28 Jun 2010, Posted by admin in 20 Questions,Fashion, 3 Comments

20 Questions With FEED Co-Founders Lauren Bush and Ellen Gustafson

1 bag equals 1 child fed for 1 school year. With this simple idea, FEED has made it possible for one person to make a huge difference in another’s life. Co-founders Lauren Bush and Ellen Gustafson founded FEED in 2007 to do something about the 350 million children that go hungry every day. Bush had previously been a model for megabrands like Tommy Hilfiger and Abercrombie & Fitch (along with working as a spokesperson for the UN), while Gustafson dabbled in music and TV news before landing a job as a communications specialist for the United Nations’ World Food Programme, where she met Bush. Since 2007, the company has sold over 550,000 bags and raised almost $6 million dollars to help support the United Nations World Food Programme school feeding operations. Passionate and relentless in their endeavors, Bush and Gustafson represent a rising band of pioneers who have proven that a fashion business can be about more than just creating next season’s “it” item. In this edition of 20 Questions, Bush and Gustafson explain the accidental birth of their business, how the root causes of hunger and obesity are actually related to problems in our global food system, and why conscious consumers who choose to wear causes over company logos are their real life heroes.

Jennifer Sung: Let’s start with the basics. What is FEED?

Ellen Gustafson: I’m the co-founder of FEED Projects and the FEED Foundation. We have a for-profit company called FEED Projects, which is a very charitable business. We also have a non-profit organization called FEED Foundation that manages all of our donations. FEED was started in 2007 because we wanted a place to sell the FEED 1 bag.  Lauren had designed the FEED 1 bag a year earlier and had thought of it as a tool to raise money for the UN World Food Programme (WFP). Lauren had been an honorary spokesperson for the WFP for a few years and had been out in the field visiting their different operations [including] their school feeding operations. It costs between $20 and $50 a year depending on the country to provide school feeding for one child so she designed the FEED 1 bag to include the donation to feed one child at school for one year. I was working at the UN WFP at the time and thought it was such a genius idea. We realized that the UN is so busy feeding kids that they don’t necessarily have the time to run a small bag company, so we created a separate company called FEED Projects to help sell the bags and get the word out. And since then (2007), we have sold over 550,000 bags and raised almost $6 million dollars to support international school feeding efforts and [expanded into] other programs like UNICEF’s MicroNutrient [initiative], Room to Read (which helps build  libraries in developing words), and Millennium Villages, which  provides healthcare to people around the world.

Selection of Feed Projects' products

JS: Why did FEED choose hunger as its main cause?

EG: Lauren and I both met at the UN World Food Programme so we were already interested in [the hunger] cause when we met. She had done a lot of cause work while she was a model in college and the WFP actually kind of found her and brought her in to work with them and she said, ‘Before I agree to support this, I want to see it firsthand.’ After Lauren had seen the school feeding programme in action, she thought it was a great thing to support. I, independently, had a career in media and foreign policy work and had come to the understanding that the underpinning of a lot of the problems around the world is that people are not getting enough food and when people are hungry, it makes it a lot harder for them to focus on a lot of other things. So we both kind of independently came to the hunger cause and it’s obviously the most basic thing, especially for kids. When you see hungry kids for real, it’s really really jarring. You’ll see a kid that looks like they’re four and they’re really seven.  And you know that’s going to affect them for the rest of their lives.

JS: FEED bags not only feed children, but they also keep children in school. How does FEED help to promote education?

EG: It’s a tool to get kids into school by using food as an incentive. So while they are there, they get the basic nutrients they need as well as an education, which is really the first step out of poverty. It was actually something that started in America around the time of World War II. The reality is that if you’re going to school hungry, you’re not focusing. You’re not paying attention to what you’re learning. You’re focusing on the fact that you’re hungry. So when you give kids a free school meal, firstly, their parents have an incentive to send them because the parents say, ‘Hey, this kid might have been helpful in the field or helpful in what we’re doing as a family but they’ll get a free meal if they go to school.’ And on top of that, once the kid gets to school, they’ll actually get the nutrients to focus on learning and their studies. It’s a great double benefit.

