Most corporate donations disappear into a black hole.
A press release goes out. A feel-good banner sits on a website. Somewhere, a receipt gets emailed. And then… nothing. No proof. No follow-up. No real connection between the brand, the buyer, and the impact.
Trevor Laudate looked at that gap and saw something most people missed: not a marketing problem—but an infrastructure problem.
The Missing Layer in Corporate Giving
Trevor is the co-founder of EcoDrive, a platform building what he calls the verification layer for corporate impact. Instead of vague claims like “we plant trees” or “a portion of proceeds goes to charity,” EcoDrive enables brands and nonprofits to provide auditable evidence—geotags, timestamps, and photo verification—so customers can see exactly where their dollars went.
The idea didn’t start in a boardroom. It started in the trenches of e-commerce.
Before founding EcoDrive, Trevor worked with consumer brands—helping “business for good” companies scale their impact marketing. One tactic worked exceptionally well: plant a tree for every order.
Conversion rates jumped. Customers felt connected. Loyalty improved.
But as volume grew, cracks started to show. Generic photos. Delayed confirmations. No clear link between the purchase and the impact.
The trust layer was missing.
And in 2026, trust is the product.
From Marketing Hook to Growth Lever
Let’s zoom out for a second.
Commerce evolved in waves:
First: price.
Then: convenience.
Now: conscience.
Consumers increasingly prefer brands that do good. But preference only converts into revenue when it feels real.
EcoDrive helps brands embed impact directly into customer touchpoints—checkout banners, post-purchase emails, QR codes on packaging. When a customer buys, leaves a review, or scans a code, they can track the specific impact tied to that action.
The result? On average, brands see a 17% lift from cart to checkout when impact is clearly communicated.
Not because people are altruists.
Because people want alignment.
There’s a subtle but powerful difference.
And in some cases, that impact program has generated up to 25x return on impact—a measurable ROI that transforms “CSR” from a cost center into a growth channel.
That’s when something interesting happens inside a company.
Impact stops living in the PR department.
It moves into the growth budget.
The Real Problem Isn’t Greenwashing
It’s easy to blame nonprofits or brands when impact feels vague. But Trevor’s perspective is more nuanced.
Most nonprofits aren’t hiding anything. They’re under-resourced. Many still operate with limited tech infrastructure, making it hard to surface data—even when it exists.
EcoDrive’s newer product, Impact IQ, flips the model. Instead of competing with nonprofits, it equips them with the same verification and marketing tools EcoDrive built for brands. Now nonprofits can better serve corporate donors, automate reporting, and reduce administrative overhead.
This creates a flywheel:
Corporates want proof and ROI.
Nonprofits want better tools to deliver that proof.
Consumers want transparency and alignment.
Each side pulls the other forward.
If executed well, this isn’t just a SaaS product.
It’s infrastructure.
Why Now?
Corporate donations in the U.S. grew from roughly $33B to $42B in a single year. Consumer expectations are shifting. Gen Z and Millennials care deeply about values alignment. And brands are realizing that simply donating isn’t enough—they need to communicate it, verify it, and tie it to measurable outcomes.
Meanwhile, the software ecosystem around individual donations has matured into billion-dollar companies.
Corporate giving? Still largely underserved.
That gap is the opportunity.
The Founder Mindset
One of the most telling moments in our conversation came when Trevor addressed sustainability claims.
His take?
Don’t say you’re sustainable.
Say you’re working to be more sustainable—and show exactly what you’re doing.
That humility matters. Consumers can smell exaggeration. They reward transparency.
Another bold bet: EcoDrive’s expansion into nonprofits with Impact IQ. It required shifting focus, reallocating resources, and betting on a two-sided ecosystem. Risky? Yes. But if the flywheel locks in, it unlocks exponential distribution.
That’s the kind of product decision that separates nice startups from category-defining ones.
The Bigger Pattern
Zoom out even further.
Capitalism is evolving.
We moved from “cheapest wins” to “fastest wins.” Now we’re entering an era where “most aligned wins.” The companies that thrive won’t just ship products. They’ll ship proof.
Proof of sourcing.
Proof of impact.
Proof of follow-through.
EcoDrive is betting that verification becomes standard—not optional.
That in five years, consumers will expect impact receipts the way they expect shipping notifications.
And when that happens, the brands that invested early in trust infrastructure won’t just look good.
They’ll grow faster.
The North Star
For EcoDrive, the key metric isn’t vanity usage. It’s corporate donations processed through the platform.
