Cause marketing to the power of seven. That's the hook of Sevenly, a California start-up that sells t-shirts and hoodies for periods of seven days and donates $7 (30 percent) of each sale to seven causes including anti-poverty, anti-slavery, clean water, disaster aid, hunger relief, medical missions and miscellaneous aid.
Today on Sevenly.com, consumers can spend $22 to purchase a t-shirt with $7 going to clothe children in Bolivia via Clothes4Souls. The page points out that a single t-shirt purchase will provide clothing for seven kids.
Dale Partridge, chief world changer at Sevenly, told the Los Angeles Times, "It's a great number. We just happened to be able to break down the world's greatest issues into seven causes, seven days in a week, etc. It had tons of parallel brand play."
The company relies upon word of mouth, primarily via social media, to expand its reach. Sevenly just announced today that it completed its most successful seven-day sales event last week with $22,000 raised for Autism Speaks.
"The success of last week's campaign is really a testament to how many of our fans and supporters are spreading the word about us through their social networks," Mr. Partridge said in a statement. "Without them sharing this with all their friends we wouldn't be able to raise this much in just a week. We are super grateful for that support and glad to see so many people getting involved. The model makes it simple because if they can't afford to buy a shirt each week then they can at least help spread the word to their friends."
- Sevenly hopes to change the world one T-shirt at time - Los Angeles Times
- Tee-Shirts that Raise Money for Charities - Sevenly
- Sevenly - Facebook
- Sevenly Has Its Most Successful Awareness and Funding Campaign to Date - Sevenly/PRWeb
- Sevenly Has Raised $175k for Charity Selling Hip Shirts - Read Write Web
- Is Sevenly the next TOMS Shoes? - Mashable