The Humanitix Story

Written By SECNA Accounts Access

This story was originally published by Humans For Good on 6 August 2025 and has been republished here with their permission because we love stories about great social enterprises. See original post in the Humans for Good substack here.


Imagine you’re about to buy tickets for your favourite festival. You reach the checkout, bracing yourself for the frustrating “booking fee” that is about to appear. And then you notice it – 100% of the booking fee profit goes to charity. What?

No, you’re not dreaming; yes, this is real. This is Humanitix – a ticketing platform that donates its profits to provide access to education, healthcare and life’s basic necessities to humans in need globally – an amount that has surpassed $16.5m since its founding in 2016. They are living proof that it’s possible to build a high-growth tech company that does good by design, rather than as an afterthought – demonstrating that it’s possible to not only compete, but win, without compromising on purpose or profitability.

The story begins whilst high school mates Adam McCurdie and Josh Ross were backpacking. Having both been on somewhat of a soul-searching journey, they found themselves anxious about joining the corporate world after university. They knew that one day they wanted to create something together that would generate impact at scale.

“We were very attached to the idea of building a business to do good, like genuine good, not slapping lipstick on a pig like a lot of big corporates do with their greenwashing and stuff.”

After a few years spent in finance, strategy consulting and engineering, and going on many hikes trying to crack the formula of what would be worth quitting their jobs to do, they made the decision to share Josh’s salary in order for Adam to explore their ideas full time.

After ditching their initial idea to disrupt Facebook, Josh remembers the day Adam called him:

“He said – “Josh, ticketing! It’s an immediate revenue stream. Everyone hates ticketing platforms, the fees are excessive, the customer service is terrible. Let’s do it.” And we never looked back. The idea just got better the more we looked into it.”

The scrappy start and bold decisions highlight a powerful truth: you don’t need to wait for a billion-dollar valuation in order to embed purpose at the heart of your business.

Prioritising product excellence over ethical positioning

You’re probably thinking – “Of course people will choose to use the ticketing platform that donates to charity over others.” Well… unfortunately not. Despite consumer’s intentions to buy something more ethical, research shows that 90% say that they will buy a more ethical product even if it costs the same amount, but only **10% actually do. Otherwise known as the ‘say-do gap’.

Josh and Adam knew they couldn’t rest on the laurels of ethics, nor rely on humanity’s good intentions, so they committed to making the best product – and to never stop giving to charity.

With reviews consistently coming in around 4.8 out of 5 stars, it’s clear they put their money (and product) where their mouth is.

As 85% of consumers are willing to switch to brands that prioritise customer service, and ticketing platforms being known for their shortfalls, this felt like the obvious thing to place front and centre of the value proposition. Whilst some of their largest competitors cuts corners, only giving decent quality customer service to those of high value, Humanitix boasts their commitment to support all customers.

“We’ve always joked that we put the human back in ticketing. Whether you’re running a 10-person, two hour yoga workshop, or a festival for 110,000 people over three days – you can get help on the phone from real people in Sydney, Auckland, Denver, Edinburgh”

Other features that facilitate a fun and fast experience include in-built Canva design tools, checkout as a guest, phone-to-phone payments, and the most accurate venue seat map on the market.

Building a stand-out user experience isn’t at odds with doing good – in fact, it’s the key to sustaining it.

Setting the accessibility benchmark for platforms worldwide

And they didn’t stop there – Humanitix is also on a mission to be crowned the world’s most accessible platform. This all began when the team met Rocco – a legally blind man that the team met at a Microsoft Hackathon in 2018 (read more about the wonderful story here.)

Since then, the Humanitix team have developed, tested and launched a suite of features to ensure an equitable and enjoyable experience for all customers, in partnership with key disability organisations in Australia. From screen reader compatible pages across the whole web and mobile experience, to an event management dashboard that allows organisers to easily edit information and send email campaigns about accessible parking, travel and entry points.

“Within a week of entering the US market, we had all these inquiries from disability groups. Turns out, no other ticketing platforms globally cater well to various accessibility needs, and people had heard about us on disability forums and were waiting for us to expand there.”

1.3 billion people globally live with some form of disability – representing over $2.6tr of disposable income in the US, UK, EU and Canada alone. This means that aside from it being the right thing to embed inclusive design principles, it actually makes business sense too. Better yet, doing so improves the experience for everyone. Accessible websites have been shown to load faster and rank better in search engines, as well as reduce bounce rates.

