Among the three guests of honor at the Twitter’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange, a 9 year old girl, Vivienne Harr stole the spotlight; one who may change the way non profits companies are run.
Vivienne started a lemonade stand called Make a Stand at the cause of raising money to end child slavery, which she successfully raised and donated $101,320 to the charity Not for Sale. Of course, this would not have been possible with the help of her father, Eric Harr now the ex-president of Resonate Social, who led a media savvy Twitter campaign that attracted national attention for Vivienne’s cause. Instead of moving forward as a nonprofit, Mr. Harr and his family formed a lemonade business around this cause calling this form of corporate entity a special purpose corporation; which intends to earn a profit for shareholders and contribute to other social constituencies. The lemonade sold online has no set price, allowing customers to pay however much they want-“no one ever pays less”. Raising the million dollar question, is Make a Stand just like any another “greenwashing” company that is profit driven from a cause?
Can’t help but to agree with Mr.Harr’s argument that it is better to reward people for doing good in charities instead of paying them on how little they spend on themselves. What made Make a Stand avoid the criticism of putting up a social face, is the transparency Mr.Harr strove to achieve for his company. He was not afraid to reveal that one of his goals is to make money for both a cause and its founders, which I thought could gain the trust from society.
I thought Mr.Harr was smart for creating the marketing strategy of not setting a price for the lemonade sold. This creates shared values, a win-win situation benefiting both the consumer and the company as it gained the title of not just driving for profit. Looking from a bigger picture, Make a Stand not only generate profits for the cause of ending child slavery but also the founders.
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