More consumers are choosing products that are both hip and support a cause. Photo:mariahfleming (Flickr)

This article was republished in The Christian Science Monitor.

We already know that good marketing does not equal good aid. Tom’s Shoes has earned a fair amount of criticism for its “One for One” model—a pair of shoes is donated to a child in need for every pair bought by the consumer—but, after seeing the marketing benefits, more and more for-profit businesses are using a similar model to donate goods in developing countries.

Here's the basic problem of the “One for One” model: when everyone in a community can get a free pair of shoes, the local shoe vendor goes out of business. Not only does it hurt the local economy, but it is also a short-term solution that creates long-term problems. Tom’s model may also encourage poverty tourism, as the company allows people to pay to travel along with distribution trips as shoe fitters. Niharika Jain writes more in-depth about the unintended consequences of charitable giving for the Harvard Crimson, and Peace Corps volunteer Zachary Mason discusses Tom’s Shoes from a public health perspective, questioning the cost-effectiveness of the model for reducing disease.

Despite the unintended consequences of its “One for One” program, Tom's has a cult following. Chances are if you don’t already have a pair, you know someone who does. Is Tom’s merely a fashion statement, or are consumers drawn to the company for its cause, creating an atypical status symbol? It’s hard to know what motivates individual purchases of Tom’s products, but a 2010 Cone Cause Evolution study shows that 85 percent of consumers surveyed feel more positively about companies that support a cause they care about. When price and quality are equal, most consumers choose the product supporting the cause.

If we want to be socially conscious consumers it’s important to understand the impact of Tom’s and similar products. We can learn from Tom’s marketing success, but to alleviate poverty in the long-term we need to promote sustainable programs the support local economic development.

Warby Parker, another for-profit enterprise that donates its product in developing countries, is getting a lot of attention for the innovative way that it sells eyewear to the consumer and sends glasses around the world to people who can’t afford them—earning them the B Corp status. Like Tom’s, they are popular among the fashion-conscious and have a hugely successful marketing campaign.

Warby Parker partners with a non-profit called Vision Spring in order to donate their glasses abroad. Vision Spring is in tune with how local economies function and what kind of products are culturally appropriate—something that Warby Parker itself may not have the resources to know. Vision Spring receives funding and glasses from Warby Parker to train low-income local entrepreneurs to start their own businesses selling glasses at affordable prices.

Warby Parker uses the same “buy one, give one” strategy as Tom’s, which is successful at attracting consumers, but is sensitive to the impact donations have on local economies. Warby Parker and Vision Spring’s mission is to help entrepreneurs sustain a business and to create jobs—not create a dependency on unpredictable donations which unintentionally creates economic stagnation.

As socially conscious consumers, we should reserve some skepticism for businesses that claim to do good. Transparency and randomized studies are need in order to assess their impact. A recent randomized control trial by the University of Michigan found that people who bought Vision Spring glasses earned 20 percent more, but more research is needed. It is also promising that Vision Spring is continually learning and evolving its strategy to increase its impact, as recognized by Duke's Fuqua School of Business Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship.

This partnership between a for-profit business and a non-profit looks promising and solves some of the problems with Tom’s “One for One” model. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” is what we’re told. It’s an excellent example of the ability of corporations and non-profits to do what they do well and team up to do good. Hopefully, organizations that inform consumers—like B Corp—will make this kind of partnership more attractive.

Have you bought or would you buy Warby Parker glasses and Tom’s Shoes? What drew you to the brand?

Monica Gerber is a 2011 graduate of Reed College. Read her other contributions to Global Envision.

Every 30 seconds a child dies of malaria. Scientists have genetically modified a mosquito that could potentially stop the spread of malaria. Photo:Gravitywave (flickr)

This article was republished in The Christian Science Monitor.

Bloodthirsty? Yes! Pesky? Absolutely! Malaria transmitters? Possibly not anymore.

Mosquitoes are getting a genetic makeover, which could potentially halt the endemic spread of malaria, according to a group of Johns Hopkins University researchers.

Mosquitoes have been nibbling away at birds, reptiles, and humans for nearly 30 million years. They hold primary responsibility for infecting approximately 300 million people with malaria and causing 1 million deaths a year in more than 100 countries. Scientists have been able to activate a gene that blocks these tiny insects from developing the malaria parasite in their guts. While this discovery seemed promising initially, researchers struggled to design a mosquito that could out-survive their malaria-infected counterparts.

The answer, they discovered, lies in controlling a protein called SM1 peptide. When this protein was activated, studies found that “after nine egg-laying cycles, the mix of genetically-modified (GM) mosquitoes and wild had changed to 70/30,” according to How Stuff Works?.

In spite of the promising findings, scientists remain leery of releasing the GM mosquitoes into the wild. These tests have only been done on malaria-carrying mice; the long term effects on humans are still unknown. Releasing tens of thousands of mosquitoes into the wild has never been done before, and there is a possibility that the GM mosquitoes could eventually develop immunity to the malaria parasite.

Perhaps the most compelling argument against releasing these mosquitoes comes at the heels of recent findings of an anti-malaria vaccine, largely funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. When 6,000 African children were tested with the vaccine, “it reduced the risk of infection with severe malaria by 47 percent during the year after the shots,” reports the New York Times.

As President Obama stated earlier this year, “Africa’s future is up to Africans.” Finding an end to malaria has the potential to lift African nations out of poverty by spurring educational advancement, market productivity, and economic growth. And ending malaria would certainly hold great promise for Africa’s future by cultivating healthy young minds of students who can sustain their educational development. In fact, studies done in Kenya by the World Health Organization found that the “disease kept children out of school for 11 percent [of the school year]."

While the long term impacts of GM mosquitoes and vaccines currently elude us, dispersing these scientific discoveries could save the lives of millions of impoverished people. The end to the means has yet to be uncovered, but these findings could pave the road to a usable solution. And that is something to buzz about.

Crowded slums in Rio de Janeiro provide a stark embodiment of the challenges presented by population growth. Photo: Crystal Davis, World Resource Institute (flickr)

The world’s seven billionth person is more likely than ever to see her fifth birthday, according to Save the Children. But some people might view that as a bad thing.

According the UN, the world population is now past seven billion. That’s got some people worrying about overcrowding and resource scarcity. In the worst case, it may even make them less likely to give aid to those in need.

But Save the Children, a disaster relief and long-term development charity that focuses on children, has a different take: The more children we save, they argue, the smaller the world’s population growth.

In places where child mortality is high, families have more children. “In the poorest countries, where parents are often petrified that their children will die and leave them to fend for themselves, it’s understandable that they would choose to have larger families," according to Brendan Cox of Save the Children. More children can help their parents farm the land, work in the family's small business, and otherwise improve the lot of the poorest of the poor.

But when that fear is mitigated by better income or greater access to aid, family sizes stay small. According to the Save the Children report, the child mortality rate and the global fertility rate have both fallen by more than half since 1970.

And when you have fewer children, you can invest more of your resources into each child, ensuring not only survival, but also success.

So, one way to curb population growth is to keep children alive and thriving.

Ben Osborn is a 2011 graduate of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.