How One Fellow B Corp Gave Sustainable Employee Holiday Gifts While Providing Home Comforts to Children in Foster Care

One of the exciting aspects of working within the corporate gifting world is coming up with methods to deliver on the imaginative ways our clients decide to give gifts to their stakeholders. When you mix in a giving element to these campaigns (which is a prerequisite for us working together), things get really interesting... and also inspiring.

Gifts for Good was approached by fellow B Corp, Arabella Advisors, to facilitate a very specific gifting goal which allowed them to give their recipients the choice between a unique branded item that was sustainable and good for the planet, or donate their gift value to charity.

Using our GIFTforward platform, we set up a customized campaign, providing the choice between donating to charity, or redeeming a single customized product (our recycled Billboard Tote), complete with Arabella Advisor's branding.

Recipients received an email with this offer in December 2023, and an automated reminder in January 2024. The email linked to a custom page on GIFTforward that presented both options, along with details on their specific impact and features, allowing people to make an informed gift choice. 

For people who chose the Billboard Tote, their shipping address was collected by GIFTforward, and we were able to place an exact order amount of the product, both reducing cost for the client and cutting down on the waste generated by over-ordering.

And while on the subject of reducing waste, The Arabella Billboard Tote itself was made from reclaimed billboards, which would otherwise be sent straight to a landfill at the end of their promotional life. Instead this sturdy material was up-cycled into a perfect bag for beach days or trips to the farmers market. 

The totes were delivered in our Kraft Eco Mailer, complete with a story card, explaining the environmental impact of the gift.

For the employees who chose the charitable donation option, they were happy not to receive an item they did not personally need and got to support a great cause in the process. The absence of unwanted gifts through this campaign is a prime example of how GIFTforward is helping to reduce the massive amount of landfill waste generated by the wider corporate gift market each year.

It was this custom repurposing of our existing gift platform, assisted by our in-house IT department that really allowed us to provide Arabella Advisors with their ideal gift-giving scenario.

"When a client comes to us with an idea for a thoughtful way to give at scale while maximizing the positive impact, we'll always take a look at how we can customize or 'bend' our existing offerings to turn their gift-giving vision into a reality" says Laura Hertz  — our co-founder, CEO and chief imagineer, when it comes to new ways of using our robust gifting platform. 

It's this desire to collaborate on new and unique ways to 'Do Good' that draws impact focused organizations such as Arabella Advisors to our corporate gifting services. 

"As a B Corp and a mission driven organization, it was extremely important to us that our gifting was mindful, kind to the planet, had a measurable social impact and gave people a choice." shares Laura Duymovic, Arabella's Director of Executive Operations. "Gifts for Good delivered on all these promises and we were impressed by their team’s willingness to adapt to our specific impact goals."

And we were delighted that Arabella Advisors chose to send their charity donation funds to support one of our newest Impact Partners, Comfort Cases®.

On any given day, there are approximately 437,500 children in foster care in the U.S. Most of them are removed from their homes with little more than the clothes on their backs. Comfort Cases provide children with backpacks filled with comfort and personal care items including new pajamas, dental kits, a warm blanket and a new stuffed animal to hug during the traumatic transition into the foster care system.

Thank you, Arabella Advisors, for working with us to create such important impact in the lives of these children, and for giving gifts in such a sustainable, thoughtful manner.  We're looking forward to working with you on future gifting campaigns!

If you have an idea for Doing Good at scale with us, or need our help brainstorming on gifts and ways to give with purpose, you can get in touch with our gift experts here.