Primer’s Anna Saunders Looks Beyond Profit to Cause

Founded by former Marie Claire editors New Zealander Anna Saunders and Australian Felicity Robinson in 2019, self-funded publication Primer is the latest addition to the local crop of social enterprises – eco-friendly toilet paper company Who Gives a Crap, beauty brand Thankyou and Humanitix – that are putting a portion of their profits into a worthy cause. Zoe Samios interviews the pair for The Sydney Morning Herald.

Saunders and Robinson donate 50 per cent of Primer’s profits to women’s non-government organisations, Samios reports.

In the last financial year, they donated $21,400 to the Women and Girls’ Emergency Centre in Sydney.

“I remember when I was a 22 years-old, going to a domestic violence shelter in Wellington,” Sydney-based Saunders says. “The frustration you sometimes get as a journalist is that you go in, you write your story, and then you move on.

“I also think there’s this growing narrative where many brands talk about empowering women. It’s one thing to talk about empowering women and I think it’s another thing to actually invest in it financially. We really wanted to go to the next step.”

Original article by Zoe Samios, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 4, 2021.