David Laity - Where there's a Goodwill, there's a Good Way

Black Saturday will always be remembered as one of the worst days in the history of Victoria.

But it should also be remembered as the day that David Laity was forced to think about his life, and his purpose.

His media production company AND side hustle were both destroyed by the horrific fires which burnt so much of northern Victoria, and took so many lives.

He and his partner were literally was left with nothing except a small amount of possessions, and their dog.

Thanks to the generosity of so many Australians, charities were able to give essentials and money to the victims to help get them back on their feet.

But David decided to take a different path.

Instead of buying essentials to get back to normality, he decided to use the money to start a business which was designed to give back, and raise money for the charities which helped him out in his time of need.

And so, Goodwill Wine was created.

Goodwill wines rescues high quality wine which has been bottled, but for some reason or another, hasn't been sold and is sitting, gathering dust in the back of a vineyards warehouse.

Often, It's something as simple as the wrong colour lid was used, and other times, the company who ordered the wine has gone out of business, leaving the vinyeard with a surplus.

David hand chooses each batch, re labels them, and sells them on his website goodwillwine.com.au

Each purchase raises money for a charity of the buyers choice
and recently Goodwill Wine celebrated reaching the $500,000 donated milestone.
You read that correctly, HALF A MILLION DOLLARS!!
Unreal isn't it!!

It's a beautiful confluence of good outcomes, and we love it so much.

David is a good guy, and I'm so glad we got to interview him on The Good People Podcast

Make sure to jump onto the Goodwill Wine website and take a look at some of the things they have done. It's so inspiring.
https://goodwillwine.com.au/

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Andy: Welcome to another episode of the Good People Podcast brought to you by In Other Good News. My name is Andy and on this show I get to talk to some very good people but they don't always have good wine and that's why we're bringing this particular individual into the studio today. He's the founder and CEO of Goodwill Wine.

[00:00:21] Andy: They have raised over half a million dollars. And so I wanted to get him in today to tell us all about what they do and how we got there. David Laity, 

[00:00:32] David: welcome to the show. Thanks, Andy. Good to be here. 

[00:00:34] Andy: And David, it's great to have you here. We've only recently crossed paths. And we've got mutual friends and they said you've got to talk to him because he because he's doing such amazing stuff.

[00:00:47] Andy: So I looked into it and I was like, holy moly, this is unreal. Half a million dollars. 

[00:00:52] David: Yep, half a million dollars this year, yep. All of that from wine. That's it. 

[00:00:56] Andy: That's unreal. So what I want to do, I want to talk about first, if we talk about what Goodwill Wine is... We'll talk about what it is, what it does and the impact that it's having and then we'll talk about how you got there because that's a story in itself.

[00:01:07] Andy: So maybe you want to give us a bit of what is Goodwill Wine? 

[00:01:10] David: Well, we're a certified social enterprise which certified social enterprise means that you're either employing people who face barriers to employment or you're passing on 50% of your profit to charity and. We're that second one, we pass on half our profit to charity and our customers tell us which charity to support and we do that by selling wine online and we've got about 300 charities that we support, Australian charities.

[00:01:37] David: Wowzers. Yeah, and our customers, when they make their purchase. Tell us where they want so they can choose where they can choose Yeah, as I yeah as they do it in real time They tell us where that that money's gonna go 

[00:01:47] Andy: So as I buy the wine they get to choose where they go and what sort of charities like what kind of things do you?

[00:01:53] Andy: Support what 

[00:01:54] David: kind of things that people support? Well, there's it's open to to any charity or not for profit you know, we can even support a really good cause if if it's a couple of kids kind of going over and Hiking up a mountain to support a particular charity. We'll even support them. All right big charities little charities Small little kind of Facebook groups.

[00:02:18] David: We do, you know small as I'm just thinking off the top of my head and at rescue they rescue it out areas They've got a little closed Facebook group of about 5, 000 people. I guess that's not too small But we've raised about 6, 000 for that that group and bigger organizations like animals Australia, which would be you know One of the largest charities in Australia One and a half million followers on, on, on social media and Australian Marine Conservation Society, Sea Shepherd, the Orangutan Project.

[00:02:45] David: Orangutans, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ever saved a whale? Yeah, we've saved 12 whales. Which is fantastic. And, and, and in fact, that's, that, that story led me to. Begin kind of hunting down what it is and that's probably the wrong wrong choice of word hunting down But to to looking into further what it is the charities we supported doing A few years ago Sea Shepherd was in the Southern Ocean Getting in the way of the Nishin, Nishin, Nishin Maru, the the Japanese Kind of processing boat and the Japanese fleet was, was out there catching whales.

[00:03:19] David: And the idea would be the, the, the Sea Shepherd, the Steve Irwin would, would sit in the slipway stopping the boats from unloading their catch. And if they couldn't unload their catch, they couldn't go out and catch more. Yep. And you know, we paid for fuel for four days of them sitting there stopping the whaling fleet.

[00:03:35] David: And so she, Sea Shepherd, you know, told us that we'd, we'd. Put our money into diesel fuel and I was like, oh, well, that's kind of really diesel fuel. Yeah, you know I'd like something a better image in my head of Where the money's going, but the reality is that, that, that paid for that ship to To be there.

[00:03:52] David: To be there and stop, stop unloading. Wow. So, yeah. 

[00:03:55] Andy: That's unreal. So half a million dollars and all of this from wine, I guess the question is, what's the wine? Where do you get the wine? 

[00:04:03] David: Well, they're, they're little parcels from boutique vineyards all over Australia. When you say little parcels, you mean like...