If that number grows, it means:
Corporates see ROI.
Nonprofits are better equipped.
Consumers are engaging with proof.
That’s when the flywheel is truly spinning.
Corporate giving used to be a line item.
Trevor Laudate is trying to turn it into a growth engine.
Because in the end, generosity is powerful.
But verifiable generosity?
That compounds.
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Chapters:
00:01 – Welcome & Intro to EcoDrive
00:30 – Trevor’s Origin Story
02:00 – From Digital Marketing to “Business for Good”
04:55 – The Agency Experiment: Planting Trees for E-commerce
07:17 – The Transparency Problem Emerges
08:43 – Building the Verification Layer (Geo, Timestamps, Photos)
10:35 – Conversion Lift & Impact-Driven Growth
12:30 – Return on Impact (ROI) Case Studies
14:09 – Impact IDs & Consumer-Level Proof
15:17 – Customer Acquisition & Early Distribution
16:32 – Brands vs. Nonprofits: Who Pulls the Flywheel?
18:19 – Launching Impact IQ for Nonprofits
20:10 – The Flywheel Between Corporates, Nonprofits & Consumers
21:41 – Why Now? Market Timing & $42B Corporate Giving
23:14 – The Evolution of Commerce: Price → Convenience → Conscience
25:52 – Product First, Impact as Value Add
27:16 – Market Size & Owning the Corporate Donation Layer
28:55 – Long-Term Vision: Becoming the Trusted Impact Infrastructure
30:04 – Greenwashing & Sustainability Claims
31:40 – What Builds Trust? Proof, Photos & Transparency
33:13 – Why Corporate Giving Fails to Build Consumer Trust
Transcript
Brian Bell (00:01:03):
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Ignite podcast. Today, we’re thrilled to have Trevor Lodotti on the mic. He’s a co-founder of EcoDrive, a company building the infrastructure layer for verified corporate impact, helping brands and nonprofits prove where donations go with auditable, I can’t talk, evidence like geotags, timestamps, and photo verification, turning trust into a growth lever. Thanks for coming on, Trevor.
Trevor Laudate (00:01:23):
Yeah, Brian, thanks for having me. I’m excited to do this today.
Brian Bell (00:01:26):
So I’d love to start with your origin story. What’s your background?
Trevor Laudate (00:01:29):
So my origin story and how I ended up in this nonprofit sustainability world is, it’s actually really interesting. Right out of college, I got started on the brand side at a CPG company called Treff Hot Sauce. I was one of the early employees there. And soon after, I ended up joining a digital marketing agency based off of the experience I had at that CPG brand. And that digital marketing agency was very unique in the way that they only worked with social good brands in the beginning. So these are brands that have a cause when you purchase from them. A lot of people think Tom’s Shoes, right? You buy a pair of shoes, they donate shoes to people in need. We worked with a lot of companies like that, helping them to take that impact that they were making in the world. and really scale it so that they would engage customers, market it across retail and e-commerce channels, and use that to really grow their business, that impact they were making. So from there, I kind of fell in love with the business for good model. And it wasn’t one specific cause that I fell in love with, but it was really that businesses could build a massive company while also doing good in the world. And those things didn’t have to be mutually exclusive and That was kind of the origin of why we founded EcoDrive in the first place.
Brian Bell (00:02:48):
What do you think it was about your background that initially kind of drove you that way?
Trevor Laudate (00:02:52):
I don’t know. You know, that’s a great question. All of my experience in my work life, at least, has been a stepping stone into the next block. right got really good at digital marketing and understood the landscape of digital marketing back in 2016 2017 which always evolves by the way which then led me into that next opportunity at that agency which then i got i combined that with the impact world right and then now i’m in this tech for good space and so all these things have evolved over the years but it’s really rewarding when you’re working in a space like i am now and i think this was something i’ve always been passionate about i just didn’t know was possible even in my earlier days of again putting out something in the world that truly fulfills you and and adds a lot of value to the world and has real world impact That’s something that, you know, I’m really proud of and I think I’ve always wanted to do. I just didn’t know it was as possible as, you know, we’re now making it.
