Cameron Moll knew he wanted to give something back to the customers who made his entrepreneurial venture a success, but he had no idea it would take him halfway around the world with an international celebrity.
Moll, a 2003 management graduate, began his career as a graphic designer and blogger. As his blog’s popularity grew, Moll began getting frequent requests from companies to post design job opportunities. Moll obliged, but once the demand got too big for pro bono placement on his sidebar, he turned his attention to a new business venture: Authentic Jobs. It took Moll five years to grow the business while still working at his day job.
“Eventually we got to the point where it was substantial enough for me to take it on as my full-time role,” he says. “We now have a few employees and several contractors.”
Moll’s position as president and founder of the company allows him to wear several different hats. Through his regular use of social media to promote job opportunities, he came in contact with charity: water, an organization dedicated to bringing clean drinking water to developing nations.
“I was intrigued by what they were doing,” Moll says. “There is nothing more fundamental than the basic element of water.”
With his high-traffic website and deep connections to the design and creative fields, Moll began using Authentic Jobs as a means to lead an annual campaign for the nonprofit. In three years his company raised more than $75,000. Because of his involvement, Moll and his wife traveled with charity: water to Ethiopia in 2012 to help build the wells their customers had funded. Coming along on the trip were none other than superstar Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
“For three days, from sunup to sundown, we traveled from village to village,” Moll says. “Some had received a well already, and others were anticipating receiving a well. It was an amazing sight to give more than four hundred people access to clean water.”
But Moll’s dedication to giving back doesn’t stop in Africa. Authentic Jobs has been giving a percentage of its revenue to microloan organization Kiva since its inception and regularly holds giveaways as a way to thank its users.
“At the end of the day, if I can’t say I’ve done more than just make money, that really concerns me,” Moll says. “Yes, it is fantastic to help people find work, but I want anything I’m involved in to be contributing to the community.”
Aside from his business and charity work, Moll continues to be a graphic designer on the side, creating original letterpress prints of buildings such as the Salt Lake Temple and the Colosseum in Rome solely from letters and symbols.
Moll and his wife, Suzanne, have five children and live in Sarasota, Florida, where he is also a youth sports coach and an in-demand speaker at design conferences.
