Fair Trade Entrepreneur Stacey Horowitz Talks 5 Ways for Social Good

In the world of fair trade jewelry, accessories or home décor (and other cottage manufactured products) there is a lot of good being done socially, economically and environmentally. That’s why fair trade is referred to as socially conscious and eco friendly. It is a business model that has a conscience.

Stacey Horowitz, CEO and founder of Shopping for a Change, recently wrote an article for entrepreneur.com on “5 Ways to Integrate Social Good into Your Business.” The following is a digest of the full article that is here (link).

1. Start with a strategy: Assess your brand‘s mission, values, products, services and stakeholders. How is what you’re already doing contributing to society? How can you take that one step further? Or: What needs fixing?

2. Make friends: If you’re not ready to develop your own cause-driven program from scratch, a good alternative is to develop partnerships with existing charities. Twillory, an online men’s clothing retailer, partnered with Career Gear -- a charity that helps men in need get back into and succeed in the workforce -- to develop a clothes-repurposing program.

3. Engage your employees: What do IBM, Dell and PNC all have in common? Probably several things, but what's most important is that they offer paid time off for employees to volunteer. Commonly referred to as VTO, volunteer time off lets employees give back to their communities in an outlet of their choosing. From helping repaint schools to offering pro bono consulting, employee volunteers could be diversifying your company’s outreach, as well.

4. Assume responsibility: As you would for any other business agenda, track the progress of your initiatives to assess whether you’re meeting your goals. Instead of allowing your mission to fizzle out mid-year -- like a New Year’s resolution -- develop a method for seeing that your social good efforts are maintained. Sometimes, that means putting one person, or team in charge of social programs, or being prepared to wear many hats.

5. Take it slowly: In the end, any step you take toward helping solve a social problem or genuinely giving back to the community is itself a social good. So, take things slowly, act responsibly and do what is most meaningful to your brand, consumers and employees; in no time, you’ll see the difference.

At SFAC, along with the social good we’re consciously practicing, we are also striving to bring you the best fair trade products available anywhere, including baby gift items, or the latest in a fun spring look in fair trade eco friendly accessories. You will also find great bargains in our clearance sale.