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WORLD OF GOOD BRINGS FEMALE ARTISANS' WARES TO GLOBAL MARKETS - FOR
GENDER POVERTY REDUCTION, FAIR TRADE
World
of Good Brings Female Artisans’ Wares to Global Markets
Excerpt:
"World of Good, connects artisans—mostly women—in poor countries with
trendy consumers in the West. The company first searches out handmade
items from far-flung villages across Asia, Africa, and South America. It then
cleverly displays the wares in affluent urban stores throughout the United
States." Leslie Berger, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer 2008.
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ALSO SCROLL DOWN TO VIDEO.
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WORLD OF GOOD
World of Good is a hybrid organization that is made up of World of Good, Inc. and World of Good Development Organization: two halves that work together to create solutions focused on using commerce to alleviate poverty in marginalized artisan communities around the world.
The World of Good, Inc. half works to make good choices easy and accessible by working with wholesale, retail, and online partners to create shopping experiences based on information, trust, and social impact. World of Good, Inc. creates market and consumer demand for ethically sourced products and supplies this demand with people-positive products that make a difference.
World of Good: Development Organization on the other hand, develops practical tools to strengthen international wage standards that allow communities to benefit and create sustainable livelihoods from this demand.
The United States is the world's largest consumer economy, and the practices used by US companies in sourcing goods and bringing them to market affect the earnings of millions of people around the world. By elevating the ethical standards of sourcing in the informal sector to the highest standards of fair trade, even the most marginalized producers can achieve sustainable economic development. Fair trade practices, along with fair wage standards, are critical factors in ensuring that these producers thrive in our era of globalization which is why transparency and knowledge sharing are founding principles for both World of Good, Inc. and the World of Good: Development Organization. If you would like to read more about our business model and how we hope to inspire change, read about our Theory of Change.
There are several ways in which you can engage with World of Good and we invite you to learn more. Here's a quick breakdown of how we work:
World of Good
Wholesale Serviced Program
We work with retailers throughout the United States to create a special section of branded fair trade gifts, accessories and housewares in their stores.
- Learn more
about our programs and bring World of Good to your store
- Suggest a
store in your area that you think would be a great fit
- Introduce
us to a producer group who could benefit from our distribution
Original Good
Product Line
Our line of beautiful, handcrafted fair trade gifts, accessories and housewares from nearly 150 producer groups in 34 countries. Each item has been developed by local artisan groups in partnership with our talented design team.
- Shop the line
and find the perfect gift
- Introduce
us to a producer group. We love to bring you new products!
- Find a store
that carries our products
World of Good.com –
an eBay Marketplace
WorldOfGood.com is a collaboration between eBay Inc. and World of Good, Inc. – two companies that share a common vision of creating positive change through commerce. We believe that a growing number of individuals want to understand how the choices they make impact people and the planet. There is an important need for trusted information, and a need for transparency into how and where products are made. Our goal is to provide our community with the resources needed to make good choices and connect with others who share the same passion.
- Join the
community today!
- Become a seller! Learn more
now
- Join
our Trade Service Provider program to help a producer sell on the
marketplace
World of Good
Corporate Gift Program
World of Good works with businesses around the world to transform their corporate gifting into a meaningful event for the recipients and for the communities around the world that craft these unique gifts. We have worked with organizations that range from 50 to 15,000 employees to provide unique and unforgettable gift solutions.
- Learn more about our Corporate
Gift Program
World of Good:
Development Organization
The Development Organization is the 501(c)(3) sister non-profit to World of Good, Inc. and is focused on building strategies to substantially improve economic and social conditions for the millions of artisans and their families who are living on less than $4 per day.
The Development Organization creates tools to help strengthen global fair trade standards including FairWageGuide.org, a free web-based tool to help ensure that producers and buyers have access to information on how to support fair wages within informal sector production. Other policy work includes developing local living wage calculations and creating technology platforms to support producer initiatives for a craft label.
