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Philanthropy in Fashion: Combining Purpose, Passion, and Profit

Glossy Assets
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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Philanthropy in Fashion: Combining Purpose, Passion, and Profit-giving compass
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Giving Compass’ Take:

• Rachel Roy explains how Kindness is Always Fashionable combines design and philanthropy through a corporate social responsibility effort. 

• How can funders support social enterprises and companies with philanthropic missions? Is CSR an avenue to achieve your philanthropic goals? 

• Read about five elements for corporate social responsibility. 


When heavy flooding ravaged parts of Pakistan in 2010, destroying communities and leaving thousands of citizens homeless and displaced, designer Rachel Roy decided she wanted to do something about it.

Until then, Roy, who had been running her eponymous fashion line for six years at that point, hadn’t put much thought to philanthropy. After bringing the idea for a social enterprise program to her team, together they built Kindness is Always Fashionable, the brand’s charitable arm that sells products from women in developing countries around the world and donates portions of proceeds to nonprofit organizations.

Below are selected parts of an interview with Roy:

How did you bring the rest of your staff onboard to add a charitable arm to the company?
I went to my office and went to my executive team — which has always largely been women, we’re 95 percent female — and we brainstormed around what we could do. The idea of giving back shouldn’t make your business plan fall apart. The idea that I could make a product, and still benefit different natural disasters and devastations was something that really spoke to me.

Now that you’re working with the U.N., how do you hope to merge your own philanthropic efforts with a governmental entity?
I found that in speaking to different people that work at the U.N., the private sector is an asset to them. We don’t have the red tape that you have working for the government or working for an organization like the U.N. When companies like my own come in and focus the discussion on developing businesses through innovation and marketing across different markets, they find it’s a helpful way to accelerate the work they’re trying to achieve.

Read the full interview with Rachel Roy about philanthropy in fashion by Bethany Biron at Glossy Assets. 

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Learning and benchmarking are key steps towards becoming an impact giver. If you are interested in giving with impact on Philanthropy take a look at these selections from Giving Compass.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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    Why Focusing on Impact Investing Is the Future of Philanthropy

    Giving Compass' Take: • The Caterpillar Foundation explains its move toward impact investing initiatives rather than traditional philanthropic grants and check-writing.  • Impact investing may not work for every philanthropic goal. How do you determine when it's the best course of action? • Read more about the direction of impact investing.  The pipeline project—which was funded by the Caterpillar Foundation, the Rwandan government, and others, and led by charity: water, one of Caterpillar’s partner organizations—is a perfect example of a growing movement within the philanthropic world toward impact investing and strategic partnerships. Over the past decade, donors have become increasingly hesitant to just open their pocketbooks and hope that other groups put that money to efficient use. Instead, they view their donations as investments in the greater good—they want to see results, i.e., returns on those investments—and the Caterpillar Foundation has been a leader and pioneer in this approach. From a practical perspective, here’s how Together.Stronger. works: Rather than awarding a grant to a nonprofit with few or no strings attached, the Caterpillar Foundation mainly invests in programs with clearly defined performance outcomes. And to assess a program’s success, once a grant has been made, foundational staffers require those grant recipients to submit impact reports showing concrete results. The team spends significant time reviewing the reports, looking for hard numbers that show the foundation’s support has affected poverty through measurements like reduced homelessness, an increase in the number of people who have clean, running water, or rising literacy. Beyond the Caterpillar Foundation’s work, the company’s employees are extremely giving of their time and resources. In the past, employees at the company’s Morton, Illinois, facility have volunteered to build a home for needy families in the community. Caterpillar Inc. employees and retirees have donated millions of dollars to United Way agencies throughout the United States and beyond. Read the full article about impact investing at The Atlantic


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