About buythechange
Learn More
Check out this video about how buythechange works.
Our Goals
To help people connect with their neighbors and people who share their values while supporting the organizations and businesses they care about.
To raise awareness of the power of individual purchasing decisions and to provide tools that harness this power as a force for social change.
Our Vision
To aggregate millions of individual purchasing decisions into a social movement that engages people, revitalizes neighborhoods, supports local businesses, and strengthens non-profits. The movement will begin at the local level, spreading in a grass-roots manner nationwide - ultimately shifting billions of dollars towards a more conscientious and sustainable "fair profit" economy.
About Us
In the spring of 2005, co-founders and childhood friends Josh Becerra, Colin Hirdman, and Zack Steven began intentional conversations about how they could leverage their business and entrepreneurial experience to "be the change" they wished to see in the world. Buy the Change was born from their observations that:
- People are yearning for a deeper sense of community, meaning, and engagement
- People want to "make a difference" but don't know where to start
- People are passionate about organizations that help them to live out their values
- Non-profits have an ongoing and increasing need for revenue
- People need to buy and sell, and prefer to connect with someone they can trust
- How you spend your money is more powerful than how you vote
The Buy the Change community-building model was born of these observations in an effort to harness the power of capitalism as a vehicle for social change. We encourage you to contact us with your thoughts, ideas, critiques and successes so that we can realize the world community we all desire.
Our Fair-Profit Philosophy
In one of our early founders' conversations in 2005 we coined the term "fair-profit" to describe our business philosophy. It is in the same vein as "fair trade", and represents a hybrid between for-profit and non-profit, which we think is the optimal way to run an organization. It is a model that considers the social returns on investment, as well as the financial. This balanced business model is challenging, and forces us to be resourceful and creative. Technically Buy the Change is a for-profit enterprise, but one of the reasons we are so excited about the growth of the network is that 70% of gross proceeds go back into the community. For every dollar we keep, non-profits get \.33 to further their missions.
Our Fair Profit philosophy acknowledges that profit is necessary to sustain any self-sufficient organization, while at the same time holding the ownership of the organization accountable for both the hidden and un-hidden resources it consumes and byproducts it produces. We think that business/capitalism has gotten a bad name in recent years, and we want Buy the Change to model its power to be a constructive and creative force in the world. Our hope is that socially conscious adults and students will come to see business as a valid vehicle for living out their values.
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