390 | How to 100X Your Social Impact with Kurt Avery
What if the key to multiplying your social impact by 100x wasn’t just a better product—but a radically different approach to business itself?
Bio: Kurt Avery is the founder and president of Sawyer Products, a company at the forefront of innovation in outdoor protection and humanitarian aid. With a background in marketing for Fortune 500 companies and an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, Kurt launched Sawyer with a mission to develop practical, life-saving solutions—most notably in water filtration and insect repellents. Under his leadership, the company has grown into a global force, serving both outdoor enthusiasts and vulnerable communities around the world.
Through partnerships with over 140 nonprofits in more than 80 countries, Sawyer has helped provide clean water to millions, significantly reducing waterborne diseases and improving health outcomes in underserved areas. Kurt’s approach to business is deeply rooted in purpose, faith, and impact—a philosophy he shares in his book, Sawyer Think: How a Small Company Disrupts Markets and Changes the World.
Kurt and his company have been featured in major outlets, including New York Times, Yahoo Finance, and Newsbreak.
This episode is sponsored by the coaching company of the host, Paul Zelizer. Consider a Strategy Session if you can use support growing your impact business.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Transcript of How to 100X Your Social Impact with Kurt Avery
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Key Takeaways in How to 100X Your Social Impact with Kurt Avery
Obsessive Commitment to Quality and Innovation:
Sawyer Products’ extraordinary impact is rooted in an uncompromising obsession with product quality and a refusal to settle for “me-too” solutions. Drawing on advanced technology, like hollow fiber membranes from kidney dialysis, the company ensures every filter is the absolute best on the market—tested three times for reliability—and this commitment is essential to their reputation and global adoption.
"How could you live with yourself if you went in there and said 90% are gonna be okay and the other 10 are gonna get sick and some of your kids are gonna die? You can’t do that. So you have to be, to use your word, obsessed with getting to that next level. And be honest with you, half our cost of the filter is the testing."
Scale Through Strategic Partnerships and Lean Teams:
Sawyer leverages deep relationships with over 140 nonprofits and key influencers, enabling massive global impact with a remarkably small internal team. By empowering partners and focusing on stakeholder-driven outcomes, Sawyer can deliver clean water and protection at scale, while also supporting organizations to become more data-driven and effective in their own missions.
"It’s how you define team. ... Our partners are really part of the team. ... So we obviously do water, but we impact the other 2. ... We are really close with these people, really close. ... Our team is the 140 charities, plus a few people back here just saying, here's what we need."
Holistic, Mission-Driven Impact and Reinventing Social Enterprise:
Profit is seen as a tool for purpose at Sawyer, not an end in itself. Most profits are reinvested directly into impact initiatives, and the company invests heavily in rigorous research to back its claims. Sawyer measures and addresses wide-ranging outcomes—public health, environment, gender equity, and economic opportunity—and constantly innovates, demonstrating that small, values-driven companies can disrupt whole sectors and improve millions of lives.
"We take all our profits and we put them into changing the world because we can. ... I do own 100% of the company and ... all the profits accrue to me if I let it become a profit, but I don’t have to let it be a profit. So we burn it off and give them away before it even becomes a profit line. ... Think big. You got one life, right? ... Why not?"