Doing Well by Doing Good

Let’s all do the earth a favor this holiday season: let’s shop at Macy’s.
No, I don’t own stock in Macy’s.
I recently heard a news article on the radio. Macy’s has joined an increasing number of companies that is growing a conscience. They are to be commended—and encouraged.

Macy’s is buying baskets. Not just any baskets. These are baskets woven by poor women from renewable materials local to where they live—in Rwanda. The women are being compensated fairly for their work. The money is going directly to them and their communities. There aren’t a lot of middlemen between the artisans and the ultimate buyer [Macy’s] that reap all the profits leaving nothing for the people who are doing the actual work.

The idea is to help people pull themselves out of poverty by buying their products and selling them in the U.S. And the American people, who are becoming increasingly aware that there is a big world out there where most of the people live in conditions we can’t even imagine, want to buy the products they have to sell—if someone will bring them to us. So, Macy’s is doing it.

It’s like recycling.
A few years ago, recycled products cost more to buy than virgin products did. But, we had to BUY the products for recycling to work. If we hadn’t actually bought the recycled products the whole project would have died aborning.

Here’s the next step, folks.
Go to Macy’s this season.
Tell corporate America: ‘You do good—and your profit margins will do well.’
Then, next year, more companies will do the same—
Together, we just might turn this poor old planet and the people on it around.
[You can go here to find them. Such a simple way to be part of the solution.]