I was recently added to the the list of business on buyforward.org and I think everyone should know about this great resource. Buy-It-Forward is a list businesses where shopping is charitable and empowers consumer’s spending at no extra cost to your purchases!  They believe can can help you access your buying needs, as well as assist charity causes! That’s B-I-F!!! Buy It  Forward list those businesses permanently committed to giving a significant part of their profits to worthy causes.

A “Buy It Forward 10” company—one that has permanently committed a significant portion of its profits to worthy causes—stands out among the many corporate philanthropy models out there. Ten percent of the company’s total value goes well beyond the usual token cause-marketing ploy. It follows the guideline of the age-old “tithe” (or “tenth”) principle.

So what do you need to do to qualify?

To qualify for the buyfwd.org list, a company must:
Contribute an amount equal to or greater than 5% of its theoretical market value (see below).
Compete in a traditionally for-profit industry.
Be a credible company donating to a credible cause.

Process:
Assessments of market value, giving, and worthiness of the cause(s) supported are made by a board of advisors using an informal submission and assessment process. We reserve the right to change the guidelines and hope that in time a more formal valuation/auditing process, rankings, and industry sort will be be possible and necessary.

Rankings will be based on the following measures:

Absolute amount of donations
Donations as a % of total business value
Worthiness of the cause(s) (Criteria: more than 85% of a random sample would agree the cause is worthy)
Adherence to “spirit of giving” measures, like top executive salaries, etc. (This is simply to avoid potential pitfalls of the various models; for example, claiming donation of 100% of profits while paying senior executives unusually high salaries to the exclusion of profits.)
We hope you enjoy your buying…we know the charities will enjoy your forwarding.