In addition, the Development Organization raises funds for a small grants program to improve the conditions in artisan communities through healthcare, education, and water projects.
- Learn about the Fair Wage Guide
- Read about the Development Grants
funded by the Development Organization
- Make
a donation to support health and education projects in artisan
communities
- Learn about
Volunteer opportunities with the Development Organization.
Fair Trade is You
At the end of the day, it all comes down to the individual choices we make as consumers. Each and every one of us has the power to change the world without having to change the way we live. Watch our 4 minute movie about Fair Trade and learn more about your power as a consumer:
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Stanford University
Graduate School of Business
Center for Social Innovation
World of Good Brings Female Artisans’ Wares to Global
Markets
By Leslie Berger Summer 2008
From 1933 to
1947, Dr. Jayanti Mitrasen Mahimtura was among the legions of Indians who joined
in her country’s struggle for independence from Great Britain. She took time
off from medical school, did jail time twice for acts of civil disobedience,
and wore only khadi, the hand-spun cloth that Mahatma Gandhi used as a symbol
of India’s self-sufficiency.
Today,
Mahimtura’s granddaughter, Priya Haji, is a rising star in the fair trade
movement. Haji’s company, World of Good, connects artisans—mostly
women—in poor countries with trendy consumers in the West. The company first
ferrets out handmade items from far-flung villages across Asia, Africa, and
South America. It then cleverly displays the wares in affluent urban stores
throughout the United States. Though Haji, the CEO, declines to release sales
figures, she says gross revenues have doubled every year since 2004, when she
started the company with two classmates from the University of California,
Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
Boutiques
selling ethnic crafts like earrings, scarves, and bowls are ubiquitous in
gentrifying neighborhoods. But Haji thinks bigger: Her company works with 150
organizations in 34 countries to source enough wares to stock mainstream
retailers such as Whole Foods, Wegmans, campus bookstores, and, in a new
venture, eBay.
By the end of this year, she says, her company will employ 15,000 women around
the world.
Mahatma
Gandhi may have been pleased to know that by Christmas, eBay’s 250 million
worldwide users should be able to furnish their entire homes in some form of
khadi. “We’re building the world’s largest people-positive marketplace and
educational community,” Haji says of the eBay project.
eFree
Trade
The eBay Web
site has already launched an interactive introduction to fair trade—the
philosophy that producers in poor countries, whether they grow coffee or sew
caftans, should receive just compensation from consumers in rich countries. The
free trade movement started in Europe as early as 1860 with the publication of
an anticolonial novel titled Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the
Dutch Trading Company. During the 1960s, this tale of a disillusioned
plantation master in Indonesia found its way into the popular counterculture.
Today, its fair trade message—like so many formerly radical notions—has
inspired a growing market niche.
For now,
visitors to the developing eBay site can chat online with like-minded shoppers,
or they can click on reports about human rights violations and what it means to
go green. In coming months, they’ll be able to peruse wedding registries and
seek gift suggestions. And for every item displayed, they’ll be able to see a
photo of its producer and read about the place it’s from, its cultural significance,
and its social impact.
“So you’re
not only shopping for the physical attributes of that product, but also the
values embedded in that decision,” says Robert Chatwani, eBay’s general manager
of the project.
Chatwani,
another Haas graduate, met Haji through a mutual friend in the San Francisco
Bay Area. Both are historically minded, first-generation Americans of Indian
descent. Both are in their 30s. Both have traveled widely. And both believe
that privilege comes with responsibility. “We realized right away we had a
shared vision, that we could use commerce as a force to alleviate poverty,”
Chatwani says.
Product
Placement
The eBay
venture is just the latest example of strategies that have rocketed World of
Good to the head of the fairly traded apparel, gifts, and housewares industry.