Brian Bell (00:03:49):
Yeah. I have a similar story. It’s kind of, it’s hard to connect the dots, uh, looking forward, but when you kind of go back in your career, you can kind of connect all the dots. Oh, this led to this and this led to that. Cause I was also really into sustainability. I’d washed out of wall street and I was kind of backpacking through Japan and China. And we went to Hawaii because we thought we’d stopped there for six months. That turned into three years. But I got really into sustainability in Hawaii. I was like director of energy policy for Sierra Club. And I was on the sustainability board for Hawaii. I was doing organic farming every weekend at the co-op farm and composting all my own food. And like I was taking, you know, reusable containers to the co-op grocery store. Like I was really, really into it. And when I got to San Francisco, I actually wanted to work in solar because I... You know, I saw kind of Hawaii was kind of leading the nation in solar at the time. San Francisco and California was kind of a close second, maybe first. When I came to San Francisco, I wanted to work in solar and I took a solar tech job, which led me into marketing and then product and then everything I do now. But it’s just kind of interesting how if I wasn’t into sustainability, I may have not moved to San Francisco. I may have not worked in solar, may have not gotten into tech.
Trevor Laudate (00:04:59):
That’s funny. And then you ended up back sort of on like more of the finance route with the VC and everything too.
Brian Bell (00:05:05):
Kind of right where I started. I’m back in finance where I was 20 years ago when I hated my life, but I’m in a part of it that I love. You know, I do this if I had a billion dollars is what I like to say.
Trevor Laudate (00:05:15):
Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s funny how, you know, it doesn’t feel like it at the time, but all of these things, they correlate. one way or another and are leading you on the right path so yeah they’re kind of
Brian Bell (00:05:24):
like dominoes right yeah exactly so you’re at this agency and then what happened so
Trevor Laudate (00:05:29):
at that agency and we were working again with a lot of these brands i’m actually wearing one of them right now it’s called 10 tree so they plant 10 trees for every product they sell we help them scale got exposed to tree planting and this was at a time where one the agency started to take on more clients outside of social good just because they needed to expand and then two sustainability was kind of top of mind for brands and consumers and those brands that didn’t really have a give back were coming to us as you know their agency partner that ran all their strategy about how should i be thinking about sustainability and implementing it and in hindsight we knew nothing at the time right we just worked with this company that did tree planting and we’re like oh okay well why don’t we work with the same non-profits that 10 tree is working with and incorporate that as you know sort of a way to try and get more sustainable for those brands we worked with and we started doing planting a tree for every online order for a few of our companies there at that agency and what we saw was insane results right so because we were so good at marketing the impact companies were making we optimized their website we ran it in paid media campaigns we set up emails that went out, you know, 30 days later informing the customer on like the trees and everything. And so that was kind of the origin of EcoDrive. We’re running it like an agency, just, you know, how many online orders did you ship last night from your Shopify or last month from your Shopify? Okay. Then we would broker and partner with that nonprofit to actually get the trees planted and just, you know, give them marketing advice on how to push that. And what we realized was, A, that’s not a sustainable model. And once we started getting real results and great client feedback, that’s when we decided to build a real platform around that. So EcoDrive initially formed as tree planting for shopify stores and that was it right and we’re having a bunch of success a lot of companies loved it and then one of the major problems we saw was as we scaled to you know a hundred thousand trees that needed to get in the ground the non-profits were still telling us it would take you know 14 to 28 days to get those planted without hiring any additional people on the ground And we’d get donation receipts back, the same generic photos they sent us the month before to plant those trees. And we realized we can’t be in this business if we can’t provide that transparency back to the customers. And so that was the next wave of how do we... actually become a source of verification for our partners so that they can trust where their dollars are going and more importantly their consumers can trust where their dollars are going and the claims that they’re making so that’s kind of like the next evolution into why we built out a lot of evidence tools which i’m sure we’ll talk about and get into and then also you know we’ve expanded since then into a lot of other projects so we now work across all causes which is super exciting we you know it’s meal donated clean drinking water ocean plastic removals you name it and then we have a platform that helps them to market that really easily and then see the real proof of where their dollars go that’s so cool.
Brian Bell (00:08:40):
And that’s the receipts problem. So you saw this like, hey, these generic photos keep coming back. These don’t feel right. And we need to actually kind of more vertically integrate into this verification layer. So what does that actually look like in practice?
