edited good. is a collection of the stories behind the products on Given Goods: the marketplace for products that give back. Every product offered on Given Goods makes a tangible social impact every time it's purchased.
It is with heavy hearts and enormous gratitude that today, we inform you that we are closing our doors. The last two and a half years have been a remarkable journey made possible only by you, our community, and our partner brands. We are incredibly thankful for the overwhelming outpouring of support from our community that we received every step of the way. Our partners and their missions are inspiring and of the utmost importance, our customers are forward thinking, passionate and loyal, and our investors and advisors will never know just how much we appreciate the opportunity they gave us.
We set out to offer the very best products, from the strongest brands making impact, built by the most genuine teams. We set out to tell you their stories with the intention of providing a unified voice in the pioneering phase of this ever important consumer movement. Without your belief in our shared vision and love for their beautifully crafted products, there would never have been Given Goods and for that, we thank you.
Thank you for being a part of our family. While our marketplace is going away, we are not and we would love to stay in touch and help you with any questions you may have. You can contact our customer service support at [email protected] and you can reach the members of our team at their respective emails below. We have always loved hearing from you and now is no different!
We hope and ask that you continue to support the amazing work of our partners as they continue to push this movement forward. As you all know, this is just the beginning.
Come join us at The Station SF to launch our exclusive pop-up shop, Inherently!
Inherently is a pop-up shop presented by Given Goods Company showcasing beautiful products for you and your home that represent our definitive quality: authentic social impact. The products are inherently unique, and so too is the experience.
We are so pleased to announce the opening of our pop-up Shop, Inherently!
At Given Goods, we are defined by beautiful products for you and your home that make an authentic social impact. Inherently showcases our hand-selected products, each with its own incredible story, complemented by a heavy dose of San Francisco. We have partnered with The Station to join in and support their mission to be a joyful and thriving community gathering place.
As we bring the inherent qualities of Given Goods to life in the most intentional of ways, it is our hope that it gives you pause in your day, to define and appreciate all that is inherently you.
Open 7 days a week at The Station SF for a limited time!
We’ve partnered with ayzh (pronounced eyes) this Mother’s Day to give back to new moms around the world. With each purchase made on Given Goods through May 11th, we will donate one clean birth kit to a new mom to fight persistent but preventable delivery room infections.
1 purchase / 2 lives changed
Yet, there are problems the Republic of India isn’t ready to face: poverty, corruption and discrimination against women and girls are mainstays in a land of much diversity. In poor and rural areas of India, mother and infant mortality rates are especially high. 80% of healthcare facilities are located in urban areas, while 72% of the population lives rurally. As such, access to basic healthcare and life-saving technologies is grossly limited.
Enter: Zubaida Bai. As a young girl growing up in India, she “saw women being abused and their needs never considered. They only existed to look after the kitchen and children.” Bai, who at 14 told her parents she wanted to become an engineer, would often see her peers being impregnated by older men, only to give birth in unsafe conditions where they would often lose their children.
As a teenager, Bai took a job at a new bank in her town opening checking accounts. The money she made went back to her family, enabling her mother to start a tailoring shop. The money helped the family purchase a car, which Bai alone drove. A second tailoring shop was opened. Eventually, Bai found herself in Sweden, working towards a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Then, she returned home to marry.
It was only after Bai gave birth to her son that she understood the dire condition of the women in her country. 15% of the 20 million births in India manifest in debilitating infections. Bai was part of that 15%. In 2011, the Maternal Health Task Force estimated the combined rates of mother and neonatal deaths due to unclean births reached 1 million. Hundreds of thousands of mothers and children were suffering due to prevalent but preventable diseases. Bai threw herself into product development and in 2011, she founded ayzh.
A social enterprise aimed at bringing technology solutions to women in rural areas, Bai uses her passion and experience to support new moms in India, Haiti, Ghana, Malawi and Nigeria through a clean birthing kit called the JANMA. The JANMA contains a sterile sheet, antiseptic soap, a cord clamp, a surgical blade, a pair of gloves and a baby wiping cloth. These six simple, but vital tools are beautifully packaged in a jute purse, enabling mothers to focus on what matters: their wellbeing and their children.
Since 2011, ayzh has directly impacted more than 76,000 women. Ayzh also employs women to package the kits—providing them with 962,000 additional work hours in safe, social working environment in Chennai, India. This means additional income for women and their families—and more money allocated to their children.
With their sights set high, ayzh is working towards employing upwards of 4,000 women with a goal of distributing more than 1 million JANMA kits by 2015. Those JANMA kits have the potential to impact 3 million women and children across India, Africa and the Caribbean.
This Mother's Day, Given Goods and ayzh are working together to distribute a JANMA kit to a mother in need with every purchase made. From now through May 11th, 1 purchase will mean that two lives are changed—and those two lives will go on to impact so many more.
SPOTLIGHT: Amazing Animated Double Expsoures by Daniel Barreto
22-year-old Daniel Barreto has added a nice twist to the already popular concept of animated GIFs. In his series, titled Animated Double Exposures, the Boston-based artist blends two distinct images into one playful motion.
Celebrate the mom in your life with Given Goods and ayzh! For each item purchased on Given Goods through May 11th, a birth kit will be donated to a woman in an impoverished community. These birth kits are not only integral to expecting mothers, but they save lives and keep families together.