JS: FEED launched only 3 years ago. How or where did you even start? How were you able to go from an idea to an actual business?

EG: It’s funny–it was obviously a total mistake to launch a company. So Lauren had the original bag idea. She had a bunch of friends in the fashion industry having worked as a model and asked them, ‘How can I make an actual sample of a bag?’ So she got help finding a factory and a designer that could actually put her idea on paper and then she had an actual sample. Originally, we thought the UN would actually sell that bag as a marketing tool. So we had the bag, we had the factory, we had the sample, and then we went to Amazon.com and they agreed to sell it. We went to Marie Claire magazine and they agreed to do the first story about it. So we had all of the pieces lined up but then we realized the UN wasn’t really set up to sell these bags. So we said, ‘You know what? This is such a good idea, let’s just change the name of the purchase order from the World Food Programme to FEED Projects.’ And once we changed the name of the purchase order to this small business, we were kind of already there.

One fun story that we have is that when we first were starting, we made an initial order for the holidays and had just friends and family order some bags. We didn’t realize that when you have products coming into the United States from the factory, they have to go through US Customs. We didn’t know the whole process–we just thought you order something and it comes right in. So we actually rented a minivan and went out to customs and did all of the customs brokerage ourselves because Lauren and I realized that [our bags] were going to sit in customs for weeks if we didn’t do something about it.

JS: Why did you decide to start a for-profit business instead of a nonprofit organization?

EG: We really just needed a company to put on the order from Amazon.com and figure out how to fulfill the order. From a logistics perspective, it takes a lot longer to set up a non-profit because you have to go through the whole process of getting nonprofit status. Also, we’ve since figured out the system a little bit and realized that when your primary goal is to sell as many products as possible, you shouldn’t necessarily be a nonprofit. You should be a charitable company that gives most of its money away. And I think it also puts us in a position where we can sell products and raise a lot more money because we don’t have the regulations to put a certain percentage of money [away] and we can just sell products with the motive to give our profits away. So it’s a weird model. We’ve actually been in conversations with the government about this new hybrid business model. How can we make it more effective for the world? I think we are really at the forefront of this new way of doing business.

JS: At the end of the day, FEED is still a for-profit business. Are you profitable?

EG: We are profitable, meaning we can cover the cost of our small staff.  On the for-profit side, we are four people and we’ve done half a million bags with four people. On the nonprofit side, it’s just the two of us, so there’s only five of us on the whole team. We are happy with that, but other high growth companies would want to expand to twenty people and would want to have a big office–we just have a different profit motive because we give the money away.

Child benefiting from the FEED Foundation holding FEED bag

JS: What are some of the biggest mistakes you made early on when you first launched and what did you learn from them?

Lauren Bush: Like Ellen said, we accidentally started the company because the goal was to sell the FEED 1 bag. At the time, Ellen was working at the UN and I was an honorary spokesperson so our motive was to raise money and awareness for the school feeding programme. So I would say everything was a mistake in a way but it happened in such a great way to get us to where we are today. Literally, I [used to] send China twine [thinking that] they [could] source it there for our hang tags. Just small logistical no brainers that now, as we become more of a well-oiled machine, we’ve learned.

EG: I think something that we’ve learned over the years is that we have often been a product that a store will put in temporarily and use as a marketing program, which is great and we’re grateful for every store that has ever worked with us. But I think we’ve learned that [in order] to run a sustainable business, you need to have market channels that are more consistent. So we are working on developing our website now, kind of playing catch-up and having customers learn that they can come directly to us to buy [our] products. At the end of the day, [this channel] will be more sustainable for us because we can earn a higher margin on product that we sell directly. So it’s better for us to own our own website and that’s not something we realized in the beginning. It’s fun because when you learn these things, you think, ‘Oh, this is a new challenge, how do we figure out the strategy?’

JS: When you are pitching your idea, how did you respond to people who didn’t necessarily believe in what you are doing?