One of the company’s first innovations was its clear and smartly placed
displays. In Whole Foods, for example, World of Good kiosks can be found at the
ends of aisles or the entrances to departments— the coveted “endcap” placement
that patrons can’t miss. Alongside racks of over-the-counter reading glasses so
popular among aging boomers, the kiosks offer jewelry, scarves, and purses. And
World of Good housewares, such as ceramic dishes and reed trivets, punctuate
the aisles of gleaming fruits and vegetables. “That’s how Hallmark sells to
Walgreens,” she says. “All the cards and gifts and holiday items are in one
aisle. And World of Good is an ethical Hallmark.” Podcasts about the products
may start airing at the kiosks by the end of the year, a Whole Foods
spokesperson says.
World of
Good merchandise is not only prominent, but also fresh. The company constantly
rotates its inventory both to tempt shoppers with new items and to accommodate
the realities of shipping handmade goods from remote areas. “We need to flex
for the vulnerabilities in the supply chain,” Haji explains. For example, “when
we were launching our housewares program into Whole Foods,” she says, “there
was a big flood in Guatemala and it affected many families, washed out entire
villages. People died. We had a producer group that was making handwoven place
mats for us and they weren’t going to make it here. But meanwhile, we wanted to
make it work with Whole Foods so we were able to substitute in other products. The
place mats came a month and a half later.”
For its
part, Whole Foods loves the diversity of merchandise. The national chain prides
itself on its decentralization, which gives individual store managers wide
discretion in what they display and how. And World of Good has tailored its
merchandise to different regions, says Jeremiah McElwee who, as Whole Foods’
senior global whole body coordinator, oversees the chain’s nonedible products.
For instance, the company is more likely to ship silk scarves to Miami and
Austin, Texas, but handloomed wool scarves to Boston and New York.
At the same
time, McElwee says, World of Good makes stocking and swapping easy with its
uniform pricing system— the company charges the same price for, say, bowls of a
certain size, or for beaded bracelets of a certain style. “Products and
service—you can’t go wrong with that,” he says.
Many
observers say that World of Good’s marketing is superb. “Priya, above anything,
is a phenomenal salesperson,” says Will Rosenzweig, who wrote the 1992 fair
trade bible, Republic of Tea, and was one of Haji’s professors in
business school. “She’s so smart.”
The Right
Price
Industry
watchers also agree that World of Good broke new ground with its online fair
wage guide, a data bank and pricing tool with comparative information from
almost 100 countries. Buyers can calculate whether their intended payment is
higher or lower than the local standard and then get a suggested alternative
price. Producers, in turn, can find out whether they are receiving fair hourly
compensation. Even competitors can access the pricing tool because Haji and her
partners decided it should be shared—a natural extension of their company’s
greater good philosophy.
“When we
first started,” Haji says, “we observed that while fair trade has grown in
popularity, the standards and systems were still evolving, similar to those of
organics 20 years ago. For consumers to buy with confidence, and for producers
to really benefit, you must have clear standards for ethical trade that any
company can implement.”
Leaving the
wage guide open source grounded the company’s social mission and set it apart
from others interested only in their own gain, says Rosenzweig. Similarly, the
eBay Web site will offer goods brought to market by other fair trade dealers.
“Even if the products don’t come through World of Good, we don’t care about
that,” Haji says. “We just want our overall mission to be accomplished.”
World of
Good has pressed its agenda even farther by returning 10 percent of its profits
to its artisans’ communities. Its nonprofit arm awards modest grants for
onetime expenditures that improve communities’ health or education. In
Coimbatore, India, for example, a free clinic used a World of Good grant to buy
a blood analyzer so that it could make quick diagnoses on-site, instead of
sending blood samples offsite. The grants have also made possible clean water
systems in Kenya and Guatemala, and refurbished schools in Vietnam and
Indonesia.
“One of the
great skills of our company is to partner, partner, partner!” Haji says. “There
are great initiatives around the world, whether they are funded by the Peace
Corps or whatever, and we’ve decided that what we can do best is create more
marketing and distribution for these products.
“We’re not
the controller or the creator,” Haji continues. “We are merely the bridge.”
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