About us - mSupply Foundation

Our kōrero, our story

We hope that our kōrero demonstrates that we’re here for the long haul, we’re capable and we understand what we are doing.

mSupply was born in Kathmandu, Nepal in the 1990s. It’s still used there to manage health supply chains.
From the 2000s, we set up Sustainable Solutions to share the benefits of mSupply with the low-income world.
mSupply is now used in over 40 countries, and serves about 300 million people.
We are now the mSupply Foundation, a not-for-profit that provides evaluation, planing, training, deployment and support, as well as great software.

Ā mua, our future

The mSupply Foundation is the next step in our quest to do as much good in our world as we can.

Open mSupply

Open mSupply is a new version of mSupply that we are developing as open source and free. The mSupply Foundation is the owner of Open mSupply.

Not-for-profit Trust

The mSupply Foundation is a not-for-profit trust, registered under the laws of New Zealand. It is baked into our trust deed that all profits go back to our charitable purpose. This means that there are no competing demands with shareholders’ profit objectives.

Our Board

The mSupply Foundation is governed by a board. This means that our sustainability isn’t tied up with share ownership. We want our board to reflect the deep commitment our team has to doing a great job and provide outside expertise to enrich what we do. We are committing to having a gender balance on both our internal and external board.

More than supply chain software

There is no denying it – we love software! It’s a combination of art and science, and provides a great outlet to express the gift of creativity we were given.

However, we also want to make products that make a difference in our world. We get much more excited by products that help provide better healthcare or information than we do about products that just make more money for a company.

We’re only interested in solutions that really benefit our clients and communities. That won’t happen unless the people, the motivation, and basic infrastructure are in place alongside the software. Our ethos means we are honest about these things, and will not proceed with projects that are unlikely to succeed, even if they are likely to be profitable.

We believe relationships have priority over production. We value our staff, clients, suppliers, even government officials, as people rather than just what they can do for us. We care a lot about honesty and integrity in all that we do.

Our mātāpono, our principles

The mSupply Foundation is committed to:

Working out of our ethic of love for others.
Seeking to serve the developing world, as this is where the needs are greatest.
Developing our staff and the people we work with so they can thrive and serve their local and wider community.
Respecting and implementing the dual heritage of the partners of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi).
Acknowledging that we are guests in the countries where we work. We will respect their cultures and ways of working. We will seek to develop systems and people that encourage local autonomy, local governance, and the sustainability of local initiatives.
Being mindful that our work and lives are sustained by the world’s resources and ecosystems. We will act with care in our use of them, and seek to find ways to minimise the use of scarce resources by ourselves and by those we work with.

Our whāinga, our purpose

The purpose of The mSupply Foundation is to do as much good in the world as it possibly can. Its chosen area of service is to develop and implement systems that improve people’s health in the developing world.

The mSupply Foundation will:

Develop and implement software for health supply chains and other health systems as the Foundation deems necessary.

Seek to partner with in-country organisations to grow and strengthen local capacity.

Provide consulting and training to ensure that our systems provide the most benefit they possibly can in the countries that use them.

Support research that investigates how systems can best improve health outcomes.

Develop and promote ways of working that minimise the negative impacts of health supply chain operations on the natural world.

Provide other support and assistance consistent with this charitable purpose.