[00:04:08] David: When I say little parcels, I mean, you know, we'll buy as few as 10 cases, if that's all the vineyard had. So whereas the big online wine companies will go in and, and, and they want to buy an entire vintage. Sure. And you know, I guess that's just the size that they operate at. Whereas we'll go in and if, if that vineyard ran out of labels on their vintage and...

[00:04:29] David: Ended up with, you know, 40 cases left over, unlabeled. They end up sitting in, in you know, fruit boxes in the back of the vineyard for years to come. Yep. Just gathering dust, because they're not in the business of selling unlabeled wines. Yep. But these are their own wines that do sit in their cellar door with labels on it.

[00:04:47] David: So, we'll come in and, and, and kind of salvage those wines. We'll, we'll, we'll try them. If we like them, we'll... We'll put them online and, and inevitably we put them online at a lot cheaper than, than the cellar door. 

[00:04:59] Andy: Yeah, cause you were saying, you were telling me that, that the wine, often the wine that you're getting is, it's premium wine.

[00:05:05] Andy: Yep. Just without a label. Correct. Or it might have a like a wrong coloured 

[00:05:09] David: lid. Yeah, yeah, so we've just taken a delivery of a It's not quite a pallet I think it's about 46 cases of a wine that was going through the bottlers and the bottler had stuffed the lid up and and put on this electric blue lid and They found the mistake before they went too far into into Into putting the wine into the bottles, but there were 46 cases down the track before they found the mistake and and and And this was a wine destined for an international sale and, and it's a 35 wine Cab Shiraz actually.

[00:05:48] David: And, and the vineyard, you know, that's not what the client from that vineyard wanted. The lid was incorrect and so they couldn't do anything about it. So I'm, I'm, I've grabbed that wine. It's a stunning wine. So I've got that. And we, again, you know, I've. We've just taken delivery also of a wine that's got a cork in, which is now unusual for an Australian wine.

[00:06:09] David: Most of them are Stelvan. Stelvan, the caps, the caps. And this wine was destined for America and an American client who went out of business. And so the vineyard was left holding the baby and, and, and, You need a home. You need a home and we've taken it. So, the wines come for all sorts of different reasons.

[00:06:28] David: That might be a, a premium vineyard, just didn't get the vintage that they expected for their 60 P& O, but, you know, they, they, it's a 40 P& O all day but that's not the business they're in, they're in the business of a 60 P& O, and so, we'll come and salvage that, and we might stick that online for 24, and...

[00:06:46] David: Yeah. It's still a good quality wine. Absolutely. Yeah. It's like Wine Rescue. That's it. 

[00:06:50] Andy: Yeah. 

[00:06:51] David: Saves it from going down the sink. Well, I wouldn't be throwing a 40 Pinot down the sink, but it saves it from sitting gathering dust in the back of a shed and, and, and, you know, these wines sit in almost every single vineyard around Australia.

[00:07:03] David: Is that right? Yep. 

[00:07:05] Andy: Everyone has a little bit lying around that they need 

[00:07:07] David: to do something with correct and and just the quantities aren't there for for the Big online players. Yeah. 

[00:07:12] Andy: Okay. So then you get a bottle of wine Often with no label or a wrong colored cap or something and then you relabel it. Mm hmm Goodwill wine.

[00:07:20] Andy: Mm hmm And then you sell it through your website. That's correct. And your website is actually, I opened up here before, so goodwillwine. com. au which you can head to and have a look at the different wines there. And I think the main, the main message that I'm getting from you here is, and I see with the, you know, we see some awards and things written up the top here, but you've got connections within these wineries and they are, they are seriously good wines.

[00:07:45] Andy: But they just have your 

[00:07:46] David: Goodwill label on them. That's right. Yeah. That's right. So we've, we've just picked up an Arnis from the Yarra Valley, which in fact the vineyard, I've convinced them to take the labels off two pallets of a 2012 Museum wine. It's a stunning wine. Yep. And you know, taking labels off wines.

[00:08:06] David: Kind of fairly traumatic exercise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's probably not easy No, but you know, that's you know, as I said the wines come for all different reasons, but you know, they're all they're all really nice Yeah, well you do you try them? Oh, absolutely. Yeah before you put them out So 

[00:08:21] Andy: you're always happy with them 

[00:08:22] David: before they go out.

[00:08:23] David: That's that's right Most of the wines go down the sink quite frankly And that's probably the hardest thing about the business is getting back to a vineyard and saying hey, you know Thanks so much for Thinking of me and thinking of charity, but yeah, yeah, it's maybe not as didn't cut the yep. Didn't cut the grade.

[00:08:39] David: And yeah, it's kind of, I guess, bittersweet tipping something down the sink, but I'm, I'm kind of, you know, that's one of the, the little perks of this job is I'm surrounded by some really nice wine. And so I'm not going to drink something for the sake of drinking it. Yeah. Not drink a whole bottle if it, if it's no, no.

[00:08:57] David: So, so unfortunately, yeah, most of it goes down the sink. 

[00:09:00] Andy: Yeah. So I guess now, I mean, now that we know that, You know, you can save an orangutan or a whale or many other causes just by drinking your wine. I want to talk about how you got there, like, how did you start? Goodwill Wine. When did it happen?

[00:09:18] Andy: How did it happen? 

[00:09:20] David: Yeah, well, that's kind of the origin story, I guess. So I've, I've since being an adult, I've always been a volunteer. Right. For various, various different things. But on Black Saturday I, I had the misfortune of the home I was living in burnt. Burnt down? Burnt down. Right. And I had the good fortune of not being at that house at that time.