Trevor Laudate (00:08:55):
Well, Before I get into that, it’s funny when we did get into that in practice with some of our initial partners, actually the Tendree guys helped us a lot with that. That 14 to 28 days actually was six to nine months, which is pretty crazy if you think about it. And I want to preface like these nonprofits, They’re all trying to do good work. It’s not like any fraud was going on intentionally or anything like that. They just lack the resources and technology on the ground to audit this stuff. And so they really didn’t know. It wasn’t, again, they didn’t have any bad intentions with this. It wasn’t necessarily their fault. It’s just a lack of technology that nonprofits have, right? Which presents a great opportunity for companies like EcoDrive to pop up in this space. And so how it works now, if you look at our tree planting and how we get those results, One, on the tree planting side, all of the planters on the ground have Android devices with an app on it that’s recording timestamps, geocoordinates, and photo evidence of all of the trees that get planted. We’re recording walking patterns, stopping paths to make sure there’s like a double audit on those photos and everything like that that comes back to us. And that’s true across all of the nonprofits that we’re working with. It’s funny, as we get into Impact IQ, which we just launched for nonprofits to be able to service their corporate donors, we’re realizing a lot of these nonprofits across all causes actually do record this data in one way or another. They just don’t have a good way of surfacing that and sending it out to their businesses. And so it’s really interesting. And that’s one of our biggest challenges is figuring out how to apply our verification process into all these other nonprofits.
Brian Bell (00:10:34):
Yeah, that’s kind of the onboarding problem, kind of the supply side of the platform that you’re building. And then you have this demand side. One of the things I remember from our initial chat, you’re actually seeing an actual lift in the conversion rate in the shopping cart when you actually implement this. Maybe you can talk about that.
Trevor Laudate (00:10:54):
Yeah, definitely. So we have what we call like a banner builder tool within the corporates portal. So when I say corporate, that’s just the industry term for a corporate partner, right? But it’s really business is big and small across any industry. So what we’ve seen is with that banner builder tool, the brand can fully customize it to match whatever customer touch point they’re making an impact for. So if you’re a Shopify store and you’re planting a tree for every online order, you can, you know, in your banner say, we’re planting a tree for every online or for every order with us. And then, you know, another little thing about their impact and you can actually track that impact go up as soon as you purchase from them. Anyways, what we’re seeing is on average, a lift of 17% from cart to checkout, increase in conversion, wherever that banner is placed. So if it’s the online order, that’s where we’re seeing it. If it’s for review, right like we have a lot of companies that plant a tree for every online review or donate a meal for every online review that’s left and they’re increasing their reviews by x amount because of that impact and that dates back to review feed
Brian Bell (00:12:00):
somebody or leave a review plant a tree
Brian Bell (00:12:02):
Exactly.
Trevor Laudate (00:12:03):
It’s super simple, but that feeds back to everything we were doing at that marketing agency with social good brands and all of the little places to put those, how to phrase it, that just really engage customers in a non-fluffy... way but it’s more of a value add sell for our brands yeah because everybody kind of
Brian Bell (00:12:21):
wants to feel good when they’re shopping right if i buy a pair of shoes it’s kind of nice to know that you know some kid in africa is going to have shoes because they bought the shoes totally you know buy xyz product it’s kind of nice to know hey there’s a tree planted and so there’s measurable business impact even though it’s costing you a little bit of money to go do good there’s measurable 17 lift here in the bottom line
Trevor Laudate (00:12:42):
yeah exactly we have case studies and this works across all industries on customers that are surveyed that said they purchased only because of that tree that was planted And they especially repeat purchase because of those initiatives that are in place. Really cool stuff. Like one of our companies is called Farmer’s Defense. And they surveyed all of their companies and they are all their customers. And they do a ton of online orders, right? And 5% came back and said, this is the reason they shop from them and not competitors of theirs. And that 5% results in about a 25x ROI on the impact. We call it return on impact ROI. Oh, nice. Yeah, but it’s little things like that across different touch points. So conversions is one, customer loyalty and engagement is one. We have repeat purchases from the emails that actually go out to consumers. So like I mentioned, we now provide timestamps, geocoordinates, photo evidence of every unit of impact purchase for the business. But then the business can actually bake that down to their end customer.
Brian Bell (00:13:49):
So I can actually go out in the woods and see the tree that was planted for the purchase I made. Like here’s the geo coordinates.
Trevor Laudate (00:13:54):
Yeah. You’ll get the geo coordinates. You’ll get the photo evidence and you’ll get all of the impact over its life cycle of what your tree provided. And then there’s call outs on a shop again from farmer’s defense to plant another tree. Right. And now at that point, you’re way more likely to do it because you’ve never seen anything like this before. We always go to the grocery store example. Right. Everyone’s gone to the grocery store and has been asked to donate that checkout. And most people don’t do it because they don’t trust where it’s going to go. If you do do it, you probably never received any evidence or any follow up after. But, you know, if it’s powered by EcoDrive, you will receive that, which just builds loyalty with if you’re shopping at Whole Foods with Whole Foods. Right. No other grocery store provides that level of transparency and value-add engagement with their customer.
