With a Purpose provides blankets to those in need

Modeled after the now famous TOMS one-for-one model, new L.A.-based blanket company, With a Purpose, is breaking into the market of social good in a big way.

The one-for-one concept is now familiar to the modern consumer: every one blanket the company sells, they donate one to someone in need. In this case, the blankets go to a variety of homeless shelters. The idea came to founder Josh Helland after he founded a related nonprofit that donated beds to transitional programs helping individuals break the cycle of homelessness. Working in this field helped Helland realize the great need for this simple resource. With a Purpose works to impact three main areas: homeless shelters, veteran’s aid and disaster relief.

“I set out with the goal to start a for-profit company to help generate goods to fill the holes for these nonprofits,” Helland said.

Though he acknowledged that the market for blankets was saturated, Helland and the rest of the team at With a Purpose came up with an idea that allowed them to distinguish their product: collegiate licensed blankets.

Through their website, customers can buy blankets branded with logos from 20 different large universities around the country, with that number expected to double by the fall of 2015. The resulting blanket donations are made to nonprofits that are local to the particular college. For example, many of the donations in the L.A. area through purchase of USC blankets will be made to the Downtown Women’s Center.

Though collegiate licensing can be an arduous process, Helland said it was worth it because of the resulting company exposure. This exposure and practical model might be the formula that has allowed With a Purpose to succeed in a sphere in which many businesses have failed, and Helland attributes this success to that approach.

“A lot of social entrepreneurships have great ideas but they don’t generate any money, or enough to sustain the business at least,” he said. “You need to figure out how to make money if you want to be a sustainable company.”

This might seems like common sense but is often a challenge for entrepreneurs who walk the line between public and monetary profit. And a socially beneficial business isn’t without its challenges and pitfalls. Though companies such as With a Purpose are expected to hold all aspects of their business to high social standards, at current levels of production, they can only afford to produce blankets in China.

“I don’t have any great answer on that. I recognize that there is an environmental impact,” he said.

Helland went on to say that he performed the cost-benefit analysis, and at American production prices, they wouldn’t have a feasible product or company. He highlighted that many of the universities that With a Purpose partners with are a part of the Fair Labor Association, and therefore have high standards in regards to production and operation. Helland has also personally visited their production factories in China to verify claims about worker conditions.

With a Purpose follows the growing popularity of socially beneficial, double-bottom line businesses. A double bottom line refers a company with the goal of not only fulfilling a monetary target — the traditional bottom line — but also a second bottom line of social benefit. Many millennial consumers are drawn to businesses that identify with this trend of social responsibility, which is reflected in their huge recent increase. They range from nonprofit to for-profit companies, and each choose to affect social change in a different way, be it providing goods, money, or services.

The one-for-one model has been criticized by experts in the field of social entrepreneurship as not affecting sustainable change, as it is not able to guarantee steady sources of product or service. With A Purpose’s nonprofit liaison Nick Bundra addressed this concern by highlighting the partnerships they form with local nonprofits. Bundra says that these nonprofits are the ones affecting sustainable change, through help from donors like With A Purpose.

“We might be a resource but they’re the hands and feet,” he said.

He said that he would also much rather be a donor through a one-for-one model than a purely donation-based model, as their donation fluctuations are reliant on people that have interest in building the business: customers that buy their product. By contrast, purely nonprofit organizations are dependent on donor wealth and willingness, and compete with more than 30,000 other nonprofits in the Los Angeles area for access to funds.

Bundra said that his ultimate goal is to impact people, and so working part-time with this company was a natural fit.

He advises students interested in social enterprise to have an open mindset when setting their goals, saying it is possible to have a positive impact in many lines of work. Neither Helland nor Bundra finished their college years with the specific goal of getting involved in a social good business, but found themselves drawn to the concept over the years following.

“I wouldn’t put the social good company out there as the holy grail,” he said. “You just have to be a voice for doing social good and be willing to do the work necessary.”