Business of Giving

Along with the back-to-school craziness, there comes, of course, awesome events. This past week, Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS shoes, visited Fordham and revealed how he molded TOMS shoes into a success. Like so many other "success" stories, TOMS came out of the blue. Mycoskie was working for an online driving school company when he had the idea in Argentina and, on impulse, he had an Argentine man named Jose produce a couple hundred shoes that he could sell back in America. By chance, the press got involved and, in Mycoskie's words, "made it seem like TOMS was a real company." The phenomenon basically took off from there.

Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS
image c/o sarahslaundry.com

Now TOMS has sold over a million shoes and has given over a million away to shoe-less people in Argentina and Africa alike. And, while Mycoskie is proud of his accomplishments, he has his sights set on greater success. He's started an eyewear company and written a book, the proceeds from which will go to start other philanthropy-based grassroots campaigns. According to Mycoskie, his success lies in TOMS' foundation of giving. If more companies put giving at the core of their mission rather than writing large, tax-exempt checks at the end of the year, he claims they would attract invested customers who become advertising agents through word of mouth. As TOMS has exemplified, Mycoskie's logic works.

image c/o toms.com

I should mention, too, that Mycoskie began TOMS in L.A. with the help of three interns who were willing to stick around and work out of his boat-apartment. Sometimes, unpaid, grassroots work really is worth it.

What's New: Opus

This past Thursday, Fordham was the humble host of the Opus Prize, a $1 million faith-based award given annually to recognize unsung heroes solving today’s most persistent social problems. And, boy, did we celebrate! We had an array of Malawian and Ecuadorian food to honor the sites of the two recipients, awesome music and hundreds of well-decorated sugar cookies. Who could ask for more?

Awesome Opus earth-cookie, c/o Clare Gray-Lewis

Even cooler than the ceremony, though, was the Globalization and the Ecology of Caring symposium that Fordham held the day before the prize ceremony. The symposium featured Fred de Sam Lazaro, who reports regularly for the PBS Newshour and Ethics Newsweekly on grass-roots efforts to improve the lives of the world’s poor. Using clips from his work, he and other panelists reflected on social justice issues around the world while highlighting the work of the Opus recipients.
But what did I get from all of this, you might ask? Well, aside from great discussion, I now have a new book on the top of my reading list, thanks to panelist Jacqueline Novogratz.