RAINN – The Goods

Give Every Tuesday: Thank you for Supporting RAINN

November 1, 2016

As an independently owned business, we have the freedom to support causes we believe in and to impact the world in a positive way. With every purchase you make, we donate $1 to one of our nonprofit partners of your choice through our Better to Give program (at no cost to you).

While we’re grateful to have the freedom to support four nonprofit organizations that are doing such important work, we know that the key to truly making a difference through our Better to Give program is up to our customers.

The Uncommon Life

Bloggers Who Believe It’s Better to Give

October 27, 2016

Thanksgiving Day is less than one month away, which means that we are officially entering the eye of the holiday season! (Cue “Eye of the Tiger.”)

Between between hours of travel, days of holiday dinner prep, and months of coordinating reunions with loved ones, it can be hard to take the time to plan anything that doesn’t revolve around your own seasonal traditions.

But there’s no denying that taking the time to give back is invaluable. All year long, we offer our customers the chance to give back through our Better to Give program. With every purchase you make, we’re proud to donate $1 to a Better to Give partner of your choice (at no cost to you). This year, we want to make sure that giving back is part of your holiday planning. So, we turned to our community to spread the word about our Better to Give program.

The Uncommon Life

Checking in with Better to Give

May 11, 2016

There is a long list of reasons for why I begged to join the UncommonGoods team, but mainly it was my curiosity about our roots as a founding B Corp and our commitment to a creative flagship donation program called Better to Give. (Although, it also didn’t hurt that it is located near top-notch taco joints and the best dim sum and soup dumplings New York City has to offer.) The Better to Give program epitomizes what we strive to do in all aspects of our business. Through the program, we show how to use business as a force for good, while offering all stakeholders an opportunity to express themselves through digital advocacy for organizations that align with our values and vision.

The Uncommon Life

Better to Give Gets Even Better on #GivingTuesday

November 22, 2015

We’ve all heard the old phrase “It’s better to give than to receive,” and as a B Corp, we truly mean it. We even took the name for our Better to Give program from that sentiment, because we know that giving back to the community is an important part of becoming a better business.

Every time you shop at UncommonGoods, we donate $1 to the non-profit Better to Give partner of your choice, and over the past 12 years, that’s added up to over $1,000,000 in donations. On December 1, 2015, we want to give a little extra by participating in #GivingTuesday.

Help us give more by taking to social media to tell us why you believe that it’s better to give than to receive using the hashtags #BettertoGive and #GivingTuesday. We’ll donate $1 a share for the first 5,000 shares to our non-profit partners and we’ll pick three participants (one each from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) to win $500 to donate to the non-profit organization of their choice.

While you don’t need to shop to share, we do plan to give our traditional Better to Give program a little extra love on #GivingTuesday as well. Place an order on December 1 and we’ll donate an extra dollar on your behalf to the organization you choose at checkout.

By participating in #GivingTuesday through social media or by selecting one of our partners when you shop, you can help us make a difference for a child learning to read, a woman survivor of war, a survivor of sexual abuse, or a natural habitat facing potential deforestation.

Donations to RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, fund programs that prevent sexual violence. RAINN also operates National Sexual Assault Hotline and partners with rape crisis centers across the country. By providing resources for policymakers and the media and building community partnerships, RAINN promotes nationwide education and awareness about sexual violence. They also work to ensure that rapists are brought to justice.

Donations to American Forests help them protect and restore forests damaged by human action and natural disasters around the world. American Forests, the oldest non-profit conservation organization in the United States, has planted more than 45 million trees since 1990.

Donations to Women for Women International allow them to help women survivors of war by bringing them together in safe spaces to learn life, business, and job skills. By giving women the tools and resources they need to overcome crisis and poverty, Women for Women International helps them become independent, while building stronger families and communities.

Donations to Reach Out and Read help them continue their mission to put children on the path to success through the development of early reading skills and school readiness. The organization works with thousands of doctors and nurses across all 50 US states to integrate children’s books into well-child visits and encourage parents to read to their children.

We’re extremely proud of the positive impact we’ve helped our non-profit partners make in the world and we’re looking forward to helping these great organizations do more good as we celebrate #GivingTuesday.

The Uncommon Life

Better to Give: Thanks A Million!

December 6, 2014

We’re proud to announce that we’ve now donated over $1 million to our Better to Give partners, thanks to the support of our amazing customers. All year long, we give customers the opportunity to select a non-profit organization with every order placed. When a partner is chosen, we then donate $1 on the customer’s behalf. Over the week of Thanksgiving, we raised that donation to $5 for those visiting our site through a special email campaign. We saw the donation rate skyrocket during this time, taking us past the $1 million mark on Black Friday.

It fills all of us with pride to think about the impact we’ve been able to make with these donations, especially as a mid-size business operating out of one warehouse in Brooklyn. One of the fundamental reasons that our founder Dave Bolotsky started this company was to prove that capitalism could be a force for positive change in the world, and passing this $1 million milestone serves as validation of that concept. We know, however, that none of this would have been possible without a community of talented artists supplying us with appealing products, non-profit organizations dedicated to furthering meaningful causes, and wonderful customers who are receptive to what we are trying to do.