LB: We have definitely encountered a lot of naysayers along the way, but the key in anything you do, is believing enough in what you do to either persuade them or move on and find a different channel. I think that maybe our hopes might have been high in working with certain companies or people [but] if they just don’t get it, then they’re not the right fit. So our motto is to move on pretty quickly and find the next best partner and often that company or person is often a better fit for us anyway. So you can’t let a few people’s opinions sway your belief in what you’re doing.

JS: You have amassed an impressive list of retail partners including Amazon.com, Whole Foods Market, Ralph Lauren, Harrods, Kenneth Cole, Bergdorf Goodman, Barnes & Noble, and Lord & Taylor. How are you able to form these partnerships and why do you think they are interested in working with FEED?

LB: I think companies are obviously looking for ways to do good and maybe they have charities that they support, but what we’re giving them is a more mainstream way to incorporate [charity] into their regular business. Feed offers a way for companies to give back and a way for consumers to give back. Each product has a built in donation and we wholesale it to them as part of their normal business. It’s not just [something] on top of corporate charities or corporate foundations– we are working through their normal stream of business. But I think their motivation is obviously what our motivation is–to do good in a measurable way. It’s more than just a percentage of profits or some vague impact on the world. It’s very tangible and we feel great about that as do our retail partners and our consumers because everyone knows what’s been given and what’s been done.

JS: Do you think you will expand into any other new categories?

LB: Obviously bags are the focus and what people know FEED as but we also have t-shirts that are coming soon that are organic and made in Africa. And we have a few other tricks up our sleeve, but for the time being and the immediate future, bags are the focus.

Lauren Bush (left) and Ellen Gustafson (right) on humanitarian trip

JS: Can you describe the entire process from the production of a FEED bag to how the money raised goes towards feeding children?

LB: So basically, we find a program we want to support and up to this point, it’s mainly been the UN World Food Programme’s School Feeding Program and from that, we develop a product. So I initially designed the FEED 1 bag that was meant to look like the bags of grain being distributed and has a 1 [on it] to signify that it feeds one child for a year.  And the whole idea is exactly that–to give consumers a measurable way to give back. We really want everyone to have a FEED bag so although we do more exclusive partnerships with [high end retailers like] Bergdorf Goodman, we also have [worked with] Lord & Taylor. We are really trying to run the gamut [of retailers] and keep integrity and quality with our products. But then we have the charity [which Erin will elaborate on].

EG: We try to work through organizations that are really scalable. And the WFP is obviously one of the best examples of that. They feed over 100 million people a year in seventy countries. There is a big potential for supporting a mass initiative and it’s nice to do that because then you know that you’re not narrowing in on one country necessarily or one group of people. You are really saying this is a solution that works for every human on the planet. We’ve also worked on trying to get deeper into some of the problems and root causes [of hunger]. We’ve supported a program called Purchase for Progress, which is an agricultural development program that helps farmers in the developing world sell their output as food aid. So you can be a Kenyan farmer and help to feed other Kenyans because the WFP is buying your food and they are distributing it as food aid. Supporting Room to Read was a way to say, ‘Hey, kids need school meals but they also need books at school’. And supporting Millennium Villages is connecting the idea of getting basic nutrients to people, [which] is something that community health workers can do as well. So we really try to look for scalable but also really targeted effective solutions to these problems.

JS: What do both of you do in your roles at FEED? How do you divide your responsibilities?

EG: Well I think when we first started, it was just the two of us for a year and a half so we did everything. But Lauren is definitely the designer and has the eye for the product and comes up with new ideas for the product and I work more on the nonprofit side and run the foundation. It’s impossible to say who does what because the reality is that our products are design products that do good. It’s fun actually having other people [now]  because we have Kristina Fell who we hired to be our Director of Operations and she really helps us keep everything in line and runs all of our finances. And we have Katy Wanserski (Director of Sales and Global Logistics) who runs all of the logistics, she came from UPS. Finally, we hired Nicole Sexton (CEO of the FEED Foundation) to actually run our day to day nonprofit operations. So we’re a really small team, but we obviously get a lot done. It’s all hands on deck.

