Call it the Etsy of social enterprise.
That may be the handiest way to describe the Foundry Marketplace, a platform for social enterprises in developing countries to sell their crafts, while controlling their businesses in a community of other like-minded entrepreneurs.
That's opposed to aggregators--sites that offer such wares, but as part of their online brand, not through the entrepreneurs' own storefront.
Foundry founder Michelle Pride also runs an aggregator platform for products, called Trading Hope. It buys goods from local artisans, social enterprises and others in developing countries, also helping them with marketing and other consulting advice. Then the wares are sold by direct sales representatives in the U.S., a la
It all started in 2009, when Pride was a student at Wheaton College studying international development. As part of the program, she traveled to Calcutta, gathering information on case studies of social entrepreneurs. Then, she moved to Denver to work for a nonprofit focused on development and social justice work. With an interest in providing a marketplace in which small to medium-sized enterprises could grow, she launched an initial version of Trading Hope; a year later, she promptly closed its doors, so she could rethink the strategy. Many social enterprises she was trying to target were floundering and Pride wanted to find a model that would provide a bigger distribution potential.
The answer, she decided, wasn't, say, a micro-business, Grameen-style model with groups of entrepreneurial women. Instead she would provide an online platform and guaranteed sales, since Trading Hope would buy the products. But they would be sold by a network of women in the U.S. interested in making both money and a difference. She re-opened for business last January, also purchasing the enterprise with financing from an investor.
Now there are "just under" 50 direct sales reps in the U.S., who buy starter kits beginning at $199 to get enough inventory to launch their own business. "You join because you love the products and mission," she says. "You stay because it turns out to a business."
Not long after taking over Trading Hope, Pride got to thinking about another project. Her father, who had just moved to Denver, asked her what she wanted to do next. Trading Hope, he knew, turned away around 80 social enterprises a month and Pride wanted a way to provide a forum for them, too. Why not create a site on which people could sell their products and grow their own storefronts? Plus he had already built a software platform on his own that the new enterprise could run on. And, through Trading Hope connections, they could provide on-the-ground business consulting help to operators of each storefront.
It seemed like a great idea. So Pride started talking it up on social media and got an enthusiastic response. Now the plan is for every vendor to have his or her own storefront page with information about the venture presented in a standardized format. She'll launch the site when Pride has 250 people signed up; there are about 140 on board now. When she hits the magic number, Pride also will launch a Kickstarter campaign. The goal is to be up and running with the first 250 vendors by September.