Happy Earth Day! Our top Earth Day picks preserve the rainforest, clean up oceans and waterways and make use of deadstock and recycled materials. Mother Earth knows best!
1. Bar Soap Set by Hand in Hand. For each bar sold, Hand and Hand preserves 50 square feet of rainforest. They also provide communities with clean water and are currently working in Haiti on their Clean Water Programs.
2. Wine Bottle Glasses by Usful Glassworks. Made from recycled wine bottles, Usful Glassworks has saved more than 60,000 glass bottles from sitting in landfills, turning them into glasses, carafes and more.
3. Natural History Fountain Pen by Tree Ring Pens. The casing of this gorgeous pen was extracted from small diameter trees harvested as part of forest restoration projects in the Lolo National Forest in Montana.
4. BirdProject Soap Lovebirds Edition by Matter Inc. 50% of profits from these pretty birdies go to environmental cleanup and care for affected animals of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster. To date, Matter has given more than $21,000 to these ongoing efforts.
5. Lavish Lucite Chain Necklace by Hearts. Handmade using recycled brass and lucite, this staple necklace is created using no new materials.
6. T-Rex Ballerina Notecard Set by Little Alexander. These beautifully illustrated notecards are printed on recycled paper in a small batches in Lewis, Iowa. All Little Alexander items are packaged in recycled and recyclable materials, too!
7. Mt. Drew Duffel Bag by United by Blue. For each duffle purchased, one pound of trash is removed for oceans and waterways. United by Blue hosts cleanups around the country and has removed more than 171,000 pounds of trash in the last four years.
Connected in Hope is non-profit organization that partners with the Former Women Fuel Wood Carriers Association in Ethiopia to develop markets for more than 70 women. In addition to knitting accessories, Connected in Hope supports women and their families in their heath, education and finance needs.
We partnered with CIH to create the Travel Wrap, the perfect spring scarf. Large enough to be used as a shawl, this lightweight piece is a favorite.
Learn more about Connected in Hope and their incredible work on Given Goods.
1. This beautiful visualization of global shipping shows us a different view of the world map when everything is overlaid. The interconnection of our world via nothing internet-related.
2. We are in love with this bulldog/little lady portrait series. Harper the little girl and Lola the not so little bulldog struck up an instant, sibling/best friendship. Professional photographer Rebecca Leimbach (mom) captures the pair on all of their adventures and lends (we suspect) an occasional helping hand in building the themes.
3. Slomo is famous! If you've ever hung around the San Diego boardwalk, you might have caught a glimpse of the very happy rollerblader who tends to be out and about all day, every day. Finally we can all learn about Slomo's story and his mantra "do what you want" from this awesome New York Times opinion film.
4. Honey Maid rode out a month of both positive and negative press in March and only continued to warm our hearts with this followup video Having released a video in early march promoting equality of all families (and graham crackers, a natural fit), the company received plenty of homophobic backlash. The video shows not only the results of the campaign but what the company decided to do with all the negative comments (as we run out the door to buy all the Honey Maid products we can find).
5. Internet slang is all around us and is increasingly used in our everyday, personal interaction (strong shorthand is no longer confined to 140 characters). Where did it all come from and how are we now influencing one another's language? THIS.
In this site-specific work titled, "The Island of Dr. Mastrovito," multimedia used text books to create a surreal jungle of plants and animals exploding out of the corner of a bright room. The title references H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau where a mad scientist gives animals human traits—here Mastrovito, herself acts as the scientist, "trying to instill a new life into that which was once alive in a different way (books from paper, paper from wood, and wood from trees)."
It was then that Courtney began designing her own items—bowls, lamps and rugs that she wanted to fill her home with. Her husband, co-founder of Invisible Children and more recently heading up operations for the Bridgeway Foundation, helped her to get things going. Together, they slowly built relationships with artisans and small businesses to identify needs, produce products and help expose them to the global market.
Today, Rose & Fitzgerald partners directly with those same individual artisans, small collectives and businesses. By working together to create contemporary pieces that preserve traditional Ugandan techniques, R&F helps to create sustainable, reliable sources of income for these families and communities. They also invest in artisans machinery and tools, which enables the creation of high-quality goods.
Rose & Fitzgerald (and their artisans) take great pride in the use of sustainable materials. They use locally sourced woods and fabric, ethically sourced horn and other materials which are all procured in Uganda—the exception being recycled brass, which comes from Kenya.
For more than a year, the R&F community of artisan friends has flourished. Using indigenous materials, these masterful pieces are continuing to be created for the discerning customers from around the world.
Check out Rose & Fitzgerald's gorgeous collection of homewares and accessories, now available on Given Goods!
Suvir Mirchandani is a 14-year old middle school student from Pittsburgh, PA. Like many 6th graders, Suvir noticed that he was receiving a lot more hand outs than he did in elementary school—but rather than continue to add to the growing stack of papers in his binders and folders, Suvir wanted to find a way to cut back.
Suvir published his findings in the Journal for Emerging Investigators (JEI), and applied his formula to the U.S. governments annual cost of ink. On a state and federal level, if the government changed to Garamond, they could save up to 30% annually—or almost $400 million!
Unfortunately this won't cut down on the homework, but this is a great first step for the young entrepreneur. First solving the world's ink consumption problem, next—the skies the limit!