Brian Bell (00:14:41):
Yeah, that’s awesome. So a lot of companies, startups, especially in this space, struggle with distribution. And you have this kind of two-sided problem. What’s been your most reliable channel and why?
Trevor Laudate (00:14:51):
Yeah, in terms of customer acquisition?
Brian Bell (00:14:53):
Yeah, both supply and demand.
Brian Bell (00:14:54):
Yeah.
Trevor Laudate (00:14:55):
Yeah, so right now, it’s really our customer base. With a startup with a lack of resources to build this massive sales team and marketing budget, what we depend on is our loyal customers. We have over 500 businesses that actively support impact on our marketplace. And we do a bunch of co-marketing with them, which gives us exposure to their audiences. They love us. They’re proud supporters, not only because they’re seeing success on our platform, but also because they’re doing something bigger for the world as they purchase. So we have a lot of loyal customers and we’ve been leveraging them a lot to help us grow, which has been good for not only getting more brands on, but also nonprofits now with the launch of Impact IQ. Half of our current customers that are on have come from referrals or inbound leads from this co-marketing when they see our brands posting us.
Brian Bell (00:15:48):
Yeah. So your wedge seems to be both brands and nonprofits. How do you think about who pulls whom into the platform? It seems like you said it’s your customers, but between those brands and nonprofits, it sounds like it’s the brands.
Trevor Laudate (00:15:59):
Yeah, it’s brands today because nonprofits is so new. So just to backpedal a little bit and give context on how these two different segments of our business work is over the years, we built that platform where we went direct to corporates, right? We grew it to 500 plus where we’re at today. And we were starting to, and we still kind of do, win business over companies going directly to nonprofits because of all the transparency we give and all of the marketing tools. When again, if they go direct, they’re just going to get donation receipts. So companies choose us over nonprofits, which is kind of weird to say, right? Like nobody wants to steal clients from nonprofits. And so what we realize is a bigger opportunity to, instead of compete with nonprofits, provide nonprofits with our technology to help them better service their corporate donors. which means giving them all of the marketing tools, giving them all of the evidence, right? Actually providing that same experience that helped EcoDrive to win on our marketplace, giving that to nonprofits across all causes so that they can create more donations from corporates, better service their current ones, and also reduce their admin overhead because a lot of nonprofits lack the resources right now. And if you look at corporate partner programs that nonprofits have, they have to hire nonprofits an admin, an account manager, salesperson for every five new corporate partners that they signed, which just isn’t scalable. And with our platform, now it is. And so they’re basically, these things feed off of each other really well. And that just launched in November. It’s called Impact IQ by EcoDrive.
Brian Bell (00:17:38):
Well, yeah, and let’s get into that, the Impact IQ side of it, because it sounds like that’s pretty new. What is that? And what’s the problem you’re solving there?
Trevor Laudate (00:17:46):
Yeah, so it’s kind of what I just spoke on with nonprofits not being able to really manage their corporate donor the right way and what’s allowed EcoDrive to win business over them. They currently give you a donation receipt and the generic photos, and that’s true across most causes. They don’t provide you with this ROI, the return on impact that our platform does. And so a lot of corporates just do the one off donations at the end of the year. And they’re just partners because, you know, they want to have the tax write off or they want to do something good, but it’s not really adding value to their business. And then they have to go in and they have to reconcile themselves with us. With us, it’s all completely automated. And so we’re now providing nonprofits with that same ability to better service their corporate donor, use our portal, our platform, and everything like that. And then it’s almost like a CRM on the back end where they can see how much donations they receive. They can manage everything in one central spot for them, which is a big challenge for nonprofits right now. A lot of them are using CRMs, but it doesn’t provide the full experience for the corporate donor. A lot of nonprofits are set up to service individual donors and things like that if you look at technology stack.
Brian Bell (00:19:03):
Gotcha. So there seems to be a flywheel here. It’s like nonprofits bringing corporates, corporates bringing nonprofits, corporates bringing consumers, consumers probably saying, hey, I noticed this on another site. There’s definitely some sort of network effect in the business, I feel like, that you’re kind of hitting on here.
