GoPro for a Cause and Kindhumans

GoPro for a Cause and Kindhumans

Communities born to do good, together

We are excited to partner with GoPro for a Cause! Some kind words with Kindhumans Co-Founder Justin Wilkenfeld…

When I joined the small team at GoPro back in 2007, I had no idea what an incredible ride was in store for me. Helping bring Nick Woodman’s vision and this great brand and products to life gave me the opportunity to gain many friends and have countless life-changing experiences. We always appreciated the fact that people not only love the brand and products, but also love to share their immersive GoPro photos and videos with the world. That fact has without question helped GoPro grow into a global brand and we’ve done our best never to take that for granted. We take pride in having such an awesome community of passionate, energetic, and adventurous people. We have seen beautiful, fun, authentic, and awe-inspiring content via the GoPro community and it has garnered millions of views, likes, and shares.

 So: what if we can take some of those same successful principles and passion and apply them to efforts to support non-profit causes?

This was the motivation behind the formation of the GoPro for a Cause program in 2015. We had spent years building the brand, making quality products, creating inspiring content, and fostering a cohesive and passionate GoPro community. We were compelled to pay it forward and felt that we had a special opportunity to share a different genre of meaningful stories with the community that could utilize GoPro’s platform and global audience to give back. If we could go beyond sports and lifestyle content by featuring the stories of amazing humans and the causes they were supporting, we could raise awareness with new audiences and an increase in much-needed donations, furthering those efforts and making an even greater impact.

In 2017, I moved on from being a GoPro employee. I won’t say that I’ve moved on from GoPro as I’m inherently #GoProFamily for life. At times I loved working at GoPro so much that I lacked a good work/life balance. So, after nearly a decade with GoPro, leading Lifestyle Marketing and Brand Integrity efforts, I took some time off to focus on mental and physical health. I also wanted to reflect on and explore various aspects of my life, including what was important and what was possible in terms of giving back.

The idea of serving others and giving back was something my parents raised me to do. From volunteering in our local community to donating to causes, my parents displayed and instilled in me this value of participating in the community and trying to help others. During this exploratory phase, my wife Suzi and I also learned that we could make a positive impact through purchases we make. However, resources to easily navigate a growing world of sustainable, eco-friendly options is virtually non-existent. This is why we created our company Kindhumans: to address this need for more information and better options, both as consumers and humans that value life and our planet.

In essence, Kindhumans is a positive movement of respect and understanding, rooted in helping facilitate small, conscious decisions with a big, positive impact. Our mission is to build a media company and online marketplace that celebrates the good in humanity by cultivating a culture of kindness, promoting conscious consumption, and always giving back. We are building a destination for quality and inspiring content and a marketplace of curated eco-innovative, sustainable products that are ethically sourced, waste-free, recycled, upcycled, fair trade, organic, natural, and otherwise intended to help us promote positive impacts  and minimize negative ones through the choices of products we use in our daily lives. Our intention is to help like-minded people make educated, conscious decisions about the products they purchase and make a positive impact by donating a portion of the sales to causes.

From its inception, 1% of Kindhumans’ total sales have been committed towards social and environmental causes and by uniting the positive forces in society while celebrating kindness, a meaningful impact can be achieved on a wider scale. Kindhumans not only celebrates the best of humanity and the cool things people are doing every day but facilitates and encourages people to live their best lives while making choices that promote, protect, and provide for the future of the planet and success of generations to come. We want to focus on positive actions and influence positive change for all. If you are reading this, there is a good chance that you also love the playgrounds we are privileged to play in. There is also a good chance you have a love for your fellow humans, especially our children, and want to ensure they get to enjoy the wonders of the world as we have been so blessed to be able to do.

When GoPro for a Cause started, I remember how excited we were to support causes that aligned with our values by leveraging our ability to tell their stories and amplify their efforts. It was such a cool move for the company to make on the heels of all the success we were so fortunate to have, and I am so proud to have been a part of creating this program.  Over the past 4 years, GoPro for a Cause has created numerous stories around different causes which have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for non-profit causes.

GoPro for a Cause continues to inspire my actions and our mission at Kindhumans today. At Kindhumans, we are just getting started with building our marketplace but have already had the opportunity to make a positive impact through media production support, storytelling, and donations to multiple cause partners. It has already been fulfilling and, on some level, is an extension of what we started with GoPro for a Cause. 

A Kindhumans and GoPro for a Cause partnership feels like destiny. Several members of the Kindhumans team are former GoPro employees. We are cut from the same cloth and our brands align on many levels. We love to tell stories and celebrate people. We want to give back and support others giving back too. With a shared mission and passion to amplify the efforts of people and causes, teaming up with GoPro for a Cause was a must for Kindhumans!

Kindhumans is honored to work with the team at GoPro to capture and share inspiring stories of kind humans and organizations throughout the world that are making a positive difference. We will partner on several projects through 2020 with a goal to make as big an impact as possible.

We thank you GoPro and we thank our communities for believing in us and supporting our efforts to do good. Together we will share cause stories with the world, raise awareness, and ultimately build support and funding for these noble efforts by kind humans intent on making the world a better place!

–   Justin Wilkenfeld, former GoPro VP of Brand Integrity and current CEO of Kindhumans