Diz Petit: On technology and systems-thinking

While building Postmates’ customer service program, Diz became known as “the person who cares about stuff”, making her a natural fit for heading up the company’s social impact arm, Civic Labs. Now she’s leveraging technology and systems thinking to make it easy for businesses to give unwanted, quality items to nonprofits through LiquiDonate.

How did your career in social impact begin?

Like a lot of people in my generation, I have been an activist since age 16. I was fired up about social issues like LGBTQA+ rights, climate change, and more. At the same time, the iPhone and technology in general was surging in popularity. I could see that technology was extremely powerful and thought that it had the ability to be harnessed for good to impact issues that I cared about. I’m not often right, but this time I was.

How did those experiences lead you to found LiquiDonate?

Getting my undergraduate degree in Organizational Communication enabled me to see the world through systems. Believing that anything was possible in the Bay Area through technology, I moved to the Bay Area as soon as I graduated. I became employee 15 at Postmates and stayed there for 8 years through our acquisition by Uber in January 2021. During my 8 years at Postmates, in addition to earning my MBA in Sustainable Social Impact, I learned hands-on operationalizing and management best practices on leveraging existing technology for good through founding Civic Labs.

Civic Labs, the social impact arm of Postmates, focused on community engagement through volunteerism, sponsorships, and partnerships in the social justice space as well as building features and products that leverage the existing business model for good. In 2018, Postmates employees volunteered over 3,000 hours at community events and built FoodFight!, a first of its kind product allowing restaurants in FoodFight! enabled areas to send excess food to local shelters at the end of the night at the touch of a button. In 2019, 84% of all Postmates employees volunteered in their local community at least one time, beating the national average by 51%. In 2020, even with the remote work schedule and the pandemic, over 55% of employees at Postmates volunteered.

Civic Labs mission was to positively impact our neighborhoods through community engagement and innovative technology solutions to combat complex, pervasive issues.

What problem did you found LiquiDonate to solve?

Right now there is no easy or affordable way for businesses to donate unwanted but high quality goods like laptops. There is also no easy or affordable way for nonprofit organizations to get in touch with businesses who might have items to donate, much less handle the logistics. LiquiDonate is an online sustainability marketplace that matches and moves quality unwanted goods from for-profit businesses to non-profit organizations.

What impact does LiquiDonate create and how do you measure that impact?

LiquiDonate delivers value through landfill diversion, saving valuable cash donations for life-changing nonprofit work, and giving businesses an easy “in” to the (sometimes overwhelming) sustainability and social impact world.

What’s your vision for LiquiDonate over the next 5-10 years (both on the nonprofits you serve and the larger ecosystem)?

In addition to having the largest active nonprofit database to match and move high quality goods in 24 hours or less, we plan to be the sustainability solution for retail businesses, taking quality returns off of their hands and moving them to people who need them.

How can people get involved?

There are two ways. One, if you work at a for-profit business, please use this form to coordinate items to donate. Two, if you work for a non-profit organization, please email sign up for a free nonprofit account here!

How else are you engaged with the community/what other causes are you passionate about?

I believe that it is important to stay connected with the communities in which you live and/or work. I volunteer every Wednesday at a non-profit that preps and serves 300 meals and hygiene kits weekly to 14 unhoused community encampments across Oakland and Emeryville. It’s a lot of work, but it’s the least we can do to support the unhoused community while we continue to fight for housing justice. LiquiDonate is also a member of Pledge 1%, encouraging all of our employees to donate 24 hours of paid work time participating in community service that is meaningful to them.