Trevor Laudate (00:19:19):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, if we can do this thing right, and we’re already seeing the early results of it, if we scale to what we want to be, it could be very powerful, that flywheel effect. So how we look at it is we have our corporate partners, right? All of the corporate partners market us to the consumers. The consumers register, track their IDs, everything like that. And so when they’re registering their IDs, they then give us their emails and everything along those lines. The more consumers we get, the more corporate partners want to partner with us because now we can market, hey, Nike is donating clean drinking water to a village in Mexico for every purchase of this shoe specifically, right? And then we can send that to our hundreds of thousands to millions of consumers that actively care about impact, right? And then the more corporates that we get, the more nonprofits wanna partner with us because when nonprofits use Impact IQ, not only are they better servicing their corporate donors, but their projects now get listed in our EcoDrive marketplace for our sales team and our businesses to support. And then the more nonprofits that we get, they onboard all of their corporate partners, which creates that full flywheel effect because their corporate partners are then marketing to consumers and that’s EcoDrive branded. And then this thing is just a powerful wheel that keeps spinning.
Brian Bell (00:20:39):
A big question that investors often ask themselves when they make an investment is like, why now? I probably asked you this when we initially met, but why now? Why didn’t somebody do this 20 years ago or 15 years ago? Why is it coalescing now?
Trevor Laudate (00:20:51):
Yeah, I think there’s a couple of reasons. I don’t know if know exactly that right now is the best time, but I think if you look at the trend of annual corporate donations, right? So the annual corporate donation market in the U S alone is $33 billion a year in 2024. grew to $42 billion, right? So it was like a 10% growth in this market. I think a lot of that is driven by consumers’ demand to now shop from businesses that do good or support businesses that do good, or they really resonate with those messages. And so all of these nonprofits are trying to figure out corporate donations. If they don’t already have them, they’re trying to figure out how to do it. if they do already have them they need a better service on show the proof make sure they retain their non-profits and not lose them to tech companies like ecodrive right and so that’s why there’s this massive opportunity to be that engine that allows them to do that and take advantage of this growing market as you know it’s only going to continue to grow as budgets shift down from baby boomers down to millennials and gen z who really care about supporting businesses like this.
Brian Bell (00:22:00):
Yeah, it’s interesting. I think if you think about the long arc of economic history coming out of like, I don’t know, the 20th century, mid 20th century, initially, we’re just excited to have cheap goods, right? Cheap packaged goods at the grocery store. I can go down there and buy a can of soup for a dime or whatever it was in the 50s. And then it became convenience, right? I can go to a big box retailer. I can go to Costco. I can go to Amazon.com eventually and just order and it just shows up at my door and that’s convenient. And it’s a good price and it’s convenient. And now people have kind of, I don’t know, evolved to, okay, yeah, I want a good price. I want convenience, but I also want impact. I want to know that what I’m doing isn’t harming people on the planet that I live on. It’s almost like a post-capitalist kind of timing situation. We’re still in capitalism. It’s sort of like we’re in this hybrid where people want to feel like, hey, what I do actually has a positive effect on the world.
Trevor Laudate (00:22:55):
Yeah. And that’s what we’re seeing with the results that our clients are seeing too, right? Because you see a lot of generic studies around it. Every major company has done studies on that exact thing. 73% of shoppers will prefer to shop sustainably or... I think Shopify has one about, you know, across any cause, 83% of people choose to shop from businesses that are not only doing something good, but communicating the good that they’re doing, right? That’s a big factor in this because a lot of businesses that donate don’t communicate properly. That’s another place EcoDrive supports, but those are all great. The results that we’re seeing from our own brands though, I think that makes it even more tangible, like, wow, this is a real opportunity that consumers do care right they’re seeing that roi across all these different channels wherever we put it now i will say like just because you’re donating a meal for every product you sell if your product’s not good they’re probably not going to come back right so it’s still like product and brand first and then this is that value add build loyalty boost conversions if i’m looking in the grocery store and i see A can of soup that looks really good, but I’m deciding between that and another one. And they’re about the same price point. Maybe this one’s a little bit more expensive, but this one is feeding a child with its purchase. I’ll probably choose this one. And that’s kind of what we’re saying.
Brian Bell (00:24:21):
Or at least give it a shot and see if it’s equivalent.
Trevor Laudate (00:24:23):
Yeah, exactly. And then guess what? When that consumer can actually see the follow through on that, that’s when something really powerful comes, right? Because now that brand, this is another part of the impact ID software, which ties that exact impact to the customer. That customer can scan a QR code, which will take them to a registration page where they register and can track their exact meal that they donated, right? But when they do that, the brand now actually gets their in-store customer email, right? So that’s a huge value add for businesses as well, especially those that are heavy in retail.
