Worldofgood.com by eBay empowering consumers to align their social values with their shopping decisions. It is an e-commerce marketplace offering products have a positive impact on people and on the planet.
In the Western World, eBay is a very recognizable brand having built pioneer communities around the world essentially built on commerce, bound by trust and inspired by opportunity. The essence of their business model is connecting people through their core business eBay, their payments business PayPal and their communications business Skype. eBay does approximately $60 billion dollars worth of business every year, with 250 million registered users carrying 7 million items on the online marketplace every single day. Now Imagine this: A global marketplace fashioned after eBay and connecting artisans in remote villages to savvy consumers all over the world. Imagine no more - eBay has finally spawned such a marketplace that provides opportunity to artisans and small producers from different corners of the planet.
WorldofGood.com creates a venue for small producers to compete alongside larger ones, creating opportunities for those producers who normally go unrepresented in the marketplace.
The Social Entrepreneur meets the Social Intrapreneur
Priya Haji, CEO and Founder of World of Good Inc started the company in 2004, with intentions of contributing to the Fair Trade Movement, connecting artisans-mostly women with consumers in the western world. The company scoped out far flung villages in Asia, Africa and South America, ferret out handmade ethnic crafts and sell them at upscale boutiques in the United States. World of Good was working with 150 partners in 34 countries to course enough wares to stock mainstream retailers such as Whole Foods, Wegmans and campus bookstores, leveraging the power of fair trade retail to alleviate poverty in developing countries.
In 2007 she was introduced to Robert Chatwani through a common friend in the San Francisco Bay Area. Robert was working for eBay as a part of their web services team and in their core business of internet consumer marketing. He understood that Pierre Omidiyar’s (Founder of eBay) had a broader vision for eBay whereby it created an opportunity for anyone to connect to a global marketplace irrespective of their location or background.- social commerce as Pierre called it. Imbibing Pierre’s vision Robert began incubating the idea of building a global marketplace that gave access to the bottom billion that live on less that $4 a day, whereby a villager from Bolivia could sell his wares to a family in Upper Manhattan. Essentially Robert was developing this online as Priya was developing the same idea by building producer groups and supply chains offline.
The result of their partnership- www.worldofgood.com by eBay, ‘the world’s first online marketplace to convene thousands of People Positive and Eco Positive sellers and products all in one place, empowering consumers to shop in ways that align with their personal values’. Respected, independent organizations such as the International Fair Trade Association, Ashoka and Echoing Green verify the positive impact every product has on people and the planet to add to the credibility of every single items sold on worldofgood.com.
Priya and Robert- Serendipitous Crossing of paths
Priya’s social awareness was heightened very early on during her endeavour helping her father establish a free health clinic called ‘Health for All’ in their Texas hometown. Her social entrepreneurial inclinations lead to her co-found ‘Free at Last’, a broad based substance abuse and social services organization in East Palo Alto, during her senior year at Stanford University. After completing her MBA at the Haas School of Business in May 2003, she traveled for six months in Asia and Latin America to focus on source cultivation and understanding the artisan communities. This ignited her passion to ensure that artisan communities are treated fairly and have access to markets.
In 2003, Priya’s quest to understand the needs and the stories of local artisans, took her to the open air markets in Western India. At the same time, not too far away, in Gujarat also in Western India, Robert was watching his parents source jewellery in an open air market for their family business. This gave him clear visibility to how much the artisan was making for his handcrafted jewellery in the market through to how much it was being sold for in the end of the supply chain in the US. The common stories both Priya and Robert heard at these markets were ‘We need more shoppers like you and greater access to markets so we can support our families and communities by making decent incomes’
If Robert and Priya visiting the Indian subcontinent, listening to similar stories and building a similar business model isn’t serendipitous enough, here’s another element that exemplifies that worldofgood.com was ‘meant’ to be a partnership between these exceptional individuals. Robert also received his MBA from the Haas School of Business, the same business school that Priya attended.
What it means to be an Intrapreneur
Many of the stories we have covered in our publication focus on what it means to be a social entrepreneur. However the idea of a social intrapreneur is gaining more publicity as these intrapreneurs emerge into the mainstream of doing social good. A social intrapreneur is an individual who applies the principles of entrepreneurship within the scope of an organization, by leveraging the large scale resources and reach of the corporation. We hope that Robert, as one of the few social intrapreneurs we have covered in our stories, can inspire our readers, particularly ones that work for a corporation and are constantly seeking to add value to their day jobs by contributing the broader social good.
We asked Robert what it means to be an Intrapreneur. His reply: “I was lucky enough to incubate the idea of Worldofgood.com and receive support for company executives. An intrapreneur has to make sure that the idea not only solves social problems, but it still generates core business, improves margins, retains employees and penetrates markets. The idea has to fit the core competencies of the business and once there is that alignment, it is important for the intrapreneur to be passionate and dedicated to the idea."
Robert’s primary work now is managing worldofgood.com and eBay’s other social ventures Microplace and eBay Giving works. With his entrepreneurial spirit, passion and dedication, Robert has paved his own path at eBay. What is his most important advice to social intrapreneurs? "Don’t ask for permission if you strongly feel that this is the right thing for the company to do and once you make progress on your idea and gain traction, then present it to the management team for their support."
Great work never goes unrecognized and Priya was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader for 2009, an honour that is bestowed every year on 200-300 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.
Words of advice from Priya for social entrepreneurs who are looking for bigger partners to scale their idea: "Many times in the social enterprise sector we limit ourselves and believe that an idea cannot possibly be appealing to many people- find a partner that really wants to listen to, create space to collaborate, and make sure you deliver on your core principles."
- The developed World
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