David and I set up Ingenio in 2012. When we decided to partner up, about a year and a half after we had met at Pro Bono Publico, we opted for a two-pronged structure: to create a non-for-profit civil society organization --inspired by a number of much admired international organizations-- and, at the same time, set up a limited liability company.
This plan contemplated including a provision in the LLC's bylaws whereby, in essence, 20% of the company's operating profit would be committed annually to fund the NGO's operations. Our idea was that, if anything, the NGO should 'cost' us money, never the other way around.
We could have done it differently, but after research and some thought we felt it was the best structure in order to achieve three equally important goals: (1) preserve the NGO's independence from middle-of-the-road and potentially conflicting commercial interests; (2) ensure a secondary source of funding for the NGO to help its future sustainability; and, (3) open up a way to earn a living from our work for us, the co-founders, through the LLC --it's basically not possible to derive stable earnings as co-founders from a Spanish foundation--.
Civio came first. Thanks to our exceptionally talented team we have enjoyed a very good initial three years, and all signs indicate that 2015 will be our best year yet from inception, with significant growth in funding and ambitious new projects in the pipeline.
Now it is turn for Ingenio to rear its --hopefully not so ugly-- head. After two years in a sort of non-secretive stealth mode, where we have executed data analysis and visualization projects that required little to no proactive sales effort, we now feel it is time to step up a gear boosting our capabilities --commercial, technical and creative--.
We are thus in hiring mode. Here is our first LinkedIn add, and here the same offer in our blog. Hopefully it is the first one of many more to come.
