Spirit of Big Five Foundation Now on Amazon Smile’s Charity List

Dear Advisor Partners,

I want to take you back to the year 2005, to a bar in California. I was on the speaking circuit for an adventure show that traveled around the US when I met Costas Christ. One day, after the show in California, Costas and I went for a drink at this local bar across from the convention center and we began to talk about sustainability. Though we didn’t know it yet, this man would go on to be a brother and a mentor to me. We talked about impactful change in the world and what that meant and agreed to write down thoughts that night and reconvene in the morning. We compared our chicken scratch, mine on a scrap paper and his on a cocktail napkin. Comparing our list of ideas, there it was, item number four on my list and item number five on his – “foundation.” I don’t think I ever in my life said yes as quickly as I did that day. Costas went on to guide me and even became an ambassador at large for what is now known as the Spirit of Big Five Foundation, at its inception.

Early projects started with a recycling center on the Galapagos Islands, preserving sea turtles in Belize, and even helping to set up the ruins of Koh Ker in Cambodia. Today the foundation has evolved with my father as the chairman. Working in conjunction with our GIB 5.0 proprietary program, the Spirit of Big Five Foundation has today evolved, while remaining the heart and soul of the company. While I never like to harp on the foundation’s achievements, as I never believed in bragging, I do think sharing some of the accomplishments are warranted here, since so many of you helped achieve these milestones:

• Growing a primary school for Maasai children in Tanzania from 20 children just 8 years ago, to 300 children today, with a projection to hit 500 kids enrolled by 2024.
• Supporting a women’s empowerment project through micro-entrepreneurship for 160+ women in 8 different communities in Peru.
• Helping a self-made robotics expert deploy robots that teach in 47 different local languages to the children of Huancavelica, Peru, where internet is a luxury. One robot can engage all the children in a community.
• Working to deploy clay based clean water eco filters in Guatemala for students in the poorest communities around the country. To date, over 70 filters are planned to hydrate 1600 children with more planned.
• And as of this morning, supplying food for 500+ of the poorest people in Egypt during Ramadan, so they can break their fast.

These are all in addition to local projects in Colombia, Kenya, Morocco, and Ecuador.

All of this makes the announcement I make next, a proud moment for us. The Spirit of Big Five Foundation is now an approved philanthropic organization for Amazon Prime members. AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you. When you shop at smile.amazon.com, you’ll have the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to your favorite charitable organization. Simply visit smile.amazon.com and select Big Five Foundation Inc. as your charity of choice or watch this instructional video to get started.

Learn more about the foundation here.