[00:09:48] David: So my partner at the time and I were We're at respective Bucks and Hens parties for two separate weddings in, in Melbourne on, on that Saturday. We'd signed a lease on a, another home up in a little town called Hamlet, I guess, Tulangi which is up near King Lake and the house we were in was in Chum Creek.

[00:10:13] David: That's near Harrietville. Well, it's kind of, if you drew a line between Healesville and King Lake. You'd, you'd probably be drawing the line through Chum Creek and, and we were deep in, deep in the state forest up Mount Alexander. And, and, and so it you know, the fire came through, we got the call your house is burning we tried to get back, couldn't get back in you know, I don't think we probably, I don't think we would have lived if we had have been at.

[00:10:47] David: At that property. We, my partner at the time was firefighter with the CFA in Marysville. And she had the, the, the wherewithal to take our dog to the new property, which we felt because we knew Saturday was going to be a shocker. 

[00:11:07] Andy: Oh, so in, so in Foresight. 

[00:11:09] David: In Foresight. Yeah. Took the dog out.

[00:11:11] David: She was kind of smart and, and, and figured out that, yeah, Saturday was a bad day. You know, catastrophic day and, or earmarked as a catastrophic day. And we took the dog up the mountain to the new property, which. You know, had this beautiful English garden, you know, manicured, completely manicured, beautiful.

[00:11:33] David: And and, and, you know, her call was, was correct because the fire ended up jumping over that entire property. And continuing to burn its way towards Tulangi. And consequently the dog the dog survived. Which is fantastic, yeah. 

[00:11:50] Andy: Yeah, but pretty much everything else didn't like everything else you lost everything else.

[00:11:54] Andy: Yeah. Yeah, so you lost I guess you lost more than Just your possessions, right? Like I mean you moved to a new place, but you I mean you said you were 

[00:12:04] David: you were a film I was a filmmaker. I had a little TV show on Foxtel Independent film and or independent TV show and, and, and so I had, you know, gear that, that went Like camera equipment.

[00:12:17] David: Yeah, all that kind of stuff, sound equipment and, you know, tripods and, you know, what have you and, and, and lighting. And, and, and so you know, TV doesn't wait for anyone. And, and, and, you know, I guess I was faced with a situation where I needed to reinvent myself. Yep. And, you know, I just received so much help all that money that people put into tins all over the country.

[00:12:42] David: Oh, so all the tin rattlers? All the tin rattling, all those tins that were sitting on shop counters. After the fires, yeah. After the fires and, and, you know, most of the people listening right now will have popped in some change into those tins. Well, it actually found its way to people and, and the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal gave us 15, 000.

[00:13:04] David: Yep. Which was massive to to help you restart. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of other help as well There were people who opened up, you know, big warehouses Lindsay Fox kind of Facilitated, you know a lot of people being able to go and walk through a warehouse and pick out kind of Linen towels and shoes and and so we got we got to do that But yeah, we got we got fifteen thousand dollars and and that That was significant, that, that helped us get started again and so I made the decision rather than replace.

[00:13:43] David: Everything that was lost to begin helping the charities that, that helped us. And so we kind of had this idea of, you know, my partner at the time was working in a boutique wine store in the Valley. And we, we had access to lots of really nice wines and we kind of thought, well, let's, let's start with the charities that helped us and see how, how it goes.

[00:14:08] David: And built a website, got our first batch of wine and. Yeah, it took off from there. Yeah, right. 

[00:14:13] Andy: So you already had connections in the wine industry? We did. And you, so you got this money from Red Cross and you, you know, were very thankful for, for what you got, but you said you also got like food and assistance with clothes and all sorts of stuff.

[00:14:26] Andy: Correct. So you sort of got set up. To a basic level. And then they'd given you this payout and you said thanks so much, but let's create a business. That then helps to give back 

[00:14:37] David: to the charities. Yeah, so we've turned that 15, 000 into half a million. Yeah, which is, 

[00:14:43] Andy: I mean, that's unreal. Yeah. And I love that story because then you went and salvaged wine and then gave profits 

[00:14:51] David: to...

[00:14:51] David: Yeah. Yeah. So we're kind of providing solutions for vineyards where, where so many people buy wine online. Yep. We're giving people an ethical kind of choice and we know our wine's every bit as good as any wine that they're buying online. Yeah. For the same price. Yep. And, and so, you know, why not?

[00:15:11] David: Yeah. Well, exactly. 

[00:15:12] Andy: Like, and it, like, you sort of, it's killing two birds in a way because, you know, it's You're salvaging something that's been made, that's good quality, and you're also helping someone at the same time. Well, 

[00:15:25] David: charities as well, so, you know, there's three. I think 

[00:15:28] Andy: that's beautiful. Now, the other thing you told me was an interesting thing, was that you actually had started, you wanted to start a different business, and it all burnt to the 

[00:15:36] David: ground.

[00:15:37] David: Yeah, so, so a few weeks before the fires I was thinking about, well, I was more than thinking about, I'd, I'd had some pool balls turn up. That I'd sourced from overseas. When you say pool balls, we're talking like... We're talking billiard... Billiard table balls. Yeah, pool balls. Pub. Pub pool. And instead of bigs and smalls and solas, I think the, you know, what did you call them?

[00:16:01] David: Singlets. Ah, singlets and skivvies, I called them. Singlets and skivvies. You know, you had, you know, Coopers, Coopers Green, Coopers Red, two is old, two is new. So, beer branded. Beer branded. Billiard balls. Yeah. Yeah. They were beautiful. Yep. And they turned up and they burnt in the fire and in, you know, in the washup of it all, I decided I wanted to help charities get money, not beer companies get richer.

