Instalment 2: The problem we are helping to solve

www.bonhappi-T.com

Actually, it's 2 problems at once, with 1 thing - how cool is that 😀  bonhappi-T's DNA is 1bon+1T=2happi which means: 1 good person buys 1 bonhappi-T shirt and instantly makes 2 happy - the good person who gets a quick, easy chance to make a consistent difference in a life and the person/dog who gets food for an entire month (haha I studied Maths so makes sense that our brand essence is a sum!) Here it is in more detail...

PROBLEM 1:

The difficulty for people to regularly make a meaningful difference in the lives of those less fortunate, even though they would like to.

Rural community, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa

CAUSE

* there is little opportunity for everyday people to connect with the less fortunate as the 2 groups lead very different lives

Street Artist Giffy Duminy adds value by painting a wall at Zwakele Primary School

* generally small donations are pooled by consumer brands and then given as one combined payment from the company/brand - we enable people to make a meaningful difference all on their own

Tiffany fed someone for a month, just by buying a bonhappi-T.com shirt for herself :)

PROBLEM 2:

Widespread hunger

CAUSE

* the world produces enough food to feed everyone but poverty causes 1 in 8 people to go hungry every day

Alexandra township residents queuing for donated food

* underprivileged people don't have sufficient money to survive and often go without food

Philipine cooks meals from donated food for the hungry every day

Thankful for a lunch

* almost half of all edible food ends up in landfills

Our feeding partner FoodForward SA secures edible food before it is sent to a landfill for their 600 beneficiary organisations, feeding over 250 000 people a day

Next week, it's all about how we help you sort this out.

Be happy :)

Our Social Business Adventure

This has been a crazy first year for us :) so I thought I would break bonhappi-T up into 'instalments' to let you see...

Instalment 1: How we came up with the idea

A while ago Felix and I were chatting about the fact that most people, given the chance, love to help others in need but often simply don't know how to. So we decided to provide a global, simple, fun way to do it and make meaningful helping out a part of everyday life.

We would create happiness by being the link that quickly and easily connects people who can (all of us) with people who can't (the underprivileged).

We put together a simple mechanism. As most people buy t-shirts, we chose quality, fashionable Ts on the one hand and as hunger is widespread and something everyone can relate to, we chose feeding the hungry, on the other.

To be universal, we created a global eCommerce site and people around the world have created over 50000 days of feeding - so far.

Every time someone buys a bonhappi-T shirt for themselves they feed a hungry mouth for a month as well - not just a day or a week! If we couldn't have found a consistent way to feed for a full month, we wouldn't have started the company.

Our customers choose to feed either a hungry person or a homeless dog when they buy a bonhappi-T. We added dogs as they add value to many families.

We partnered with NPOs FoodForward SA and The Do More Foundation to feed.

We developed a mobile and PC website. We focused our priorities on: manufacturing proudly South African, quality, fashionable, affordable t-shirts; a user friendly online shopping experience that shows exactly who the customer is feeding for a month; local and international express courier partnerships which enable us to offer free shipping as a part of the selling price.

Hope you enjoyed reading this - keep an eye out for the next one :)