John Mackey, the CEO of environmentally conscious, upscale supermarket Whole Foods is funding Zaadz.com, a social network devoted to altruism. The amount was not disclosed. The site was started in Dec. 2005. Aside from backing by Whole Foods, Zaadz (the name comes from the Dutch work for “seed”) has partnered with liberal magazine Mother Jones on running an online forum.
Brian Johnson, whose full title is Philosopher & CEO of Zaadz, met Mackey through a non-profit called FLOW, which is dedicated to “liberating the entrepreneurial spirit for good.” So far, Zaadz, which has nearly 50,000 members, is using its current round of funding to roll out “zPro,” a suite of tools for small business owners. Release