Sevenly is bringing social good to online shopping by selling a new T-shirt each week designed for a partner non-profit. Each shirt will be available for seven days, with $7 from each sale going towards the charity.
Like TOMS shoes, Sevenly is embarking on philanthropic ecommerce. Where TOMS shoes on a one-for-one model (every pair of shoes purchased also donates a new pair to a person in need), Sevenly is pairing up donation and design in a social way.
Sevenly is based on a model where (hopefully) everyone who buys a t-shirt will share their purchase on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media profiles, thereby creating a chain of giving and cool shirts.
Co-founders Dale Partridge and Aaron Chavez were motivated to create the site after seeing the amount of worthy non-profits that shut down within their first year open. The problem isn’t apathy so much as a lack of following, funding and awareness.
Partridge hopes Sevenly’s model will address all three of those challenges, helping new organizations stay afloat. “People just wanted to help and they had no practical way of giving,” Partridge says. “Clicking the donate button on a charity’s website doesnât work for our generation.”
During its starting period, Sevenly is partnering with more established organizations in order to build their own brand reputation. Their first partnership with International Justice Mission raised $6,125 by selling 875 shirts. Each shirt’s sale provided care for one day for a girl rescued from the sex trade.
This week’s design benefits World Relief, an organization aiding raped and abused women in the Congo. The shirt comes in grey for men and white for women and costs $24.
Later this summer, Sevenly plans to shoot videos in the countries they’ve benefited, showing their supporters how that t-shirt money has been put to good use. A planned partnership with Malaria No More will hopefully lend some celebrity star power to the site and its mission.
Does a good cause make you more likely to buy a t-shirt? Let us know in the comments.
More About: non-profit, sevenly, shirt, social entrepreneurship, social good, social media, startup, t-shirt
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