[00:16:29] David: Yep. And so basically the wine is not that different. A concept from the pool balls. It. Putting a badge on something and yeah getting it out there. Yeah, 

[00:16:42] Andy: right So and that that ended that the end of the film Industry career and the the billiard balls idea or the pool ball idea, but that's it But some would say put you in a you know position where you get to do a lot more good Absolutely feels a lot better.

[00:16:59] David: Yes. Yeah, it feels it does 

[00:17:01] Andy: Now, something else I want to touch on because feels is, I mean, that's a great segue. Feeling good is one reason why a lot of people start charities. They want to feel good. They want to do some good but charities and especially the sort of social enterprise and those sort of things can be challenging.

[00:17:21] Andy: They can be really challenging, right? And I think it's really important we talk about this because sometimes, you know, we've talked about you raising half a million bucks. And that's unreal, and you've helped so many people and saved orangutans and whales and whatever. But from here, like, we've got to talk about this other, another part of it, which is the sustainability of these kind of programs.

[00:17:42] Andy: So, can we rewind to when you started this business? You told me that your, the relationship that you're in, that wound out, wound up. And so, you actually... Moved out of where you were living. I did. Do you want to tell us about that part? 

[00:18:00] David: Well, not too long after the fires. The relationship did fall apart.

[00:18:06] David: And I ended up moving into the warehouse that, that the wine was in. And it was a, an old cheese factory in, in Coldstream. Incredibly isolated. There was no houses. It's within a good kilometre of it and it was just this tiny little, odd little industrial zone, I guess you'd call it, but just a series of sheds on a fairly large block of land.

[00:18:32] David: And so I lived in there for, for the best part of three or four years rolling out a swag at night. The room I lived in was off where the wine was stored in this seriously creepy rundown warehouse. And and the room, it was about five foot ceiling is where they obviously kept their cheeses. And so freezing cold there was just a, there was a shower there, but it didn't have hot water.

[00:19:03] David: No kitchens or anything like that. So just a little camp, camp stove and, and, and certainly for the first few years of the business, I was working a second job part time job and and, and that money was what was. Going to the charity. That was the donation. So, so we I figured, you know, right from the get go that starting a business is going to be pretty hard.

[00:19:30] David: Starting a business that gives 50% of the profit's going to be even harder again. Yeah, real hard. And you know, it was entirely possible that the business might not be making any profit. And so we factored in a dollar amount into each bottle. And so it made it that the charities got paid first, and then we would scramble to try to sell enough to, to get our money back, or at least to cover our wages.

[00:19:55] David: And certainly for the first few years, whilst the donation was, was increasing the tally to all the charities, there was no income being generated through the business. Yeah. So 

[00:20:07] Andy: often, like, I mean, revenue equals donation, but it doesn't always equal... Profit. Correct. And, and so they, the, the charity is always getting their donation because of your commitment to the charity, but it often means for want of a better word, you're starving yourself.

[00:20:24] Andy: Correct. And so what kind of a person, 

[00:20:30] David: Laughs 

[00:20:31] Andy: What kind of a person says, I'm going to sacrifice Me first for for this business, you know 

[00:20:38] David: what like well if you ask my accountant, that's a fool. Yeah In reality, it's kind of what I've got. I've got a young daughter. I My priority is is her obviously even over the business, but I want to I want to raise a child who's kind and clever and You know, if you can't be clever, at least you can be kind and and I want to set an example also I think most of the problems in this world are driven by the relentless pursuit of profit above all else.

[00:21:14] David: And so I want to be part of the solution, not the problem. I want to run an ethical business. And I guess it's just, you know, what sort of person do you choose to be? I had faith in the business that it would grow. And like all businesses starting, it's going to take a little while to get there. 

[00:21:35] Andy: Yeah. It takes a while to get there.

[00:21:37] Andy: And the cost is. Yeah. So. Let's think about the balance or the difference. So if you've got a lot of startups, a lot of startup businesses, they may raise capital on an idea. Mm hmm. And that, that capital that's raised covers wages for the people that are going to help build it. Correct. So in those environments, when it fails, people still got paid.

[00:21:57] Andy: They still got paid to work. I've been in environments like that before. It's okay. I mean, it's still stressful because you still wanted to work, but you still get paid. In this type of business and in many ways we're doing similar things you have to put the charity first as part of your commitment.

[00:22:16] Andy: Correct. If you start a social enterprise and you pay everyone first and then the charity gets paid last, often you don't donate anything to charity for years. And that's not a great look for a social enterprise, is it? 

[00:22:28] David: No, you can't do that. Mm. That's, that's, that's. It's unreasonable. Yeah. I 

[00:22:35] Andy: guess it's kind of hard to call yourself a social enterprise if you're not actually 

[00:22:39] David: donating money to it.

[00:22:40] David: Well, you know, it's pretty curious. There's a lot of businesses out there calling themselves social enterprises, or at least Pitching themselves as businesses doing incredible things out there in the community and leveraging that social enterprise feel in their business and big businesses are doing it and you know, I won't name brands, but you can turn your TV on and watch ads right now where, where, you know, businesses are saying green, green, green, a hell of a lot, and they're running a green filter all over the video and then, you know, what are they doing there?

[00:23:17] David: They've got some recycled plastic chairs at the front of the shop. Yeah. And, and, you know, the, the, this marketing spin and, and in fact, that's doing damage to, to the public's perception of social enterprise in general, I think, you know, at the same time, there are some very big businesses doing some amazing things out there and, and, and pivoting and, and, and beginning to do more and more and it's because customers are actually demanding it.

