Our story

More than a decade ago, we travelled by pack mule up a mountain in Ecuador to build a school for an impoverished community. Craig carried his dreams to build a better world one school at a time. Marc brought the plans to do so.

At first, it had seemed so simple. We had two weeks to build a school, and a group of energetic student volunteers to help. It was our Spring Break but the community's harvest season. Mules laden with crops were winding down the narrow paths to get to market. Our mules, carrying cement mix and lumber, couldn't get by on the treacherous paths to reach us.

No supplies, no school. And not much time left.

We had plane tickets booked back to North America in a few days and the foundation wasn't even finished. Try explaining this situation to your teacher: "Sir, I'm late because a mule ate my homework."

When the mules finally made it, there were only two days left before we had to leave. No matter how much dreaming and planning we had done, our brotherly teamwork couldn't make up for lost time. We had no idea what to do.

We went to speak to the village chief, the oldest woman in the community. We humbly wondered if she might have a solution, even though we were the ones that were supposed to be providing assistance to her community. After listening to our predicament, she got up, walked out the door of her hut, and shouted, "Tomorrow...there will be...a minga."

We anxiously watched and waited. Villagers working nearby barely looked up. Her words had no apparent effect. Disappointed, we thanked the chief and slouched back to tell our volunteers that we couldn't finish our school. We went to sleep that night dejected. We had failed.

When we awoke the next day we couldn't actually believe what we saw: Hundreds of people milling about in the village square. Men of all ages had left their fields in peak harvest; women, some carrying babies on their backs, had walked for many miles; breathless children stared up at us with curiousity, and not just because we hadn't bathed in almost two weeks. Many had walked for hours and hours, starting in the middle of the night.

We were thankful beyond all words, but we still didn't quite understand why people with apparently nothing to gain had walked for hours to help. The chief explained that a minga was a call to action. Roughly translated it means, "a community coming together to work for the benefit of all." Once a minga was called, children were sent as runners to neighbouring villages (there were no phones). People from different tribes dropped what they were doing and travelled up to six hours to build the school – even though their own children lived too far way to attend. They all understood that by helping others in another village they helped their collective future. Someday the people of this village – and their children – would return the favour.

At first we thought there must be a perfect translation for minga, after all English has close to 500,000 words. It couldn't be "volunteer work," because you can do that alone. We thought of barn raising, but how many barns do you see going up in downtown New York? Among the dozen volunteers the best that we could think of was: "a riot, but for good."

In North America we have dozens of words for money. Why should it be so hard for us to define something as beneficial as a minga?

If we couldn't find the perfect word, we could at least try to create its meaning in our world: A movement of people who come together for the greater good. A world where, when the call goes out, people respond. A world that's a little less about "me" and a lot more about "we."

A world That is Me to We.

We wanted Me to We help transform consumers into socially conscious world changers, one transaction at a time.

We've both been around the world – more than 20 times, actually – and studied many charities. In our travels we have also spent time in some of the most powerful board rooms in the corporate world. We have attended opulent banquets at business gatherings, including the World Economic Forum.

We have come to see that the pure business model doesn't work either, at least if your main objective is trying to make the world a better place. How could we get beyond guilt and greed? How could we take the best business practices and infuse them with a world-changing spirit?

We believe that consumers are more powerful than citizens because they vote everyday – instead of every few years – when they spend their money. What we purchase matters. We spend more on our lifestyles than we give to charity, and so those dollars need to have a greater impact.

We wanted Me to We help transform consumers into socially conscious world changers, one transaction at a time.

Me to We blends the best of business practices and charitable impact together. Me to We redefines the bottom line. For us, and for tens of thousands of people who believe in social change, Me to We has quickly become a way of life.