Do Good Trading Company

The Compassionate Action Board affirms the compassionate work of Do Good Trading Company. This is a company committed to providing clean drinking water to communities around the world, using money from their coffee business to create wells.
The company was founded by two current William & Mary business master's students named Cesar and Dave. We contacted co-founder Cesar Murillo to ask him some questions about the company, its mission, and the role of compassion.

Q: What's the story behind your company's founding?

I (Cesar Murillo) previously served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Madagascar. While in the country I lived and worked in different villages, many of which faced severe water shortages many months out of the year. I was fortunate enough to come in contact with an awesome NGO, http://watercharity.com/, and managed to get a water well built for a community of over 200 Malagasy villagers. The other co-founder of Do Good Trading Company, Dave N., is a current army officer who has been deployed to multiple regions around the world. He was actually in Haiti directly after the earthquake there, providing humanitarian aid among other tasks. We both met while in the MBA program. We're still students, and that's how the company was born.

Q: What makes your company passionate about clean drinking water in particular?

Personally experiencing water shortages in my community in Madagascar, and realizing how big of a problem water access is around the world-an estimated 700 million people don't have regular access to clean water, was a big driver.

Q: You spent some time with the Peace Corps. How did that inform your company's mission, if at all?

The Peace Corps was instrumental in shaping the company's mission. Additionally, Dave's experience provided insight into different societal issues we can tackle using our model.

Q: How important is compassion to what you do?

Compassion is key, without it we're just another coffee company. We're building a brand that does more than provide high quality products. We see ourselves, above all, as problems solvers tackling issues that that affect millions of people around the world.

Q: What is the most challenging part of your job?

Company wise, our biggest challenges at the moment are getting our name out there and educating our customers on the value of our product. We sell a high quality product that does good in the world.

Personally, the challenge of starting up a business, being a full-time student, and the normal swings of life can result in many sleepless nights, but we both see this as something greater than ourselves.

Q: What else would you like others to know about your company?

We intend to make Do Good Trading Company into a household brand. Currently we fund purely international projects because of the "bang for the buck." A dollar in a developing country goes further than it would here domestically. However, as we scale up we want to work on domestic projects that benefit communites where we will work. If we can provide our customers with the opportunity to directly support projects in their communities by purchasing everyday items, why not?