[00:23:46] David: And so. Yeah. You know, in some ways, businesses are moving faster than governments in, in trying to solve a lot of the problems. 

[00:23:55] Andy: Yep. I do love the way a lot of businesses are putting that focus onto, let's call them green projects. Like the legitimate ones are actually really good. And when you're, if you're a big corporate and you can sign a big check.

[00:24:07] Andy: And it's, you know, it's, it's part of the way the business wants to run and that they can just go and do that. They can make a huge impact 

[00:24:14] David: quickly. Absolutely. 

[00:24:16] Andy: Someone like us building something from scratch, it's harder for us to make impact quickly. We're still making impact and it's, you know, it's more, it comes directly from an ethical sort of side.

[00:24:28] Andy: And I guess you've got to make those decisions at some point. You know, like how do you make it sustainable? Versus how do you continue the, the 

[00:24:35] David: good work? Well, it's, it's, it is, it's a balancing act and, and I took on some investment a few years ago. Right. So I did a, a round of angel investment. In particular one, one man contacted me originally from Melbourne, had tried the wine, was living overseas.

[00:24:54] David: And had embarked on several years of what's called impact investment and so had built up a successful income source for himself and had decided that, A lot of the future investments that he would make needed to actually be doing something to help in one way or another, and whether that be funding employment opportunities for prisoners coming out of jail, or, or, or even, you know, funding new technologies to convert seaweed into edible food for, for livestock that, that decreased, you know, emissions this, this man, Had, had invested in, in, in an extraordinary amount of social enterprises, basically, and, and, and I ended up just being one of them.

[00:25:52] David: But the question is, you know, there is someone who wasn't starting a social enterprise, but perhaps was having a far greater impact than, than I could ever have. Yep. By, by supporting a number of, you know, businesses like myself. Yeah, to, 

[00:26:08] Andy: to 

[00:26:08] David: keep you going. So maybe that's a, maybe that's a really legitimate path.

[00:26:13] David: Maybe, maybe, you know. Go hard and and, and then with that income. Yeah, 

[00:26:21] Andy: you're in the industry of wine. Wine is a natural product. It has to grow. You know, we've got a lot of climate. Climate will always be a factor. Climate change will be a factor, I guess, for wine over time, it has to be. These are the sort of things, I mean, you're salvaging stuff that was made that something, effectively something went wrong, we'll just say loosely.

[00:26:46] Andy: A lot of where I'm really thinking a lot these days is around selling stuff for the sake of selling creating and pillaging earth for the sake of selling. It's really got me thinking about what products and things that we should... Make and you get targeted all the time in this area through Instagram ads and things like that.

[00:27:07] Andy: I get targeted all the time Here's a way you can use. This is the latest one. Here's a way you can use AI to find products That's that people want to buy and then set up a store real quick and it'll sell heaps and then you'll sell heaps Yeah And that's the whole model and people are jumping on this because they want to quickly set up a store and sell heaps And I'm like, where's the there's no purpose in that at all.

[00:27:32] Andy: They don't even care what they're flogging. They just want to sell something To make money. People have to make money and we use stuff all the time that are just stuff that is made to be sold. Just more and more it's like, do we need to keep just taking from the earth, from resources and all that sort of stuff just to make stuff to sell that people don't necessarily need, you know?

[00:27:56] Andy: Have you any thoughts on that? I mean, like I say, you rescue wine, so it's already made. Mm hmm. I don't know. Is it a, is it an area that you think about as well? Like... 

[00:28:07] David: Look, I, I think again, it's, it's all a really fine line. It's, it's, that feels to me like the relentless pursuit of profit that, that feels like you're contributing to a problem, not a solution on the other hand.

[00:28:24] David: You know, what if, what if someone did do something really successful by selling, selling, you know, flashing doorstops or glow in the dark tent ropes or, you know, and, and, and, and then what if they then took that money and. And turned it towards something kind of really powerful and in fact, you know, generated far more for charity than I have.

[00:28:49] David: Yeah. So it's, you know, there's, there's two sides to that. Yeah, 

[00:28:52] Andy: absolutely. To that coin. And there are some views and some circles of giving that say earn as much as you can so that you can give as much as you can. Hmm. So by earning more. You've got the ability to give more. 

[00:29:06] David: Yeah. And that's valid. I think there's, there's, there's validity in that.

[00:29:11] David: I guess it just comes down to what, what's your end game. Yeah. 

[00:29:16] Andy: What, let's go, let's go top end of town. What about Bill Gates? 

[00:29:20] David: Well, I don't know about Bill Gates or Elon Musk or, or. You know, any of these, these, these people I know kind of there's, there's a lot of talk about Twiggy Forrester signing some sort of an agreement whereby the bulk of the money that, that he's made will, will go to charity as, as is the case with, you know, the Walmart guy, I believe in America is effectively given away his fortune.

[00:29:46] David: In the case of Bill Gates, I don't know. There's, there's, there's a foundation and it just depends on what you believe when you. you know, look at your social media feeds. 

[00:30:22] Andy: Oh, well, I know he's works on a bunch of different health. I don't, I'm not intricately connected with his work and I guess my angle for the question is he's a man who at one point was the richest man in the world.

[00:30:35] Andy: And now some circles will celebrate his giving because he's given in the billions now, I think. He's given in the billions and people say, well, that's amazing. Thank you so much for the gift of this billions of dollars. On the other hand, you don't become the richest man in the world without. Taking something from everyone and so here lies the issue I guess with that end of town is that you can I don't think you can celebrate that end of giving without Acknowledging where he got it in the first place So who has funded Bill Gates from day one?