Brian Bell (00:24:56):
Creates a reason to have earned media for the brand.
Trevor Laudate (00:24:59):
Exactly. Exactly. Now it’s a way for them to own the email address of their customers that before they had no direct access to.
Brian Bell (00:25:06):
And that’s the impact ID thing.
Brian Bell (00:25:08):
That’s impact IDs.
Brian Bell (00:25:09):
Yeah.
Brian Bell (00:25:09):
wow that’s amazing so you’re helping helping brands build their email list and have a more direct relationship with the consumer not just through the retail channels or the typical channels that they’re they’re used to or you know especially for a brand that sells through like a grocery store or some retail outlet or something like that exactly yep another another i’m putting my vc hat on at various points in this conversation how another question we often ask ourselves is like how big can this get
Trevor Laudate (00:25:35):
Yeah. It’s a great question. I think, you know, it goes back to that market size, which market size is always a tricky one, right? You don’t want to be the guy that just says, Oh, if we can just get 2% of this market.
Brian Bell (00:25:48):
But 1% of a trillion dollar market.
Trevor Laudate (00:25:50):
Yeah. But you know, and this is, hopeful, opportunistic founder of the company. So I obviously have a bias. I truly believe we’re filling a massive gap in that corporate donation space, right? I think it’s proven by early demand, not only from all of our corporates that we see, but also the nonprofits that want to use Impact IQ and get on our platform as soon as beta is up. It’s a huge market, it’s growing, and there’s a gap. right? If you look at all of the major players in the space right now, like Classy, who was a unicorn company sold to GoFundMe, DonorBox, there’s a bunch of these. And what they focus on is that individual donation, right? So you go to their website, you can click donate. And that’s how a lot of their corporate partners are donating to. And so there’s nobody that’s providing this full experience that can provide transparency and everything around the donation. It’s more on that individual side and so we are tripling down in the corporate donor direction i really think we can own and dominate that space and become a very massive company
Brian Bell (00:26:54):
Yeah what’s the future look like five or ten years out you executed perfectly and it’s a it’s a massive business what is that long-term vision that’s the other question that vcs ask what’s your vision for the future
Trevor Laudate (00:27:05):
Yeah. So we basically want to be that trusted source, right? If you’re a nonprofit and you know you’re doing good work, we want you to come to us because we are going to help you pass that transparency to corporates. If you’re a corporate donor, you’re not only coming to us because you want to do good in the world, but you know this is going to drive business results. And so you’re now increasing the your give back budget and you’re pulling from your marketing budget in order to give back, right? Because you’re seeing that ROI. I think if we accomplish this flywheel effect we talked about, we’ll have thousands of corporate partners that we’re talking to, more than that, right? Tens of thousands of corporate partners Millions of consumers and every nonprofit wants to use our platform because we’re best agreed to service their corporate partners and allow them to prove that they’re doing good work. That’s such a problem in the space that nonprofits, they know they just don’t know how to solve. And we’re trying to solve that for them.
Brian Bell (00:28:06):
That’s amazing. Well, let’s wrap up with some rapid fire.
Brian Bell (00:28:09):
Yeah.
Brian Bell (00:28:10):
And I’ll probably have other questions that pop in my mind as we go through this. But if you could ban one type of sustainability claim from marketing right now, what would it be? That’s a good question.
Trevor Laudate (00:28:18):
So I think, you know, we always coach our clients on don’t make claims, just explain exactly what’s happening. So everyone says we’re a sustainable business because we’re planting a tree for every online order. Well, that’s not true because you manufacture in China and ship over on boats. So you’re emitting a ton of carbon doing that. And that’s where consumers, they’ve caught on at this point. They’ll see right through that. So instead of saying we’re a sustainable company, say something like we’re working to be more sustainable. And one of the first steps in doing so is planting a tree for every online order. We know we have to do better at X, Y, and Z, but we’re trying and we’re doing that together with our customers so that we can prove this is something you care about, which allows us to make further investment in becoming a fully sustainable business. business, which realistically fully sustainable is unaccomplishable right now with the technologies and everything out there. So it’s just always working to be more sustainable. If you see that word, we are 100% sustainable. Most of the time that’s greenwashing in itself.
Brian Bell (00:29:28):
Yeah, that makes sense. What’s the highest signal proof artifact that instantly builds trust? Is it photos, geotext, timestamps, third party verification, some combination of stuff I’m missing? From the consumer?
Brian Bell (00:29:40):
Yeah. The consumer perspective.