We’ll continue to donate a dollar to a Better to Give partner each time you order, so don’t forget to choose one of these non-profit partners next time you’re shopping with UncommonGoods.

RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, carries out programs to prevent sexual violence. RAINN created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline and partners with more than 1,100 rape crisis centers across the country. They also provide resources for policymakers and the media, build community partnerships to promote nationwide education, and work to ensure that rapists are brought to justice.

To date, 147,415 customers have chosen to donate to RAINN.

American Forests is the oldest non-profit conservation organization in the United States. Their mission is to protect and restore forests worldwide. Since 1990, they’ve planted more than 45 million trees–helping to preserve the health of our planet for the benefit of its inhabitants.

To date, 192,037 customers have chosen to donate to American Forests.

Women for Women International helps women survivors of war by providing them with the tools and resources they need to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency. By bringing women together in a safe space to teach life, business, and vocational skills, Women for Women International helps them become independent. This creates a ripple effect that not only benefits the women enrolled in these programs, but also builds stronger families and communities.

To date, 111,972 customers have chosen to donate to Women for Women International.

Reach Out and Read’s thousands of doctors and nurses promote early literacy, language skills, and school readiness to young children and their families in all 50 states. By integrating children’s books into well-child visits and encouraging parents to read to their children, Reach Out and Read lays a foundation that puts children on an early path to educational success.

Reach Out and Read is our newest partner. We’re thrilled that 18,304 customers have already shown their support for this organization through Better to Give!

We’ve worked with many other organizations over the years, so we’d also like to take a moment to thank everyone who donated to our past partners. Whether through a years-long partnership or a more short-term campaign focused on a particular crisis, we’re proud to support the work of each and every one of these amazing non-profits.

Next Generation Nepal – 2,069 Givers

Defenders of Wildlife – 92,496 Givers

World Wildlife Fund – 41,517 Givers

Craft Emergency Relief Fund – 47,572 Givers

Comprehensive Development Institute – 71,805 Givers

Tranquility Trail Animal Sanctuary – 1,051 Givers

AmeriCares -169, 281 Givers

City Harvest – 95,427 Givers

B Corporation – 425 Givers

HarlemLIVE – 8,496 Givers

Save Darfur – 727 Givers

Thanks again for helping us reach this $1 million milestone. We’re looking forward to celebrating the next $1 million with you soon!

The Uncommon Life

Better to Give Update

August 8, 2011

Every three months, we get to write checks to our favorite non-profits. We base the size of those checks on you– which charities you vote for every time you make a purchase from our site.

So here’s what these great non-profits have been doing to make the world a better place.

AmeriCares

It’s been a rough year– from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami to the current drought and famine in Somalia. But that hasn’t slowed AmeriCares down one bit.

Your votes at checkout have helped us send $4,500 in the last three months to help AmeriCares deliver critical medical supplies to people in urgent need around the globe.

American Forests

American Forests joined our program in 2010. For every $1 we donate, they plant a tree. And with your votes, they planted more than 4,400 trees in the last 3 months.

Here are a few projects they’re working on right now.

Ecosystem Restoration in Los Padres National Forest, California
Trees: 224,000
A large-scale project to replant 14,000 acres, to include a sanctuary for the endangered California condor. All but eight percent of this national forest has been deforested by wildfires and other factors.

2011 Red Mountain Restoration, Idaho
Trees: 86,000
Replanting areas of the Boise National Forest to reduce erosion, improve water quality, and support habitats for local wildlife species like the lynx, boreal owl, northern goshawk, and northern three-toed woodpeckers.

Forest For Monarchs, Mexico
Trees: 200,000
A long term initiative that has already planted five million trees in the last four years, this year’s project works to restore 687 acres of the oyamel fir forests that make up the monarch butterfly’s wintering grounds, and will train local residents in sustainable forestry management.

Check out American Forests for more info on how you can get involved.

City Harvest

Using a fleet of 18 trucks and 3 cargo bikes, City Harvest will rescue more than 30 million pounds of food this year, helping to feed more than 300,000 men, women and children each week. At a cost of just 27 cents to rescue and deliver a pound of food, every dollar donated provides nearly four pounds of good food for hungry New Yorkers.

In May, our company helped out with City Harvest’s largest one day fundraiser, Skip Lunch Fight Hunger, where fundraising teams and individuals throughout New York City donated what they would normally spend on lunch to raise nearly $500,000. Those funds will help feed almost 24,000 children and their families throughout the summer months.

RAINN

RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, runs a national hotline to help people in crisis. You voted RAINN into our Better to Give program last fall, and voted to donate $4,500 to support their work over the past 3 months.

The hardworking folks at RAINN just told us, “Last month, July 2011, RAINN helped 12,659 survivors of sexual violence through our hotlines. It was the highest number of people we’ve helped in one month in more than 8 years.”

All these organizations run with the support of people like you, so thanks for your votes! Got a cause you’d like to see us support? Leave a comment to suggest a non-profit doing great work in your community.

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