Welcome!

I'm using this space to think about how nonprofits need to reinvent themselves going forward. Why? Because it's too hard to do all the good work that they are doing now within the current "paradigm" of how a nonprofit is defined, how it is "supposed" to be done.



If you care about the fate of nonprofits - if you donate, if you are a member, if you work for one, or if you need their services - I hope that you'll let me know what you think. Share some of your own ideas, too.



Some of what you read may be quite different. But I think that it's time we all thought a little differently.



Thanks so much for stopping by!



Janet



Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Whole Foods: A Success Story in For-Profit Leadership In Giving


I was one of the masses who joined in the voucher “feeding frenzy” on September 13th.  I don’t know if I’m proud of this or not but I know a good deal when I see one.

Living Social offered me $20 worth of groceries at Whole Foods for $10.  I shop at Whole Foods regularly so it didn’t take more than a second to figure I was saving $10 with the voucher.  I bought it.

So did one million other people.

Yes – they sold out in 24-hours.  At times, the site noted they were selling 80 vouchers per second.

And the most interesting part of this campaign was one I hadn’t even noticed at first.  For every voucher sold, Whole Foods donated 5% of the sales price to its Whole Kids Foundation, a “nonprofit organization the grocery chain started to help schools improve nutrition.” 
If you go to their Facebook website you can vote (by Sept. 30th) for one of three choices for how the funds would be spent: (a) Teacher Nutrition Education  (b) School Garden Grants or (c) Salad Bars to Schools.   
What does this say about the changing face of corporate philanthropy?

Whole Foods not only ensured that it kept me as a loyal customer, it made me aware of their foundation and generated funding for it at the same time!

Did they really donate 5% of the full selling price of the vouchers?  Selling out a million of them at $10/each would generate $10 million (imagine the interest…).  The foundation would have made $500K off that success!

I hope that my math (and my assumption) is correct and that $500K goes to one of the “choice” activities they’ve targeted.

Even more, I hope that other leaders in for-profit organizations, especially those with foundations, see the beauty of this campaign.  They should recognize how funds can be generated for foundations and nonprofits they have created or with whom they choose to affiliate or partner. 

We need more “good works” leadership.  And it’s a win-win for the consumer as well as the company and the nonprofit. 

Well done, Whole Foods!
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