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TRANSPARENCY
We are GOOD and we really mean it
We believe that a social business should be as transparent as possible. That’s why it’s important to us that you find out exactly how we work, where our funds come from, and what we use them for. We operate on a not-for-profit basis and have transferred all shares in the company to the charitable foundation Good Impact.
We are a Certified B Corporation
With more than 5,000 certified companies in 83 countries, B Corp is the world’s largest network of companies that measure their success in relation to their societal benefits and have them independently certified. In addition to the governance structure, its positive impact on the local community, customers, natural environment and work force is evaluated.
Good Search (with its former brand Gexsi) has been continuously recognised as a “Best-for-the-World” company in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 due to its high score.
Initiative Transparente Zivilgesellschaft
We adhere to the 10 criteria of the “Transparent Civil Society Initiative” which the German chapter of Transparency International have developed for purpose-driven organizations to lay open all basic information about our organization and our operations in a standardized format.
Company name: Good Search UG (haftungsbeschränkt).
Address: c/o Good Impact Foundation, Joachimstraße 10, 10119 Berlin, Germany.
Year established: 2016
Website: www.good-search.org
The company was founded under the name GEXSI Impact UG and renamed Good Search UG in December 2020. The name change is documented here; a current extract from the commercial register is available here. The sole shareholder is the charitable Good Impact Foundation, a charitable trust of the NOAH Foundation; the transfer of the company shares is documented here.
Good Search follows the guidelines of the Initiative Transparente Zivilgesellschaft (ITZ). Contact person for questions regarding transparency is: Dr. Andreas Renner, andreas@good-search.org, Tel: 0174 3067864.
Our company Good Search UG operates two further sustainable search engines apart from GOOD: Panda Search and Suchhier.
Verankerung der Gemeinwohlorientierung in der Governance-Struktur
Anchoring the purpose of the company in the governance structure Good Search UG is a B Corp-certified social business whose mission is embedded in its corporate statutes. All relevant documents are linked for download at the end of this section.
a) Non-profit framework
The company’s shares are fully held by the non-profit Noah Foundation (Foundation Register: Potsdam #164) as trustee of the Good Impact Foundation.
b) Anchoring of the purpose orientation in the articles of association
The social mission is embedded in the Articles of Association in the paragraph “Purpose of the Company” on the one hand, and in the paragraph “Management and Representation” on the other, which obliges the management to give due consideration to the interests of all stakeholders instead of putting economic interests first.
§2 Purpose of the Company
2.1 The purpose of the company is (i) consulting, research and communication on issues related to the development, promotion and financing of public welfare-oriented projects, organisations, initiatives and companies in the field of impact investing and venture philanthropy, as well as the development of corresponding business models, (ii) the development, operation, use, promotion or marketing of digital information, engagement or fundraising tools, as well as (iii) the provision of services related thereto, such as the establishment of cooperations or the management of midstream flows as well as their social impact measurement.
2.2 The purpose of the Company is to achieve a significant positive impact on the common good as well as the environment through its business activities.
§7 Management and representation
(i) the shareholders of the company;
(ii) the employees of the Company, its subsidiaries and its suppliers; and
(iii) the customers as beneficiaries of the Company’s endeavours to achieve a significant positive impact on the common good as well as the environment;
(iv) the communities in which the Company, its subsidiaries or its suppliers are located;
(v) the local and global environment; and
(vi) the short and long-term interests of the Company, including the benefits arising from the Company’s long-term plans or independence;
(the aforementioned groups of persons collectively the “Stakeholders”).
7.6 The Directors shall, in the course of their directorships, promote the success of the Company to the best of their ability without being required to give priority to the interests of any individual stakeholder or group of stakeholders.
c) Self-commitment
As part of its voluntary commitment, Gexsi guarantees that at least 50% of the net revenue generated through the search engine will be used for a good cause. The revenue share is document on the page Your impact. To date, 100% of the revenues have been invested in our project portfolio.
Corporate Statutes and Commercial Registry
Here you find all relevant corporate governance documents(in German)
- Corporate Statutes dated 29 January 2016
- Corporate Satutes as adjusted 21 December 2020
- Chamber of commerce registration dated 8. February 2016
- Transfers of company shares to the charitable Noah Foundation dated 5 April 2018
- List of shareholders with the Noah Foundation as trustee of the charitable Good Impact Foundation
- Changes made to the corporate statutes dated 23 december 2020 (change of company name, amendments to the company purpose)
GOOD Search is a social business embedded in a non-profit governance so that 100% of the profits remain in a non-profit framework. Our business shares are held entirely by the NOAH Foundation as the legal representative of the Good Impact Trust.
Further legal information can be found in the imprint.
- GOOD Search is a social start-up that has been developed by Dr. Andreas Renner, Kevin Fuchs and David Diallo.
- The company is legally represented by the two managing directors Dr. Andreas Renner and Kevin Fuchs.
- The founder and board member of the Noah Foundation as the legal representative of the Good Impact Trust is David Diallo.
The primary activity of GOOD Search UG is the development and operation of the search engine GOOD: www.good-search.org.
- The first pilot was developed in 2018 and went live at www.gexsi.com.
- The progress is described on our impact page: https://good-search.org/about/dein-impact/
The company is also involved in setting up the GOOD Club, a network of companies that work with GOOD to support a social entrepreneurship every month: www.good-club.org
In addition, we have an ongoing partnership with WWF Germany to build a search engine for all WWF fans & supporters: www.panda-search.org. Other partnerships ended (www.suchhier.de) or are on hold (www.blue-search.org).
The GOOD search engine was initially developed under the Gexsi brand by Dr. Andreas Renner, Kevin Fuchs, and David Diallo from 2018 to 2022 and successfully operated as a beta version.
Andreas (business development) and Kevin (digital development) manage GOOD Search operationally. The development work was initially carried out voluntarily; since spring 2019, services have been partially remunerated.
GOOD is in a transition to become an ad-free search engine, which is 100% independent from the advertising industry and the major tech companies like Google or Microsoft.
The main source of revenues to operate the search will be subscription fees.
As of today, we are still generating funds also through the Bing advertising network.
Moreover, we are engaged to raise funds to support social entrepreneurship projects around the globe. For this purpose, revenues are raise also through the GOOD Club – www.good-club.org, based on a subscription model as well as through the GOOD Impact Foundation. The GOOD Club includes a 20% administrational fee.
If we look on the corporate level, we generate revenues from partnerships with others to operate white-labelled search engines:
- Panda Search: Operated on a revenue share model with WWF, administered through Panda Gesellschaft für Umwelt mbH, a 100% subsidiary of WWF Germany.
- SuchHier: A search engine for the social sector which Good Search developed and operated from 2021 to 2024 on behalf of VRK – Versicherer im Raum der Kirchen who funded the entire project.
In addition, we have raised funds through selected Impact Angels which provided subordinated loans of €190,000 to develop Good Search, complemented by a grant of 80,000€ from the Austrian Development Agency (ADA).
We have used our funds as disclosed in the financial statements. These can be found here:
Good Search UG (formerly “Gexsi Impact UG”) is a B Corp-certified social business founded in February 2016 by Andreas Renner, whose shares were fully transferred to the non-profit NOAH Foundation with its Good Impact Trust Foundation in April 2018.
The transaction was for the nominal value of the paid-up share capital, without premium. The company was renamed Good Search UG in December 2020. The corporate structure has not changed.
The Noah Foundation is an independent, private foundation based in Potsdam (Foundation Register: #164). It was founded in 2008 by David Diallo.
There are no individual persons who made any contributions to GOOD Search exceeding 10% of our annual budget.
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