Website helps shoppers seeking change

The combination of giving and being savvy is the concept from which The Givve Collection derives its name as well as its function,  serving as an online marketplace that exclusively features charitable fashion products. Givve is a two-sided marketplace where not only do part of the proceeds from the customers’ purchases go to charity, but also the producers of the products make contributions themselves.

“Our customers are savvy because they want to buy chic things, but they also want to buy something that does more than put a shirt on their back — it puts a shirt on someone else’s back as well,” said founder and USC alumna Ashley Howell. “Our designers either give back per person, or they give back in an aggregate sense where they’ll give back 10 percent annually to a cause. We don’t limit our causes that vendors want to support, because they have a variety of causes they want to support. I know I do, personally.”

Though there are numerous foundations that support social causes, Howell said that the idea to integrate fashion with charity blossomed when she saw no outlet to shop for all of these items supporting a variety of causes provided through the same third-party vendor. Furthermore, Givve allows for personalization of the shopping experience, emphasized through features such as “Givve Lists” that customers can create by opening an account.

“We wanted to create more of a culture than a shopping site … around this idea of giving instead of shopping,” Howell said. “The benefit of the Givve Lists is that you can go on and group products by cause, product, brand, color, look — let’s say you want to put together an outfit for New Year’s Eve. You can put it together in a list and copy that link and send it to your friends.”

In addition to practicality, the list fosters a sentimental feeling toward the products.

“You create lists of products that you love, from people really passionate about whatever cause they support,” Howell said. “You can also write on the Givve List why you’re giving. For example, say you wanted to give to ovarian cancer because you lost a mom or an aunt or someone to the disease. You can write that on there, so people can further connect with why you’re doing this.”

Though the site officially launched on March 10, Howell said she started her business about 10 months ago while studying social entrepreneurship in her MBA program at Santa Clara University, after obtaining a degree in public policy at USC.

“I love fashion, and I love charity, so it was kind of like my two worlds in one,” she said. “It’s been 10 months of doing a lot of market research, and talking with vendors, and talking with customers, and seeing what’s already out there, and currently, there’s nothing like Givve. A lot has actually popped up over the last holiday season, so the market for this is really growing rapidly.”

Though she didn’t have a background in business, Howell said her experience at USC has proved invaluable in the context of her venture today, which reached 5,000 unique visitors per day on its site in the first week.

“My USC class ring — I actually haven’t take it off since I graduated,” Howell said. “It’s my little motivation — on a bad day, I go, ‘Remember you worked your ass off, you gotta keep going!’ Academically, I was really challenged. I can write a 30-page paper in a night but quantitative classes were always more of a challenge for me. With business school, it’s pretty much 50 percent of the classes are quantitative, so that was a little academic stretch for me going to business school, but I knew I could do it because I had my USC undergrad background.”

During her time at USC, Howell said she was a member of student government and the Panhellenic sorority Gamma Phi Beta. She also took part in charity work and participated in various mentoring projects. But more than the specific student organizations she was involved in, Howell said it was the life skills such as networking and being a leader that allowed her to turn her passion into a marketable product.

“I felt at USC, if you had a dream to go do something, you could just start it,” Howell said. “Just the confidence of the ‘follow your dreams’ kind of thing … I really feel like me being a Trojan influences everything.”

As for advice for students doubling as aspiring entrepreneurs, Howell said it’s imperative to consider both the professional and personal aspects of starting a business.

“The first is if you don’t have customers, it isn’t a market,” Howell said. “It can be a great idea, but if no one is actually going to buy something or go on a website or whatever the venture is, that’s a problem. So you really have to do your homework before you get into it.”

As for the personal side, Howell said that potential startup owners need to be prepared for the level of commitment that is demanded.

“There are nights and days where you’re just like, ‘This is not going to happen,’” Howell said. “But you have to believe in what you’re doing more than anybody. If you’re really passionate about it, you’re going to make it happen. You have to be willing to sacrifice and spend your free nights and days working on this. If I could work 48 hours in a day, I would. You can’t be lukewarm about a startup, that’s for sure.”