Spotlight on Elliot Costello

“We are living in a time where there is increased uncertainty and increased pressure on us to deliver social services. Now is the time to stand up and have a louder voice and be more creative with how we raise funds and, importantly, the way we deliver social impact.”

It is the conviction and dedication behind making these words a reality that found  YGAP co-founder and CEO Elliot Costello on this year’s Third Sector list of movers and shakers.

He points to two significant highlights last year, the first being the success of Polished Man, a campaign that challenges men to paint one fingernail to raise awareness and funds to support children that experience physical and/or sexual violence.

“We raised $1 million in October, which exceeded all expectations, and the campaign grew by 167 per cent from 2015,” Costello tells Third Sector.

Campaign ambassador actor Chris Hemsworth, his brother Liam and American actor/singer Zac Efron were just three of the 63,000 men across 90 countries who took part in this year’s challenge.

Focus on ventures

On an organisational front, Costello also helped the business transition to a more vertical approach, with the focus now on ventures that can drive significant social return on investments as opposed to widespread impact.

“With the success of fundraising last year, which we have celebrated, it is critical now that we have good ways to spend the money. We also need to look at new opportunities, new ways of doing things, pivoting in our model and being more courageous with the ventures we are backing.”

Despite the usual pains involved with a rapidly growing organisation, YGAP doubled in size and in revenue during this time, and is well on the way to reaching its initial goal of backing 1000 entrepreneurs and impacting one million lives by the end of next year.

“From early 2015 when we set the goal, we knew it would be a slow climb,” says Costello. “We are a couple of weeks from measuring our impact again, but to date we have improved the lives of more than 237,000 people. We knew the first 50,000 to 250,000 would be a long run. Now, with some of the ventures we have, we will see a significant lift in the next 18 to 24 months.”

Not tied down

To remain at the forefront, Costello avoids being tied down by traditional approaches and dependencies, like government grants. At the same time, he says the group has the courage to retire initiatives that do not work.

“A good example is that we’re not running our five-cent campaign this year. We have run it for five years and it has collected 15 million individual five-cent pieces – nearly $200,000 worth of fundraising. We have decided to park it and focus more on our present initiatives, but are also looking at launching new ones too.”

Costello takes inspiration from many, but specifically points out Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, an economist and social entrepreneur, for his “remarkable work” with the Grameen Bank. For those that look to him for motivation, Costello reiterates the need be forward thinking.

“In a sector that’s full of emerging players as well as entrenched players that are good at what they do, I think the most important thing is to stay creative and retain innovative ideas.

“Don’t become complacent as you become older. We are in our ninth year now, and we don’t just assume that what we are doing is best practice. We are always looking at ways of improving our model, scouring for ideas that work but having the courage to kill ones that don’t.”

This article originally appeared in Third Sectors June print magazine.