Business Gifting On Your To Do List? Try These Gifts That Give Back

Once upon a time, the approach of the holidays meant that things in my business life slowed down, but now it seems November and December are busy, busy, busy.  Sound familiar?

Happily, it was rather easy yesterday for me to knock business gift giving to my wonderful coworkers off my to-do list because we have a long-running relationship to send speakers at our Engage for Good conference gifts from Packed with Purpose. If it’s good enough for our faculty, I thought, why not treat my colleagues to a bountiful assortment of tasty treats sourced from social enterprises?

Packed with Purpose Founder Leeatt Rothschild says I’m not alone in combining giving back with gifting. The company, launched in 2016, is enjoying healthy growth by enabling folks to send boxes of cheer filled with goodies from “purposeful purveyors.”  Sales, for example, of some chocolates help preserve rainforests, coffee provides employment for disabled individuals and nuts help homeless animals.

I’m a fan of Packed with Purpose, but it certainly does not have a monopoly on gifts that give back. You can work with companies that have assembled selections of many such items or work directly with enterprises that specialize in a particular product line designed to do well by doing good.

Falling straight into that first category is the firm called Gifts for Good. The team, led by founder Laura Hertz, makes it easy to filter its business gift assortment by cause, price, customizeability and much more. Here the emphasis is much more on individual items than gift baskets with interesting selections in such categories as apparel, bags and home. The company most recently partnered with LA Original & the City of LA to launch The Los Angeles Impact Box - the first gift box ever where every purchase supports 5 different social enterprises fighting homelessness & poverty in LA.

There are so many great opportunities to give gifts that have a built-in, giving back component. Here are three purveyors of specific types of items that I’m particularly fond of:

SOCKS

If your face dropped as a kid when you were given socks as a gift, I’m sure the socks were not from Bombas. The founders spent two years on R&D to figure out seven improvements that would result in an unbelievably comfortable and supportive sock. And from the time they launched, they linked the donation of a pair of socks to the homeless to every pair sold – an effort that has yielded giveaways of nearly 29 million pairs to date. Bombas’ VP of Community and Giving, Kelly Cobb, recently shared insights in a webinar on how the company treats its social mission like a brand.

EYEGLASSES

For every pair of eyeglasses sold by Warby Parker, a pair of glasses is distributed to someone in need (either sold at ultra-low cost to adults or donated to schoolchildren). More than 5 million have benefited from that arrangement so far and Warby Parker retail customers have benefited from the company’s revolutionary approach of serving up fashionable eyewear at far lower prices than the optical trade had traditionally provided. You can give the gift of vision through the company’s gift card program.

BROWNIES

I’ve been lucky enough to be on the gift list of a wonderful boutique agency for years and look forward each holiday season to receiving an indulgent gift of brownies and blondies from Greyston Bakery. A “social justice enterprise”, Greyston creates job opportunities and provides community programs and services that enable self-reliance, through its Open Hiring business model.

Don’t see anything that floats your boat? Just search “gifts that give back “and you’ll be treated to a wide assortment of possibilities.

Happy shopping!