We spoke to the purpose-driven social impact leaders of our partner companies during the COVID-19 pandemic to find out the challenges they faced, how they resolved to overcome them, and their thoughts on accelerating Shared Impact.
In this series, meet Karola Horvath, Co-founder of Twopresents. 
Twopresents is a Hong Kong-based social enterprise that provides a unique party invitation service with a charitable twist. We send party invitations and raise funds for a charity and gift of our donor’s choice. Our mission is to make a difference through sharing and celebration.
Twopresents is a very unique and unconventional charity platform. How did you conceptualize this idea to make giving more meaningful?
The idea of Twopresents, a social venture, was born as a result of experiencing the often overly lavish nature of children’s birthday parties.
As a new parent, I, together with my founders, 
made the effort to attend every birthday party my kids were invited to and equally ensured that we invited back everyone whose parties we attended before. This resulted in having a long guest list and an overflow of birthday gifts since nobody attends a birthday party “empty-handed”. Watching our own kids open gifts, often many of them duplicate and unnecessary, coupled with the gradual loss of interest, joy, excitement as our kids got overwhelmed by the sheer number of gifts, we thought that it just didn’t feel right. Moreover, seeing gifts piling up in one corner of the room and wrapping/ packaging waste in the other, while my husband and I feverishly took careful notes of who brought what gift so we could send thank you cards – made us feel even worse. Not to mention the huge challenge of where to store the presents. This made us think that this has to change. There needs to be a better and more meaningful way to celebrate.
Furthermore, we were also worried about the sense of entitlement that we as parents were and are inadvertently giving our kids. This was probably our biggest concern as our kids, born in an expat family in Hong Kong, attending international schools and living in nice areas, were growing up in a bubble with very limited understanding of “real life”. They were isolated from the “real community” that we feel they would have been exposed to a bit more in our home countries.
We wanted to “normalize” the celebrations along with living up to society’s expectation of a celebration. Many parents shared the same concerns but since there was no real alternative, people just carried on the old way. Birthday parties are an important part of children’s lives; it’s all about having fun and sharing this wonderful moment with their friends and family. They are not going away nor should they, but we have the opportunity to celebrate in a better and more meaningful way.
We kept asking ourselves: Do the kids really need so many gifts to be happy? Is less more? Can we somehow make sure children get ONE gift that they really cherish and will play with, while perhaps sharing their joy with others in need? How do we let them know that they are so lucky just to even have a birthday celebration? And so began the journey of Twopresents.
We have worked very hard to make this platform a success, but this would have not been possible without the incredible support of our over 20,000 users who have chosen to celebrate with Twopresents over the last six years. In addition to the amazing Hong Kong families, many of whom who continue to use us year after year, we are grateful to the clubs (Aberdeen Marina Club, American Club, Repulse Bay Club, LRC and others) schools (Canadian International School, Hong Kong International School, Kennedy School, Bradbury School) and others (Ms. Fiona Bulmer and other volunteers, universities, professors, incubators) who have helped us spread the message about a “better way to celebrate”.
