Create Your Own Foundation with GiveBack

Our goal with For Goodness Sakes is to challenge you, the consumer, to make educated decisions about how you spend your money, so that each dollar does more than just benefit you, but also the community you live in, the environment, or people all over the world. We write about companies and businesses that do more with your dollar. But wouldn’t it be cool if those companies were willing to let you decide what your purchases would help? What if I said there were over 400 well-known businesses that did just that? I couldn’t possible post about each one, but I don’t have to, because they can all be found at GiveBack.org.

GiveBack was started by Stephen Paletta, the winner of Oprah’s Big Give, a reality TV show that had contestants competing to gather and give the most amount of money to charities and foundations all over the nation. By being the “biggest giver” Stephen was awarded $1,000,000 – half for him and half to give back to causes he chose to support. After experiencing the great blessings of giving back, he wanted to find a way to help others give, too. Using part of his winnings, Stephen started GiveBack.org as a place where everyone can start their own foundation, make donations, and earn money for their foundation just by shopping online.  GiveBack has partnered with companies like Apple, Barnes & Noble, The North Face, and many more who will donate a percentage of your online purchase to your foundation. The best part: you choose to help the causes you care about! Check out GiveBack.org and see how easy it is to become a big giver!

What is it about traveling in South America?

I keep telling Scott, who co-authors this blog, that I'll be posting about the Bamboo Bike Project sometime soon. I think it's a great idea but for some reason I just don't find myself interested in doing it at the moment! Maybe it's the plethora of blogs already doing it? Maybe it's the fact that I don't live in San Francisco or New York where the majority of the bamboo biking scene is unfolding. Whatever it is, there will be more to come in the future.

Speaking of the future, it looks bright for the One For One movement, made famous by TOMS Shoes. The new introduction of TOMS Eyewear means that Toms can expand its charitable contributions to a much broader range of customers - assuming you're willing to fork over at least $135 for a pair of sunglasses. We hope you are, but there is an alternative just in case the high price tag of these hipster shades has priced you out of the market for charitable consumerism.

Toms founder, Blake Mycoskie, who got his calling while traveling through Argentina, has good company in a man named Charles Perry. Charles was also globetrotting through South America when he got the charitable consumerism bug, and he has created a company called World Minded.

World Minded's mission is to create eco-friendly clothing with a purpose, and they do this by donating 10% percent of sales from their humanitarian collection of 100% Organic Cotton Tees, and 1% of sales from everything else.


World Minded may just be a start up right now, but they continue to collaborate with artists and brand ambassadors to further their mission of doing good through consumerism. They may lack some of the big name prestige of Patagonia, TOMS, and Timbuk2 but their designs are aesthetic, refreshing and purposeful. Look forward to World Minded's fall line coming out in August, 2011 for a new assortment of great looking tees, hoodies, and accessories. I believe that World Minded can do well on the basis of their designs alone, but let's make an extra effort to vote for the changes we want to see in the world by supporting them, and everyone else on the frontier of clothing with purpose.

Update: TOMS Eyewear and the One for One Movement

We recently heard word that TOMS would reveal the next chapter of their One for One movement. For weeks, we were teased and tempted by mystery boxes on display at store locations across the nation. Concealed within those boxes were TOMS' next product. That's right; TOMS is not just a shoe company anymore. They are a One for One company. So what will you be able to get, that will in turn be given to someone in need?

Allow me to introduce TOMS Eyewear; a hip line of sunglasses with a story behind each pair. Because TOMS isn't giving a pair of sunglasses. It's much more than that. For each pair that you buy, TOMS will help give sight to a person in need! Through partnerships with Seva, a foundation dedicated to building sustainable eye care programs in developing countries, your purchase helps to provide screenings in communities that need it the most. Those who need care receive it through medical treatment, prescription glasses, or sight-saving surgery.

Why sight? Blake Mycoskie, owner of TOMS, and a small team traveled to Nepal to understand how Seva is working to prevent blindness and restore sight. They returned with a determination to support sight-giving programs and developed a way for us to be a part of it. Watch how their trip went in the video below and check out the cool shades available to you now, here.



By the way, I just ordered my first pair of TOMS shoes!

Patagonia and "Our Common Waters"

Patagonia has been an environmentally minded company since it was founded in the early 70’s. It is now one of the largest suppliers of outdoor equipment in the world – and probably one of the most eco-friendly, too. Since 1985, Patagonia has pledged 1% of sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment. This initiative inspired the creation of a non-profit organization to encourage other businesses to do the same. In 2002, twenty-one businesses signed up to form 1% For the Planet. It has since grown to more than 1,200 companies who strive to fulfill their mission: creating a healthy planet.

