Billy Elderige knew he was not meant to be stuck in a cubicle, doing the usual office work. He wanted more for himself out of life, so he set out to do exactly that. As he explained, “I fully believe that a predictable future is already the past; therefore I am terrified of a normal 9-5 or office job etc. I do not deal with being told what to do very well, so working for myself is the only option. Working for your own dreams is important to me.”
Billy Elderige has lived a good life. A young entrepreneur, he was born near Brighton, England. As a small-town boy with no money, he did not have lofty dreams for himself. He did like basketball, though, and he started playing in secondary school. This interest paid off when he was asked to play basketball for England at 16. At 18, he got a basketball scholarship to the US.
While in the US, he started modeling, which led to him modeling around the world full time. At 22 years old, he started traveling around the world as an Abercrombie and Fitch model. Two years after that, he did his master’s degree in economics at University College London, and once he got that, he moved to Hong Kong to start a business.
Though Billy was in Hong Kong to start a business, he also discovered something else there: his purpose in life. When he learned about how millions of helpless children were left to fend for themselves in rural China, he sprang to work.
As a business-minded person in Hong Kong with connections to billionaires, he set up a foundation to help as many kids as possible. It started as a small project via an online store, where he would sell the unwanted luxury items of his friends. The earnings from this, as well as more conventional fundraising methods, were used toward alleviating the children’s situation.
Today The Left Behind Foundation has grown bigger, and it now aims to provide help all over the world. Aside from its project in China, the foundation also seeks to provide support to places like Syria, Yemen, and Bangladesh.
The Left Behind Foundation acknowledges there are over 150 million orphans around the world—1.2 million of those are trafficked children, and 100,000+ are child soldiers. As a response to this devastating statistic, The Left Behind Foundation seeks to lead the way for change by raising funds and offering support that will prevent more children from being left behind.
The funds raised by the foundation will be distributed between their strategic partners’ projects and their own. It is their hope to build efficient and effective programs that will provide life-saving support for orphans and give them a chance at an education.
Today, Billy Elderige is the CEO of a SaaS company within the FinTech Space and a part-owner of a gold mine in South America. His plans include building his business and charity, and someday, he hopes to solely concentrate on philanthropy so he can help even more people in need.
Learn more about The Left Behind Foundation on their website.