Where the money goes, and why that matters

With millions of dollars being raised from booking fees annually, it’s important to Humanitix that they allocate funds to improve as many lives as possible. As such, they partner with the likes of the Atlassian Foundation, Partners for Equity and The Life You Can Save to choose charities making a measurable impact in the provision of healthcare, education, food and stability.

“As a society, we try to guess what a person in extreme poverty, for example, needs. We often get that wrong. It can be an inefficient and expensive way to try to deliver change. They are often the person in the best position to make that choice.”

In 2024, Humanitix gave AUD$1 million amount to Room to Read, which is equivalent to 2,740 girls supported through an entire year of secondary school, based on the organisation’s annual estimate of $365 per student.

And what’s more, employees are each given their own allocation to make an annual donation to a charity of their choice, inviting them to the challenge of allocating philanthropic funds effectively. A different (and possibly even more rewarding?) financial incentive, compared to your usual bonus scheme…

By backing their commitment to impact with smart partnerships and radical transparency, Humanitix proves that financial rigour and moral clarity can go hand-in-hand.

From Grandad’s apartment to global impact

Despite plans to expand globally, it’s not necessarily been linear path to growth. From the aforementioned shared salary between founders Josh and Adam, to the first three years being profit-less and volunteer-run, it’s clear that the Humanitix team is full of passionate grafters who are keen to make a difference in the world (including three Humans For Good members who joined the team ).

“We attract interesting, eclectic people and we try to create that type of open minded, curious environment where we all care about each other.”

Like many in the events industry, they were hit hard by the pandemic and had to make some difficult decisions. But rather than lay off their wonderful staff, they made the decision to retain the entire team by cutting pay temporarily by 20% – founders included.

“Coming out of COVID, our revenue jumped about 3,400% because we'd taken so much market share. Looking after our staff meant that we looked after our customers in what was also an incredibly terrible time for event organisers.”

Josh described the team feeling more like a family from the start – unsurprising, given that the founding operation of 5-10 people essentially started from Adam’s parents house which they shared with his then 89-year-old grandfather, alongside the family dog. A dynamic that, although difficult to retain in literal form, they have been careful to not let dilute as they grow.

“We’re now generating between AUD$10-15 million annually for our projects. Now we’re profitable and growing in the US, and we’ve just entered the UK… Hopefully in the next five years, we can replicate our success, and hypothetically we could be giving AUD$200m a year to charity.”

Huge. And the best bit? You can be a part of this simply by using Humanitix to organise your next event, or buy tickets to your next event. How good?

What’s next for ethical for-profits?

Humanitix reflects a wider shift: from positive impact as PR, to positive impact as a business model. While many companies treat social good as a marketing afterthought or tax write-off, a new breed of businesses are leveraging their structure as a direct tool for change.

In another great example of this – Patagonia shocked the world in 2022 when they announced they were selling the company: to the earth. Their voting stock was transferred to a trust dedicated to Patagonia’s values, and their non-voting stock given to a not-for-profit dedicated to environmentalism.

No longer a billionaire, Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard stated:

“If we have any hope of a thriving planet—much less a thriving business—50 years from now, it is going to take all of us doing what we can with the resources we have.”

Visionaries like Humanitix and Patagonia flip the traditional model on its head: they don’t just make room for impact, they build around it.

And it often starts at a personal level. Josh and Adam practised what they preached, long before revenue hit - sharing one salary to commit to creating a purpose-led platform. Yvon Chouinard relinquished the family fortune in a bid to protect the earth. That’s real skin in the game.

What if this wasn’t unconventional, but the future of business?

On being a good human

We asked Josh what advice he would give to someone looking to make an impact in their lives. His suggestion? Don’t just double tap, but show up.

Whether it’s volunteering your time, skills, energy or money, true impact starts with making real-world contributions.

And, of course, it would be amiss to not share Josh’s perspective on being a better founder committed to doing good, which mimics the spirit of the old adage “don’t let perfect be the enemy of progress”:

“People tend to get stuck in the research phase - I’d recommend using a white label solution to quickly spin up an MVP, get it to the market and prove the concept. We took this approach and within eight months of Adam going full-time, we had a product to market with actual customers.”

If you needed a sign to start the “good” thing – here it is.

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