How Canva Is Being A Force For Good By Empowering The Whole World To Design

Canva Design Stories | CANVA

Canva has become one of those brands that (like Zoom) have entered the fabric of our lives in a seamless way. It has over 75 million monthly active users and expects to generate over a billion dollars of revenue in 2022. Canva is now valued at $40 billion following a recent funding round of $200 million, making it one of the most valuable private software companies out there.

All of this has paved the way for the company to authentically fulfill what it lightheartedly calls it “Two-Step plan”.

Step 1: become one of the most valuable companies in the world; and Step 2: “Do the most good we can”.

I caught up with Zach Kitschke, Canva’s Chief Marketing Officer and one of the longest serving employees of the company to learn more about their Purpose and Vision, their social impact projects and how they are serving their diverse group of creators.

Afdhel Aziz: Zach, welcome! It's been a long journey from your early days at Canva to where you are now. What's changed at Canva and what's stayed the same?

Zach Kitschke, Chief Marketing Officer at Canva | CANVA

Zach Kitschke: It’s been nearly a decade since we launched Canva as a small team huddled around a conference table in Sydney. We’ve rapidly grown to a team of more than 2,800 around the globe and have built a community of more than 75 million people who use Canva each month to unlock their creativity and achieve their goals. The size of our team and community may have changed, but our mission to empower the world to design remains just as important as it was on day one.

The world has become an increasingly visual and digital place. We’ve made a product that’s truly accessible to everyone including over 200,000 non-profits, major organizations such as Zoom and Salesforce who are embracing Canva to manage their brands at scale, and teachers and students who are bringing visual communication and design literacy into the classroom. We believe that everyone should have access to visual communication tools regardless of their income, where they live or their prior experience.

Our product has grown significantly too – we most recently launched Canva Sites and Canva Video, which allow people to create professional and engaging websites and videos without any prior training or expensive software. We’re excited to continue doubling down in this space as we continue building an all-in-one platform for every kind of team.

Aziz: It’s been an amazing rocket ship of a journey. Please tell us a little about the brand. How do you articulate the Purpose (or Mission) and Vision of Canva?

One Print, One Tree

Kitschke: Our mission from the very beginning has been to empower the whole world to design. Our vision is to literally empower the whole world to design almost anything with Canva, and we’ve been articulating that by spotlighting our community in our brand and marketing campaigns to showcase the simple yet innovative ways they're using Canva to achieve their goals. From small business owners to enterprise organizations like Zoom and FastCompany, we want our brand to reflect the same level of empowerment and inspiration that we built into our product from the very beginning.

Aziz: And the brand's focus on social impact seems to have been woven in right from the start - how has it evolved with time?

Ukraine Templates | Canva

Kitschke: One of our core values at Canva is to “Be a force for good”. It’s a value that resonates with all of us. Being a force for good at Canva takes many forms, such as the 1% pledge, where we’ve committed: 1% of our equity, 1% of our profits, 1% of our team’s time and 1% of product, to be a force for good in the world, as well as through the Canva Foundation which allows us to give back to the world through our team, our product and our community.

We’ve always had a deeper mission surrounding Canva — which we talk about as our ‘simple’ Two-Step plan — become one of the world’s most valuable companies and do the most good that we can which we see as a real virtuous cycle.

Canva Design Stories | Canva

We see our community as an integral part of our Two-Step-plan which allows us to redirect Canva’s profits towards supporting causes that we care about, without the cost being passed onto our customers. For example, we’ve supported crisis relief efforts globally; such as India’s COVID-19 response where all proceeds from media purchases on Canva were donated directly to relief efforts in India. Most recently, we made donations to more than 700 Ukrainian creators and contributors for them to use in a way they feel has the greatest impact on their families and local communities. We’ve planted 1 million trees through our One Print, One Tree reforestation program where we’ve committed to planting a tree for every print order ever placed with Canva – there’s no limit to the number of trees we can plant and we’re making each print order count as an investment in our environment’s health for future generations.

Every single person who joins our team, and everyone around the world who uses Canva, become part of our journey in making a positive impact in the world. It’s an incredible opportunity and a huge responsibility that each of us play a key part in.

Canva kicked off a number of projects in the space of diversity including the launch of Canva’s Diverse Creator Fund which aims to amplify creators and champion diversity in every corner of the globe.  | MAINGAILA MUVUNDIKA & CANVA

Aziz: It's also been really interesting to see Canva’s focus on representation and collaborating with BIPOC creators - how has this resonated with your community?

Kitschke: We’re fortunate to have a globally diverse community who are using Canva each day to bring their creativity to life. From social media managers in Brazil to small business owners in the United States to students and educators in the Philippines. They know that by using Canva, they can find truly authentic content of the world they live in without having to scour the internet in search of content that is relevant to them.

As our platform continues to grow globally, so too does our responsibility to continue fostering a library of diverse, authentic and representative content. We kicked off a number of projects in this space including the launch of Canva’s Diverse Creator Fund which aims to amplify creators and champion diversity in every corner of the globe. With a global community of more than 75 million, we’re providing a platform for creators to connect with and inspire people on a bigger scale than ever before. We’re directly supporting a global network of creatives and content creators who are capturing and producing authentic content that represents the diverse world we live in. There’s been overwhelming interest in the program and soon we’ll be unveiling some of the talented individuals and their collections which capture the unique cultures and experiences we love to celebrate.