For Patagonia, however, donating 1% of their sales is just the beginning of their quest to save the environment. The company has several programs in place to go above and beyond. As part of their newest campaign, Our Common Waters, Patagonia is analyzing every aspect of their operations to see just how much water they use, or better yet, how much water they take away from the Earth’s ecosystem. The goal is to balance human water use with the needs of animals and plants.

The amount of water each of us use is more than what we drink, do the dishes with, or how much time we spend in the shower. It includes our share of water used in industrial production and consumption. So the environmentally conscience customer should understand what businesses do to increase or decrease their water consumption and pollution. Patagonia is just beginning to learn how big their “water footprint” is and what they can do to reduce it.

Patagonia found that 2,304 liters of water is consumed in the manufacturing of their Pima Cotton T-shirt. This is enough to provide drinking water for 768 people for one day. In the following years, Patagonia plans to become fully aware of how much water goes into the making of every product and begin to reduce it. They already have begun to use improved drip irrigation, which decreases the amount of water used by 20-30%.

The Our Common Waters initiative is one part of Patagonia’s extensive project, The Footprint Chronicles, which allows you to track the impact of a specific product from design to delivery. To learn more about this program and others, visit Patagonia’s Environmentalism website. You can also use National Geographic’s Water Footprint Calculator to find out how much water you use, and learn what you can do to save the world’s water.

TOMS - Shoes for a better TOMorrow

While traveling in Argentina in 2006, Blake Mycoskie noticed many children living without shoes to protect their feet. He came up with a plan to help these kids have a better way of life. “What if I start a shoe company, and every time I sold a pair of shoes I gave a pair away? That way, as long as I continue to keep selling shoes, these kids will have shoes for the rest of their life.”

And so TOMS was born. It’s called the One for One Movement: you buy one pair of shoes, TOMS donates one pair of shoes to a child in need. With customer support and the help of Giving Partners, children in several countries around the world are now protected from soil-transmitted diseases and infection from cuts or sores. As of September 2010, TOMS has given away 1,000,000 pairs of shoes! And the giving keeps growing with each purchase. It is Mycoskie’s goal to give repeatedly as the children grow, so they never go without shoes again.

In June, TOMS will expand its next chapter of the One for One Movement by asking you, “What’s your next chapter? What’s your One to One?” Whether its music, art, food, or a place to live, you will be able to help TOMS build a better tomorrow. Find out more on the vimeo channel.

Changing the World - From San Francisco to TIMBUK2

Timbuk2 was born in the garage of a bike messenger who wanted to give fellow couriers the option for a better bag. Throughout the years, Timbuk2 has become a leading manufacturer of cool and colorful messenger bags and accessories for bicyclists and urbanites alike. The San Francisco-based business also does its part to help the earth and the people who inhabit it. Not only does Timbuk2 sponsor “Bike to Work Days” and raise awareness on commuting safety for both bicyclists and drivers, Timbuk2 is a force for change in their hometown of San Francisco and around the world.

In 2009, Timbuk2 began a bag recycling program with At the Crossroads, a non-profit organization that focuses their efforts on improving the lives of San Francisco’s homeless youth and young adults. If you would like a new bag but don’t know what to do with your old-but-in-good-condition Timbuk2 bag, send it back. Timbuk2 will donate all recycled bags to At the Crossroads, and your well-loved bag will go to someone in need. And if the satisfaction of giving isn’t enough, Timbuk2 will also give you 20% off your new bag!

Occasionally, Timbuk2 will donate recycled bags to other great organizations. More than 100 bags were donated to (RED) and were given to community health workers in Zambia to carry medical supplies to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. Bags were also donated to Support for International Change (SIC) to help its volunteers administer HIV tests and provide HIV/AIDS education in Tanzania.

Timbuk2 doesn’t just provide you the opportunity to give, they do plenty of giving themselves. When you purchase a Special Edition (TIMBUK2)RED messenger bag, Timbuk2 will contribute 5% of the proceeds to The Global Fund, yet another organization combating AIDS in Africa by funding programs that eliminate the transmission of HIV from mother to child.

Timbuk2 combined with Pop!Tech and The Portable Light Project to create a solar powered LED light and USB charger within their messenger bags. The FLAP (Flexible Light and Power) Project uses spare solar panels and fabric to build bags that provide portable light and electricity in communities where these resources can be scarce. FLAP bags have been sent around the world. In Kenya, students at the Daraja Academy use the solar-powered LED lights to study at night. After the earthquake in Haiti, the bags were useful in off-the-grid medical stations.

Support Timbuk2 and stay updated on their efforts to change the world by visiting their blog. To learn more about Timbuk2’s bag recycling program and how you can recycle your bag, click here.