[00:31:07] Andy: Well, it's average Joe average Joe has funded him and corporate computers, whatever So I reckon it's a really interesting topic and I was really just pressing your buttons on that one 

[00:31:18] David: Yes I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure really about, you know, this, I, I think, I think I do feel that that level of wealth is obscene, it's, it's, it's truly obscene and, and completely unnecessary.

[00:31:37] David: And so, yeah, they need to be. giving a whopping huge chunk of it back. I think, you know, when you get to these large corporations and, and, you know, what did, what did Apple pay in taxes? In Australia, I believe it was the equivalent of a... A nurse pays in taxes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah? Yeah, it's not much. And, and so, that's disgraceful.

[00:32:03] David: Yeah. Yeah. So, again, you know, just this relentless pursuit of profit and these really clever people who, who, I guess a large sway that they would say is completely fine because you're playing in the rules. Yeah, that's right. But, you know, beyond the rules, there's also ethics and there's common decency and, Yeah, that's right.

[00:32:22] David: And, you know, is, is, is, life isn't just about winning. Yeah. And, 

[00:32:28] Andy: and, you know, they can afford the best accountants who know the rules and all that sort of stuff. Average. the average person can't. So we, you know, we're, we're doing the hard yards, I guess, proportionately compared to what we earn. And so I think this, and where I'm heading with this is I think it, it makes people like you really special because you have self sacrificed for the cause.

[00:32:50] Andy: You haven't been the millionaire, the ultra millionaire who's then thrown a bit of it aside to a charity. You've someone who's actually dug in. Lived in a warehouse in the freezing cold. You were saying, you were telling me you were the first to work . Yeah. And the last to leave. Yeah. Was it a 

[00:33:07] David: secret?

[00:33:07] David: Like it was a, yeah, it was a secret. I'm just kind of thinking, I hope the landlords aren't listening to this. Oh. But then it doesn't matter because, you know, I'm long gone from that warehouse. Yeah. Yeah. I then moved into another warehouse that I was living in. Yep. Yeah. I, I, because I wasn't meant to be there I, I had to be the first business.

[00:33:25] David: To work and I had to be the last business to leave and and consequently, you know, I'd be up at like 5 in the morning Yep, so there were other businesses renting. Absolutely. There are other people in the surrounding warehouses and adjacent buildings and And so, yeah, I got this reputation as the hardest working person on, on, and, and effectively I probably was because you're up at five o'clock, anyone could walk in and, and, and, and so you work.

[00:33:57] David: So I was kind of, apart from when I was bolting off to my part time job, I was. I was just kind of working. That was like four years worth. That was the best part of four years worth. It's unreal. 

[00:34:07] Andy: Yeah. It's, I mean, that's commitment. 

[00:34:09] David: Well, it gave the business kind of the best possible start, didn't it? Yeah.

[00:34:14] David: It really did. And that's where, you know, a lot of the charities who I support came on board because if you can imagine that's, that was the hardest thing about the whole business getting off the ground was contacting these charities and pitching them this new concept, this new idea. Asking them to have faith in you.

[00:34:34] David: So, so I remember Animals Australia were one of the first organizations to come on board and they've, as I said before you know, they've got one and a half million followers on their social media, but at the time they had 5, 000. And and that's, I was so grateful for them to come on board and have faith in me because they do not.

[00:34:50] David: They do not. Do this normally they do not get into any sort of relationship with any business Yeah but because our relationship has just been so long and we've grown together You know and and I've managed to kind of stay in communication with the same people and that's very rare within charities as well The the what's what's the word the the

[00:35:18] David: Turnover. Lack of staff, you mean? Or turnover? Yeah. I guess the turnover of staff within charities is enormous as you can imagine. Okay. Because you know, you're not getting paid a lot and, and often these people come from the corporate world and they operate a little bit differently to, to these not-for-profits.

[00:35:31] David: Uhhuh want stuff to happen faster and they don't. And, and but within Animals Australia, the, the, the staff have remained. And that's. So rare to see just, I guess the, the goodwill within the actual organization itself amongst everyone is, is, is pretty incredible. 

[00:35:49] Andy: Yeah. You can make some pretty crazy, like really, really nice people in within the charity sector.

[00:35:55] Andy: Like they're just people who care. Yeah. 

[00:35:57] David: Yeah. Oh look, everyone is, it's, it's, it's pretty phenomenal. It's, it's, it's, it's beautiful actually. And, and, and that's one of the beauties of this job is the conversations I can have with people. Yeah. And just the, the genuine goodwill that exists. 

[00:36:16] Andy: And that's a, a lovely connection to the brand.

[00:36:20] Andy: What about, do you know any stats around Australians and donations? I do. 

[00:36:24] David: So I've been doing this for about 13 years. And, and it's been, You know, probably one of the biggest challenges I have faced is the preconceived ideas around charity wine. You know, if it's, if it's wine supporting charity it must be rubbish and, and, and so it's been a real battle to get past that cognitive dissidence, and particularly in men, and so it's, it's, it's been important for me to try to work out how to solve this and, and, and consequently digging down into the stats has been a passion of mine, but turns out that 51% of Australians either donate, volunteer, or buy ethically, 49% do none of it. When you ask those 49%, if they do any of it.

[00:37:21] David: About 80% of those will tell you that they do, but when pushed to give an example, the best that they can come up with is liking something on Facebook. And so people want to do good, be good, donate. And, and of course, these people are probably doing amazing things elsewhere. They're stopping on the side of the road for someone who's broken, you know, broken down or, you know.

