"Enjoy life while helping others" is Fair Trade Sports founder Scott James' personal mission statement.

Fair Trade Sports, Inc is the first sports equipment company in the US to launch a full line of eco-certified Fair Trade sports balls, ensuring fair wages and healthy working conditions for our adult workers.

We are committed to donate all profits after taxes to children’s charities, both domestic and international. Sound familiar? It’s a similar idea to the one behind the Newman’s Own brand you see in the grocery store.

Until we reach profitability, we are donating $1000 annually to these charities, which benefit at-risk children worldwide. Keep reading for a bit more about our company and what we choose to focus on (and equally important, what we choose to ignore)...

Our Environment You'd have to be living in complete denial to not realize that our environment is in serious trouble. Our belief at Fair Trade Sports is that overconsumption plays an enormous role in that problem as well. It's a bit ironic for a retail company - who frankly wants you to buy our stuff - to talk about overconsumption, but we'd be negligent not to.

So, when your current sport ball gets worn out, explodes, or gets lost, we'd love to have you as a customer. With that said, we do try to minimize our impact on the environment. Our office uses green energy, our retail displays are made of FSC wood, and we are trying to find new ways to make our packaging more sustainable. We try to minimize printing, but when we have to it's on recycled paper.

And for an in-depth look at how we are addressing environmental issues with the creation of our eco-certified sports balls themselves, check out this blog post we did for Grist.

Our Communities Those associated with Fair Trade Sports are not your typical folks. For one, you have to be attracted to a place where it is stated on Day 1 that you'll never get rich off this company. Huh?

To elaborate, Fair Trade Sports commits all after-tax profits to charity. Like that Newman's Own brand you see in the salad dressing aisle. Enough with all these hybrid business models; those guys figured it out in 1982.

But don't let the "we give our after-tax profits away" freak you out. To work with Fair Trade Sports is sustainable. You'll get paid a salary (or a set $ amount if you are one of our beloved freelance gurus), so you don't have to worry about paying your rent and grocery bills. But with this company, you get an additional focus on serving your community...both your local one here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, as well as your global community.

For the local community, you are free to schedule your work hours in and around any existing community service commitments you may have. Don't have one? Well, go get one! When you do, just run the time/date commitments you are making by Scott so he can schedule accordingly.

For our national community, keep in mind that everything you do with Fair Trade Sports benefits at-risk children throughout our country since half of the after-tax profits we generate together get sent to Boys & Girls Club of America. The other half get sent to Room to Read, through whom you can have a significant impact on children around the world through the libraries they build. Ask Scott for a copy of John Wood's book (the Room to Read founder) if you want a quick inspiring read.

You may not need to wait for a community service projects you find interesting; we may assign you to one as part of your paid FTS duties! An example is the Green Festival next calendar year that is coming to Seattle; we've already signed up as a Host Committee sponsor. More details to come on that as we begin the meetings this Fall.

Our BioRegion Aside from our eco-certified Fair Trade sports balls themselves, which come from Sialkot Pakistan - home to 75% + of all sports balls manufacturers - all purchases are directed to local businesses. For us, that means local designers, code gurus, display fabricators, warehouse fulfillment, and office supply houses.

Local to us is fairly easy to define...we live and office on an island. If we can't get it on Bainbridge Island, then we try our best to get it in the Puget Sound area to keep fuel transportation costs to a minimum. If we can't find it in the Puget Sound area...well, then we try to make do without it.