While every business enterprise exists to fill a need, organizations differ in their secondary mission. Some focus on offering consumers bargain prices. Some strive to protect or improve the natural environment. Others seek to fulfill a social mission, such as hiring people who face barriers to employment.

But rarely does one firm check all of those boxes—and sponsor an annual robot fashion show to boot.

Tech Dump and Tech Discounts are linked organizations that serve all of those purposes. Tech Dump refurbishes and recycles computers, printers, monitors, cell phones, and other electronics while providing job training and practical experience for adults facing barriers to employment. Tech Discounts operates an ecommerce site and a retail outlet in Golden Valley, Minnesota, that offer affordably priced refurbished electronic devices.

Amanda LaGrange helped found Tech Dump as a board member in 2010, while working at General Mills in Corporate Finance. She took on the Director of Marketing role there in 2013, and in 2015 became CEO and launched Tech Discounts. She’s created a high-growth business that benefits the environment while addressing poverty and injustice.

Here is Amanda’s remarkable story.
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