Canva owner Melanie Perkins has signed up to Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge, planning to give away her wealth during her lifetime through charitable donations and other endeavors. She and her husband who is also the co-founder of Canva plan to give away their whole fortune to eradicate poverty and are quite confident that they can live life with a modest lifestyle.
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Melanie Perkins, who is considered one of Australia's richest women is all set to give her entire fortune of A$16.5 billion away by the age of 34.
Melanie started her company by selling spray on tattoos and hit it big when she came up with the online graphic design platform Canva, which is worth about A$55 billion (£30.62 billion) overall.
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Now in Canva, Melanie and her husband who is also the co-founder, Cliff Obrecht have 30% shares of the company.
Melanie believes that she won't have a hard time adjusting to a modest life and so has signed up to Bill Gates’ Giving Pledge, planning to give away her wealth during her lifetime through charitable donations and other endeavours.
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The couple has set up a goal of eliminating extreme poverty and is ready to spend money on it.
In a pledge letter, Melanie wrote: “We have this wildly optimistic belief that there is enough money, goodwill, and good intentions in the world to solve most of the world's problems.
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“We feel like it's not just a massive opportunity, but an important responsibility, and we want to spend our lifetime working towards that.
“Who needs all that money? Personally?"
Though the company is run by Obrecht and their other business partner Cameron Adams, they all believe that Melanie is the boss and she knows what she is doing.
Mr Adams said: “She’s unequivocally the boss.”
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Obrecht added: “She’s usually right.”
Perkins and Obrecht met whilst studying at the University of Western Australia and started out selling spray tattoos at local fairs.
Perkins tutored in graphic design on the side whilst at university, also selling handmade scarves. She had the business idea for Canva back in 2005 and started out another business called Fusion out of her mom's front room.
Then in 2013, Canva hit the market and since then they haven't looked back.
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Now, Canva claims to have made more than eight billion designs, as well as 400 million presentations.
They’re forecast to increase further to employ 4,000 staff this year, too.
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On their pledge, Obrecht told The Australian: “Mel and I are committed to giving away all our money to make the world a better place.
“I think with running such a large company with such a significant valuation now, it's an obligation on us to use that to be a force for good and make the world a better place, rather than just hoard s**t."
“We live pretty modestly, and we don't really see the need to just accrue wealth.
“The priority for the company is education, because we really feel educating underprivileged people gives them the opportunity to break the cycle.”
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