Hi, we are Charles & Lily Baldwin and we are Entrepreneurs! We are so happy that you are here on our website to learn a little bit more about us.
Along with my wife of 36 years, Lily, we have built successful businesses and lived around the world. We now live in London and spend our time with our family in the UK, USA, Canada, and the Philippines and visit other countries like Hong Kong, Panama, Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Mexico, or the rest of the world, whenever we feel like it.
Two of our kids are grown up and married and the youngest, Alex, just finished university. We now run several businesses and our own foundation, the Handog Pinoy Foundation, and work with the Royal Blood Charity in the Philippines providing food, clothing, and educational support for underprivileged youths in the Philippines, funded by our businesses.
A Little More About Growing Up as a Kid
But it wasn’t always like this…
Like most people of my generation, I was told to get an education, get a job, and start a family. Over the years, I worked in a car wash, flipped burgers, and was a soldier, auto mechanic, motorcycle mechanic, electrician, and contractor. I have been married and divorced and had to be a single parent to a young son.
For years, I did what everyone else did… working more and more to try to keep my head above water and trying to find some easier way of making money.
“For years, I did what everyone else did…work more and more to try to keep my head above water and try to find some easier way of making money”
Charles Baldwin
Lily Grew Up Poor Too
Lily came from a poor family in the Philippines. Her mother had to sometimes ask other family members for money to feed the family. Lily was able to put herself through college and graduate with a degree in accounting.
When I married her, she was already a widow, with her first husband dying at a young age, leaving her with a young son. We got married and tried to raise our two sons as a family.
We sacrificed our family life to try to make things “better” for our family. Kind of a dumb way to look at things, but I just kept telling myself that if I put in the extra hours and extra effort, then I would be able to spend more time with my family. The next thing I knew, our two boys were already grown up!
I always knew that there had to be a better way because I saw so many other people having more success than I was and seemingly, working less. I began to wonder why didn’t I deserve to become successful. I did everything I was supposed to do…got an education, got a job, and had a family. The same things my parents did. Then I finally realized that my parents worked a 9 to 5 job every day and did the same thing I was doing! They say that you tend to grow up just like your parents!
Although we kept on building our “real” businesses, we were trading our time for money. In 1996, we sold our construction business in the U.S. and retired to the Philippines. Within 2 years, I was bored out of my mind. Lily became pregnant with Alex and we moved to Ireland, where I decided to go back to work. Since I specialized in different technologies, like Fibre Optics, I had a job in minutes of applying. We lived in Ireland for a number of years and then moved to the UK. While I continued to work in construction, Lily was staying at home, with nothing to do.
We met some of the local Filipinos and when Lily asked about a local Filipino grocery, we were informed that there was only one in the area and that they had little in the way of supplies. Her new friends suggested that she should open a store. We looked around for a location, but the expense is too great for a new business to outfit a premise, so we decided to start an online business and just keep the supplies at our house. Within a year, we had the largest online Filipino grocery in the EU, with over 600 products and shipments going all over the world. We catered to the local Filipino groups and offered free delivery locally and set up products in the conservatory so people could come by and pick up items.
Although the money was good, the work soon became too much for Lily, so we quit selling groceries. However, during the time we had the store, we offered credit to our customers, so we had to obtain a license from the government. Soon we were asked to start lending our Filipino friends money and we have continued this since 2009.
The beginning of our new businesses…
We have continued to build the Lending business, Budget Loans along with our Copywriting (Irishcopywriters), Marketing (Divergency Social Media), A.I. Marketing Assistants (Divergency Automations), Property Business (CLB Global Properties), our Media Business (Divergency DIgital) and our Publishing Business (CLB Global Publishing) The profits from these businesses go to support our Foundation.
We are proof that if you have the desire, no matter what your qualifications, you can succeed! If you want to change your life, get in touch. We like to try and help people improve their lives.