Don’t
you love it when people smarter than yourself say
exactly what you are thinking? Especially when they do it in just a handful of sentences.
“I got a soccer ball in the mail today. I don’t know from soccer, but as far as I can tell, it’s just like any other soccer ball.
Except it’s not.
It’s not… because it’s from Fair Trade Sports. They only use adult labor (which shouldn’t even be necessary to say) and they donate after-tax profits to kids’ charities.
Does it change the way you play soccer? Probably more than you know. Does it change the way the balls get sold? Of course.
A commodity is only a commodity if you treat it as one.”
Published by Scott James December 20th, 2006 in How you can help, Sports balls: Fair Trade, What others are saying about us.
Noble concept. However, how do you ‘grow’ if you give away all PAT to charity?
Good question, Jay. Each year, we’ll retain a small portion of our proceeds to fund the following year’s growth (likely ~10%). That percentage will change from year to year depending on the opportunity we face, but will always be disclosed publicly.
See here for more detail: http://fairtradesports.com/?p=44
I’m not into football (or any other sports) even when I live in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, but I’m a regular reader of Seth’s blog (and books) and I found references to your project on his blog. It’s a really good news to know there are people like you stamping out child labour! I only hope all English teams, particularly the schools’ teams, buy their balls from you.
best regards
Alex
Hi Alex,
When you have a moment, check out our UK partners, Fair Deal Trading at www.fairdealtrading.com.
-Scott