Changemakers - Yi Sung Yong

Yi Sung Yong is part of the founding team of Not for Profit organisation One Cent Movement, which works on turning online purchases into an opportunity to donate to charity.

This week we profile Sung in Changemakers – a weekly column that examines inspiring people and their careers in the Not for Profit sector.

Sung, who was a management consultant before joining the One Cent Movement (OCM), says he and the team were inspired by a banker that made millions of dollars scamming every transaction by one cent, a scam called Salami Slicing.

The idea behind OCM is simple; shop as usual, round up your purchase to the nearest dollar and the difference goes to charity of your choice. Funded by grants and angel donors, 100 per cent of OCM’s proceeds go to charities.

Platforms that OCM supports include amazon.com, Jetstar, AirAsia and eBay.

What are you currently working on in the organisation?

One Cent Movement is all about turning everyday transactions into opportunities to give to charity.

Once you have downloaded our browser plugin, every time you're shopping online, an option will be given to round up your transactions to the nearest dollar – you can choose the charity you would like to make a difference to – and with just one click you can donate your small change online!

What do you like best about working in your current organisation?

Everyday we are cracking our brains trying to solve problems that we know will impact the society positively.

It never gets tiring!

We are also a very small shop and emphasise a lot on culture and a good work life balance.

Favourite saying …

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." – Theodore Roosevelt

I’m always being asked …

Why did you leave the corporate world? How do you make money?

I’m very bad at …

Multitasking.

What are you reading/watching/listening to at the moment?

I am reading this very interesting article on startup lessons – http://www.defmacro.org/2013/07/23/startup-lessons.html

What does a typical day for you involve?

Exercise – design – develop – deploy – repeat.

Coffee from Chris' cafe; Sushi from Fairprice; Standups – where we go through the questions we would have answered that week/today; Writing a lot of code; Hustling people to download the plugin.