declining revenue, a delisting threat, an executive overhaul, and the painful acknowledgment that its flagship environmental commitment, 100% plastic free by 2025 — would not be met.

The company has spent the past two years rebuilding: operationally, financially, and strategically.

This case study covers the full arc.

The founding thesis, the growth decisions that worked, the ones that didn't, the financial turbulence after going public, and how Grove is attempting to rebuild as a leaner, more durable business without walking away from its core mission.

Full Case Study

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Disruptors for GOOD is powered by Causeartist, a nonprofit media company dedicated to bridging the gap between capital and culture by spotlighting founders, investors, and organizations reimagining how business can serve people and the planet.

Through storytelling, events, and open-access education, Causeartist helps create a shared language of impact, inspiring more founders to build with purpose and more funders to invest with intention.

By amplifying ideas and innovations across industries, Causeartist transforms awareness into action and cultivates a community where paying it forward is part of the foundation for growth.