[00:37:45] David: And then there's, you know, 10% of the population roughly who you would call happily unethical. And these are people who just happy to not, not, I'd rather not do, do anything. So, so kind of, that tells me that, you know, 90% of the population wants to do something. Perhaps that cohort don't really do anything but identify as doing stuff, just don't have the opportunity to do stuff.

[00:38:16] David: And I imagine that in, in, in large catastrophes, those people do step up. And so, and so, you know, they were also the people who were putting. You know, change into tens. Yep. So, you know, there's, there's, there's those stats. Also, you know, men and women, and this has been the big problem to tackle with my business is getting men to buy my wine.

[00:38:38] David: Right. Women buy my wine. Okay. And I call that first purchase a pity purchase, and then the wine turns up on their table, and they try the wine, and then it all makes sense. So they kind of go, oh, well, actually, this is really nice, what a surprise. And then they think about the price and they think about the charity that they chose to support.

[00:38:59] David: And then that person becomes an ongoing customer because it's every bit as good as anything else that they were buying online. Getting that man to do the first purchase is really hard. Yep. And because, as I've said to you, I'll, I'll, I'll tap into these parcels of wine that, that are also sitting in a cellar door with the vineyards label on.

[00:39:19] David: I can get my wine and that wine, put them next to each other, pour them into two separate glasses and give those two glasses to a man and he'll tell me how beautiful the one with the vineyards label on and he'll, he'll, he'll pull apart, you know, the, the, the wine I've given him. Tell you everything that's wrong with it.

[00:39:35] David: Tell me everything that's wrong with it, even though it's exactly the same wine. Yeah. You know, I, and I've done that experiment a lot. And so it's just something within men giving for man is. It's ego based. And so while women will incorporate giving into every part of their life, and so it becomes, you know, they'll, they'll, they might volunteer, they'll donate, but they'll also purchase ethically and, and, and incorporate that into their everyday grocery shop.

[00:40:03] David: Men don't tend to do that. Men whilst donate the same amount per capita every year as women, they need an event to do it at. Yep. And they need to be seen to be doing it. And that's why you have things like Movember that's so successful. That's why charity auctions are so successful because you've got five men in the room all bidding against each other.

[00:40:24] David: Bidding against each other. And, and we kind of get to see who's the richest one and and so it becomes a status. Yep. For men. It's attached to status. You know, it just is what it is and, and I actually, you know, apart from the fact I'd love more men to buy my wine because, you know, they could go and buy that vineyard version of my wine for 35 or from me for 20.

[00:40:43] David: Yep. You know my wine makes more sense, but you know, men are still giving and, and, and whether it's ego related or whether they've got to grow a mustache or paint their finger blue or, or, or what at least they're still giving, right? Yeah. 

[00:40:58] Andy: And you're saying it's an equal, like men and women give equally.

[00:41:01] Andy: Correct. It's just men probably give bigger amounts at once. At once. Yeah. At a, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a really interesting statistic. I'm, it makes me think back about when I've ever donated and. Did I tell everyone? I don't know. I don't know if I did. I did Movember. I've done that, you know. Well, I, 

[00:41:19] David: I, I actually, I've never done Movember.

[00:41:22] David: But I would have thought that my wine was an opportunity for a man to kind of go, here, try some of this wine. Someone go, that's nice. Look at that label. Oh my goodness. What's this, this about? And then the man could go, well. I'm, I'm, I'm supporting, you know, I'm supporting you know, the Asylum Seeker Resource Center.

[00:41:41] David: Yep. With this wine. And, and this wine's actually giving two people a hot meal. Yep. So drink up. 

[00:41:48] Andy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah. It's, and when you can make it tangible like that, you would think it would be quite appealing, wouldn't you? Yeah. It feels like a, an appealing proposition to, to give someone, but still as the data shows, you're saying that most of your customers are women at this stage?

[00:42:02] David: About 80% of my customers are. So that's going to be one 

[00:42:05] Andy: of the, that's one of the challenges for you is to try and work out how to, how to, how to, how to convince the men that they're doing something good. 

[00:42:12] David: That's it. So I've, I've introduced a premium range with, with really kind of premium looking labels.

[00:42:18] David: Yep. And you know, that's, that, that's begun to engage more men. And so again, that's a needing to be seen. Doing something but you know, you need to be seen doing something with something that looks yeah looks the part Yeah, and so we've kind of we've solved that problem. Yeah 

[00:42:35] Andy: good And so you do one at the moment.

[00:42:38] Andy: Do you want to do you other products? 

[00:42:40] David: Yeah, so we've just started introducing a few products into into some of our gift packs. Yeah, we're trying to Stay aligned with ethical businesses and so we've just introduced a, a you know, candles and, and diffusers into, into some of our products. And these are supporting you know, people who are escaping domestic violence.

[00:43:04] David: All right. Women escaping domestic violence and and, and certainly we're beginning to explore other, other products. Initially. You know, we'd love to do coffee. I don't know. I don't know how much your, your listeners know 

[00:43:21] Andy: about. I do a guy, I know a guy. 

[00:43:23] David: Yeah. And, and then, you know, we, we will expand that and, and we'll probably take that.

[00:43:29] David: Outside of being linked to any particular Goodwill wine product, it will be a standalone product that just sits there. And so someone could probably buy their, their, their muesli you know, tea, coffee, and who knows. 

[00:43:46] Andy: And all of the products in theory in the future will support something.

[00:43:49] Andy: Absolutely correct. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. I like it. I really like it. How much wine is moving? Like, like, I mean, we're talking, if we, if you're doing half a million. In donations, like, is it, so, 

[00:44:03] David: so actually just a good question because I sat down to try to work that out and and, you know, we're not, we're not massive by any, by any means you know, some of these big online retailers will have sold, you know, our entire year's worth within the first two days of, January.