Trevor Laudate (00:29:42):
I think it’s the one seeing that claim made, right? So saying we’re planting a tree or we’re pulling a pound of plastic from the ocean for this transaction. And then Getting the real follow-up of the images of your exact pounds that were pulled. Images are super powerful, right? Like if we’ve done studies where we send no images and just the data on their plastic, right? So timestamps, geocoordinates, et cetera. It’s still really good. That’s still more than they’ve ever gotten. But if I could send you your exact session of the pounds that were pulled from a river in Bali for your transaction, that’s super powerful because you’re not only seeing that plastic being removed and what it looked like before, right? A river full of plastic, now like the trash being weighed, the team on the ground that’s fully staffed and getting a fair living wage and they’re out there doing good work. It just makes you want to support these causes even more and builds up your relationship more with that brand that you shop from. So I really think images is a powerful thing when it comes to providing transparency.
Brian Bell (00:30:48):
What’s the most underrated reason corporate giving fails to create trust with consumers?
Trevor Laudate (00:30:53):
The most underrated reason corporate donations fail to create trust.
Brian Bell (00:30:58):
You could take the flip side. You could take the overrated reason.
Trevor Laudate (00:31:00):
Yeah. I think the underrated reason why it fails is... I think back to my earlier point of people think that nonprofits are out to do fraud a lot or there’s something bad going on. And there probably is, right? Like I’m sure there’s a good amount of nonprofits that are doing that. But realistically, what it comes down to is a lack of the technology there. right and so nobody really looks at that people know nonprofits are under resourced and they’re working off a pen and paper in some situations to audit stuff but nobody really can understand that full layer of how difficult it is for nonprofits to actually adopt technology that can provide that transparency even if they’re already recording that data perfectly And so I think it just comes down to a lack of technology versus, you know, these nonprofits actually have ill intentions.
Brian Bell (00:31:56):
What’s a product decision you made that seemed risky at the time, but unlocked a step change?
Trevor Laudate (00:32:00):
Building Impact IQ. I mean, we were only until November of 2025, we were only selling to corporates direct, right? And so Impact IQ was a big build and We took a lot of our resources and now we’re selling both to corporates and nonprofits and essentially their corporate donors through that. And so it’s a big bet. Still, we’re seeing great early results, but there’s still a ways to go to product market fit. But we get there, it’s going to be a really special thing.
Brian Bell (00:32:31):
For VCs and investors listening out there, what’s the biggest misconception investors have about these impact infrastructure businesses like EcoDrive?
Trevor Laudate (00:32:41):
Yeah, I think a struggle we’ve always had, right, going to VCs is sometimes they think of us as, you know, it’s just like an impact company or we’re a charity within ourselves. And how big can this market really get? And what we always try and get them to understand is it’s a massive market that’s underserviced, underrepresented. These nonprofits, while they are difficult to work with because they’re a whole different process and the sales side and everything like that, they’re already using a lot of technology. And those technology companies, like I mentioned, are billion-dollar businesses. And so this is really helping them to operate better, to better service donors, get more donors in, which helps us to make real money. And that’s when we always say, we have a plan to get to that unicorn status with this company. And it’s actually very attainable if we accomplish the things we set out to do.
Brian Bell (00:33:36):
What’s the North Star metric for whether EcoDrive is truly working?
Trevor Laudate (00:33:39):
Corporate donations processed through our platform. That’s the number one metric we’re going to be tracking moving forward because One, that proves we have corporate donations coming direct through our marketplace, but also two, nonprofits are using it in the way it’s intended to better service their corporate donors, which means all of their corporate donations are flowing through our platform.
Brian Bell (00:34:01):
Love it. So if I’m a corporate or a nonprofit or just an interested consumer, how do I find out more online?
Trevor Laudate (00:34:07):
Yeah, you can go to, if you’re a corporate, go to ecodrive.community. You can also follow us on Instagram at ecodrive. If you’re a nonprofit, you can also access it through ecodrive.community, but it’s just a click of four nonprofits and that will take you to ecodrive.community slash impact IQ, which is everything you need to know about our program and our beta program.
Brian Bell (00:34:32):
Well, this has been really informative. I can’t wait to talk to you offline because as we were talking for the last 40 or so minutes, I was thinking of all the Team Ignite portfolio companies you should collaborate with. So we’ll talk offline. Thanks for coming on. This was amazing.
Trevor Laudate (00:34:46):
Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it, Brian. This is a lot of fun.
