For 25 years, DDD has run a business that delivers social benefits by design. “DDD is a business model, an impact model, and is driven in large part by earned income,” says co-founder Jeremy Hockenstein. “Ninety percent plus of our income over time has been earned income from clients, which is a dream to (nonprofit) CEOs who have to fundraise all day.”
Leaders have relentlessly iterated and tailored the model to regional contexts and local and global markets. “DDD has had time to figure out and test things. Some things didn't work; some things did,” said board member Stefan Kappeler. “We're in the technology space, so we initially digitized content. … We’re still digitizing content, and there is still business around that, but there is not a growing business around it. Now we're speaking about autonomous driving, machine learning, and all kinds of things that we hadn’t thought of ten, even five, years ago.”
As they look to the future, questions remain about how and whether to scale, and how to tap new partners and resources. Some are wondering how much experience associates will need to meet the speed of technology change and even what role higher education plays in the program model.
“My word to DDD would be, let's stay true to our mission," urged VP of Operations Judith Obonyo. “The impact is bigger than the effort. It may seem as though we are just touching one or two people, but … chances are, we've saved an entire lineage. That is one thing that, as DDD, we should be super proud of.”
