 By Cullen Schwartz, Cofounder of DoneGood Americans spent $1 trillion during the holiday season last year. A trillion! That’s enough to buy all the sports teams--twice. With even half of that trillion you can own every single one of the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS teams, and why the hell not, all of NASCAR too. Or with that trillion bucks you could pay for four years of college for every high school junior and senior in America. Or you could put a new Chevy Bolt under the tree of every resident of Texas. So anyway, it’s a lot. And in 2016, 60 percent of all online sales during Thanksgiving weekend went to just 10 giant retailers. None of them have a social mission. But, that means we all have a HUGE opportunity! We can make the “most wonderful time of the year” the most impactful too. Because if we shift even a small fraction of that trillion bucks from the Big Box chains and the Amazon jungle to companies making the world better, that has an ENORMOUS impact. And it doesn’t even have to be all our holiday shopping (I mean, I know some little kids in my life that are probably still gonna get some Pokemon, or Shopkins, or whatever the thing they HAVE to have is this year…). But if each of us diverts our spending for even one or two presents to a mission-driven social enterprise that's empowering workers, reducing inequality and fighting climate change through their everyday business practices, our holiday shopping can make the world substantially better. Of course, you're reading a blog on THR3EFOLD, so you probably already agree with a lot of that. But even for those of us who are already drinking the conscious consumer Kool-aid (or, maybe this time of year, the spiked egg nog), the problem has been that it can be really hard to find what you need, when you need it from a company that you know is doing the right thing. How to Shop Good - Easily We started DoneGood because we wanted to change that. We work to make it really, really easy to find brands that do good for people and the planet. Last year we launched a Chrome extension that automatically shows you ethical and eco-friendly brands that have what you're looking for as you search on Amazon or Google or when you visit big-name brand websites, along with a mobile app where you can find hundreds of brands that all make the world better. What’s New? Now we've just launched another way to try to make it super quick and simple to use your purchasing power to create change. It's our new DoneGood Shop site, which puts thousands of products from brands that all do good for people and the planet all in one place. It’s like the Amazon of the social impact economy. On the site you can browse items and brands, or use the DoneGood search engine to instantly search for what you're looking for on the websites of hundreds of social enterprises. You can also filter your search results by the issues you care about most (eco-friendly, supports workers, vegan, non-toxic, etc). With the site you can find things like a leather bag that combats climate change, a ski hat that lifts people out of poverty, earrings that help women in Asia escape sex trafficking, and a lot more kinds of products and more amazing stories of brands doing incredible things. A lot of our partner brands also offer exclusive discounts through the extension, app and new Shop site. So we hope we can help people find gifts that are a lot cooler and more meaningful, save money, AND make the world better—just by getting something they needed to buy anyway. We genuinely believe the dollars we spend are the world's most powerful force for change. Consumer spending is 70 percent of the economy. And it’s a supply-and-demand economy, so we all have total power—whatever we demand, the market supplies. The more we demand worker empowerment, living wages, eco-friendly practices, and other good stuff, the more the market supplies those things. And of course, the holidays are the time we all spend the most. Which means it's also the time of year we all have maximum power to help create the kind of world we want to see. Want more fun and easy ideas on how to be a conscious consumer? Subscribe to our weekly emails!   Comments are closed.
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