1% For the Planet

Hi all,

I just discovered an environmental nonprofit, 1% For the Planet, that seeks to enroll as many businesses as possible as members who commit to donate 1% of their annual sales to environmental nonprofits. Their mission is: "Use market forces to drive positive environmental change by inspiring companies to give."

They themselves are a nonprofit, and in addition to fundraising they operate based on membership dues, which are determined via an unspecified sliding scale. Interestingly, the membership dues can be considered by the member companies as part of their annual 1% giving. 1% FTP enrolls the business members, and vets interested nonprofits, and then the member companies donate directly to an environmental nonprofit of their choice.

I personally wonder if there is a ceiling to the size of companies (by sales) that 1% FTP will be able to enroll. In 2007, with over 700 members, donations approached $30m USD, which is a significant contribution to the work of environmental nonprofits. The website has a "Why to Join" section that discusses benefits to the member companies, but I find myself skeptical that we'll ever see a GE or Nestle or Wal-Mart on the membership roster. As for Wal-Mart, "Net sales for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2008 were $374.526 billion."* If they were a member of 1% FTP, that would commit them to a donation of $3,745,260,000. Kinda crazy to try to wrap your mind around.

So could 1% FTP ever hope to land a huge business, or will their model have to be to "drive positive environmental change by inspiring" a helluva lot of small (relatively) "companies to give"? It seems unlikely shareholders would be particularly thrilled (Friedman certainly wouldn't). All of this said, a lot of good can occur through the model of enrolling thousands of small businesses, so it's not as if there isn't a lot of potential good to come from this venture.

Another potentially interesting question: does 1% FTP provide a convenient service for companies, or would many of them be better off developing relationships with nonprofits or other social ventures themselves? I think one thing 1% FTP will eventually provide is significant marketing via a recognizable logo (I learned about them because a company whose e-mail list I'm on had the 1% FTP symbol at the bottom of their latest advertising e-mail).

* http://walmartstores.com/media/resources/r_2533.pdf