Rising star Polly Gowers
What's so special? Everyclick gives half of its revenue to charity and its CEO was voted Entrepreneur of the Year at the Women in Ethical Business Awards 2007

While wondering how a search engine could also be used as a way of creating a revenue stream for charities, Polly Gowers realised that she had the foundations of a business plan. She says: "I couldn't just put the idea in a box and file it away. Intellectually, it was an interesting concept: that you could turn this great flow of online media spend into a fundraising tool."

Now its chief executive, Gowers co-founded Everyclick.com in June 2005. The social enterprise (a private limited company) donates money raised from online searches to 170,000 UK charities. It is funded by advertisers with half of all advertising costs going to the charities its users have chosen. "People are using the Net for positive social change. This is a business that sits in the middle of that," says Gowers.

The business was funded by friends and family, then angel investors and finally private equity. "It's pretty tough standing up in front of a room full of investors and saying you're going to give half your revenue to charity," says Gowers. "It doesn't sit easily alongside equity investors. But at the same time, they can see that search is an exciting and highly profitable business." Turnover, she adds, is just under £1m. Capitalising on the interest in ethical businesses, Everyclick has already attracted users from the US. But at the moment, it only helps UK charities. As Gowers points out: "There are 1.4 million not-for-profit organisations to compete against in the US."

Nevertheless, the company is looking to expand worldwide. "Our software is scalable, our business plan is scalable. Companies are changing their default search provider on their corporate intranets. I'd say the biggest challenge now is finding exceptional people and making sure this isn't the best-kept secret in England," says Gowers.