[00:44:24] David: Yeah. Right. Yeah. So we don't kind of have that marketing kind of I mean, that tells us that the potential is there for us to grow well beyond where we are. And there's heaps sitting in the warehouses waiting. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. In every vineyard around Australia, there's, there's these that just aren't of interest to the.

[00:44:44] David: To these big players, because, not because of quality, just because the quantity is just not enough to justify them sending a, you know, two, two semi trailers out to, to pick it all up. Yep. Because it is actually only a, a ute load. Yeah, yeah, that's right. But it's right up your 

[00:44:59] Andy: alley. That's, 

[00:45:00] David: Yeah, perfect.

[00:45:01] David: Fits you perfectly. Perfect. So, it's hard. It's, it's, it's actually perhaps half a million bottles. Okay. 

[00:45:10] Andy: Oh, it's still substantial. Yeah. I mean, it's still 

[00:45:12] David: a big number. Yeah, it is a big number. It's, you know, it's because it's been going for a decade. It is, I lose perspective. I've lost perspective. And I had to be reminded when we reach kind of the half a million tally that that's actually a chunky, that's a chunky amount of money.

[00:45:29] David: And because it's just this incremental thing that keeps building it, it kind of came out of, came as a surprise. And, and, and, and at the time it. It just didn't feel significant, but the reality is it is, it's a, it's a, it's, it's a very large amount of money for one person to donate, right? Apparently 

there's a it's a lot of money.

[00:45:51] Andy: There's a threshold, there's about a 250, 000 threshold that charities find very difficult to get beyond. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's a, that's a thing. In fact, there's a lady who I'm connected with, whose, whose businesses. Literally trying to help charities get past that 250 mark because apparently that's sort of the spot a lot of businesses They get to 250 250 thousand donated and then that's they struggle to get beyond that So it's some sort of barrier to break 

[00:46:21] David: through Is that businesses donating or is that, is that charities charities 

[00:46:27] Andy: who are raising charities getting beyond 250, 000 donated or raised?

[00:46:31] Andy: Yeah, 

[00:46:32] David: you should, you should introduce us. Yeah. 

[00:46:34] Andy: Yeah. So there are that's what they're setting out to do to help people bust through that. 

[00:46:40] David: And, and it's really tough at the moment. I know, you know, the, the. The financial situation in Australia is very tough certainly donations have plummeted in general and charities are finding it hard to, to, to, to continue.

[00:46:56] David: I think 

[00:46:57] Andy: people are perhaps putting on their own oxygen 

[00:47:00] David: mask first. Absolutely, and you need to, right? Yeah. You know, if, if, if you need to take that oxygen mask off and, and have a glass of wine, then you could at least be vying ethically, right? I really 

[00:47:16] Andy: like the way you did that. I think a hundred percent you should, especially if you're going to be drinking good wine and especially if it's going to be doing some good at the same time.

[00:47:24] Andy: If you're going to drink wine, you might as well drink yours. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. A hundred percent. So you should head to goodwillwine. com. Dot com au. Mm-hmm. . I'll put that up. I'll put it in the show notes and I'll put it on the screen too. For those who are watching. For those who are listening, you can head over there.

[00:47:40] Andy: Actually, you've gotta look, oh, shop our wines up to 50% off cellar door prices. So there you go. Yeah. And you can also see if you jump on the website, you can also see a lot of the stuff that you're doing. You've got the charities listed there. You've got a wine club. 

[00:47:54] David: A lot of great stuff. That's right, our impacts and, and customer reviews.

[00:47:58] David: Yeah, because like you said, it's 

[00:47:59] Andy: 300 plus charities. Correct. Yeah, so it's very difficult for us to cover those today, but it's, it's an immense amount of impact, half a million dollars worth. So congratulations. This is unreal. I really love it. 

[00:48:11] David: Thank you. If, if, just let me say if nothing else, we were giving away, we've been giving away wine every day and And, and you just sign up to our newsletter from our website we've given away over 100, 000 worth of wine, over 1, 500 gift packs and so every day we're, is that like competition?

[00:48:31] David: Yeah. Ah, so that's, that's something else and, and, and you know, yeah, sign up, start, start with that process and, and, and. You know, if you see, if you see kind of a deal that, that, that particularly interests you, then jump on it and find out what we're about. Yeah. That's 

[00:48:46] Andy: unreal. So head to goodwillwine. com. au.

[00:48:50] Andy: Hey, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Oh, it's a pleasure. I've enjoyed the conversation and I've enjoyed meeting you because in many ways we do something very similar. We do. And. I can really relate to a lot of the challenges that you've spoken about, so thank you so much for coming on the podcast good luck with everything, and yeah, let's stay in touch and maybe, you know, when you reach the one million dollar milestone.

[00:49:19] David: We'll crack a bottle of bottle of champagne. Something good. 

[00:49:22] Andy: Yeah, we'll have a glass but otherwise let's stay in touch and thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah. 

[00:49:28] David: Thanks Andy. Great to be here. You're 

[00:49:30] Andy: very, very welcome. And you're the correct person to be on this show. That's for sure.

[00:49:35] Andy: This is the Good People Podcast brought to you by In Other Good News. My name is Andy and please like, subscribe, tell your friends. Go to Goodwill Wine, buy some wine or go to In Other Good News and buy some coffee. All of it does good stuff. Thank you so much for tuning in and until next time, this has been the Good People Podcast.