Choosing my path - my introduction to Social Enterprise
My new adventure began in November 2015 when I joined the Samantha Jones at Little Yellow Bird, as a co-founder and to head up the sales arm of the company.
Little Yellow Bird is a uniform supplier that uses only ethically made fabrics to make quality, ethically made uniforms under fair working conditions. We are 100% transparent from cotton seed to shirt, knowing who made our clothes and where all the fabrics and materials came from.
From polo's to business shirts Little Yellow Bird can provide customised and ethically manufactured uniforms to suit your requirements. We currently have a huge scope from beanies, hoodies, pants, aprons, and more!
At the core of our business is empowering people in developing countries to become independent. We reinvest our profits back into developing community projects. We want to help revolutionise of the fashion industry.
“Doing good, while doing good business.”
As a social enterprise, I was so excited to help run a company that had such strong values at the core of the business model. Every sale I make has a positive impact on the world, which makes my job so rewarding. Being a social enterprise isn't legally defined in NZ but to use it means we are a for profit company but one that cares more about its impact on the world rather than the amount of money we can make for our shareholders.
I am very passionate about this model and believe if all companies moved to this model we could really solve a lot of the environmental and social issues in the world. We are a B-Corp which stands for Benefit Company. Which is basically an international certification to say we are for good not just for profit.
We moved from Christchurch to Wellington in March 2016 to take part in Lightning Lab XX an accelerator running out of Wellington, New Zealand. This was a great experience we we learnt a lot in three months. We also gained a lot more customers and had great growth. We know have customers such as the Wellington Zoo, SAFE, the Wellington Chocolate factory.
We are about to head to India in November so look about for another post about that. We are growing rapidly and always on the look out for new companies. Ideally a company who needs a uniform or merchandise, who needs 50+ units of it!
For more information and blog posts from Little Yellow Bird check out our website and blog.