We believe there's a better way to impact poverty

We launched The Paradigm Project in 2008 with the goal of finding better ways to positively impact poverty. Our first testing ground for this new social business model was an efficient cookstove project in Kenya, which has grown into a franchised social business called EzyLife that distributes stoves, water filters, crop inputs, solar lighting and other products in several countries around the world. The road between the first few steps in Kenya and opening new franchises in other countries has been long and hard and we’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way, many of which have made us smarter, better business partners and social entrepreneurs.

Why cookstoves? Learn more here.

We've also created some pretty outstanding results to date, including:

• We’ve helped families save more than $23 million in income from reduced fuel use.

• We’ve helped women save more than 12 million productive hours that would otherwise have been spent collecting wood.

• We’ve helped communities save about 1.4 million trees from deforestation.

• We’ve helped offset more than 400,000 tonnes of CO2 and invested more than $7 million dollars into the developing world.

Learn more about the numbers behind the numbers here.

We know we haven’t done this alone. At every step along the way we’ve had hundreds of donors, investors, volunteers, carbon buyers, fans and advocates step in and help us achieve these remarkable goals. We’d love to have you join us, too, in whatever capacity you can. Learn more about how you can support our work here.