The mSupply Foundation is a not-for-profit trust, registered under the laws of New Zealand.
We want to do as much good in the world as we can by producing, maintaining great health supply chain software.
We have 20 years experience in this field working with Sustainable Solutions’ mSupply software. We are currently rebuilding mSupply as an open source project.
Our full principles and purpose are below.
The Trust is committed, in attaining its purposes, to:
The purpose of the Trust will be 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. In particular the Trust will:
The mSupply Foundation. So new and shiny. So little track record!
Well actually, we’ve got history.
If you don’t care, click “back” now, but what follows will hopefully reassure anyone who cares that we’re here for the long haul, that we’re capable and that we understand what we’re doing.
Back last century there were a couple of volunteers looking for software to manage the Medical Supply Department in Kathmandu, Nepal. Out of that search came mSupply. It’s going strong at https://www.msupply.org.nz
The organisation that was set up at the time to look after mSupply was Sustainable Solutions. It’s incorporated as a company, but we’ve always considered ourselves primarily wanting to serve the developing world in the way we know how – by building great systems to manage health supply chains.
Over the years people liked what we do, and we now work in over 30 countries. Our systems most likely serve about 100 million people and are adding millions of new records per year.
The mSupply Foundation is the next phase of our quest to do as much good as we can. It addresses three specific issues.
At the heart of what we believe is that relationships have priority over production, so we try to value our staff, our clients, suppliers, even government officials, as people rather than just for what they can do for us.
We also care a lot about honesty, integrity.
We also want to contribute to our society by making products that make a difference. We get much more excited by products that help organisations provide better health care, or better information for their donors, than we do about products that are just to make more money for a company.
We like software- it’s a combination of art and science, and gives a great outlet to express the gift of creativity we were given.
That said, we’re only interested in solutions that will really benefit our clients. That won’t happen unless the people, the motivation and at least some basic infrastructure are in place. Our ethos means we need to be honest about these things, and not proceed with profitable projects if they aren’t likely to succeed.
We hope that in some small way our modelling the way we believe a business should be run will rub off on the people we come into contact with.