JS: Lauren, you recently launched your own eco-friendly clothing line, Lauren Pierce.  How does that tie in with what you do at FEED?

LB: Lauren Pierce uses eco-friendly fabrics and artisan made fabrics sourced from around the world. Each fabric has been hand touched, handmade or hand dyed [or both]. I came back so inspired from traveling around the world and seeing women carrying on traditional craft [making] and trying to support their families. Because there is no real market for them to sell their wares in [locally], the motivation for starting Lauren Pierce was to source all these fabrics that are all unique and hand touched and use them to create contemporary designs that my friends would want to buy.

JS: Ellen, you most recently gave a talk about how world hunger and obesity are all related to our problematic food system. Can you tell us about how your new 30 project is working towards changing the global food system over the next 30 years? Why did you decide to take on this challenge now?

EG: When you are working on international issues like international hunger, it seems really different from what we deal with in America because in America what you see more of is [an] obesity [problem]. There is obviously hunger in America–there are 49 million people in America who go hungry–and we are really supportive of the documentary Hungry in America that is raising awareness about [this issue] but we also are trying to say, ‘Look, it’s really frustrating to focus on problems that don’t get solved.’ And at some point, as a humanitarian activist, you say, ‘I want to help solve these problems, I don’t want to just donate to a temporary band aid.’ So what we have been thinking a lot about is, what are the root causes of both hunger and obesity? Why are there a billion people who are hungry and a billion people who are obese? And in doing research, we found that things really started changing a little before and around 1980. I was also born in 1980, so I think in my lifetime, this whole thing has gotten messed up.It’s really about trying to think of creative way to explain to people why hunger and obesity are connected and how we can really look at a long term solution to a new food system. I argue that the food system we have now is not working well. If there are a billion people that are hungry and a billion people that are obese, then the system doesn’t work. And we have to think, how do we change the system? FEED is really committed to tactical interventions that are helping people who are starving today, but we also want to work on strategic interventions that are going to fix the problems of hunger in the long term.

JS: What has been FEED’s greatest achievement?

LB: I am just proud that we made this thing happen. Selling enough bags to donate over $5.5 million dollars is just incredible, especially when you start from a place of just wanting to sell one product for the UN to sell it as a fundraising tool to literally running a social business.

EG: Originally we just thought, ‘This is an awesome idea. We just need to do it.’ But we have actually been at the beginning of a real movement. And when people look at the history of social entrepreneurs, they will see that we were one of the first. We didn’t mean to be–we just did it. We just wanted to sell the bag. But it’s neat now, looking back, to see others that have come behind us that really look at us as some of the first in this new category and that’s cool.

JS: What is the biggest regret or mistake you’ve made?

EG: Because we were so new and there was no system in place for [running the business], we have looked at retail partners and said, ‘Whatever you can do for us is great.’ We sometimes haven’t done a good enough job saying, ‘We really want a longer term partnership with companies. We really want [you] to order products more consistently.’ It’s just more work for us because every time we sell out of a store and have to try to find a new [retail partner] or develop a new product,  it’s work. So we don’t have a business model yet that lets us really think more long term We’re always trying to sell more products but as I said before, we have really learned from some of our past mistakes and now we are being smarter about how to develop retail partnerships that are more long term.

LB: To add to Ellen’s point, we don’t do seasonal bags. We do want to reinvent things and we try to keep things fresh and new so someone will have a reason to purchase a new FEED bag. But just as the causes are not going to expire, we are not going to seasonally expire products. Every product we have made to date, we continue to sell either in our retail stores or online. So I think it’s been a dance in terms of trying to fit into a certain retail model where they expect a new delivery of X-amount of SKUs every X-months. We also try to work with retail partners saying, ‘We are giving away $20 of the $40 wholesale (or whatever the number is), please don’t mark it up.’ We want our products to be as accessible as possible to customers so we can sell as many [bags] as we can. So I think those two factors have not been mistakes by any means but things that have made us different in the way we approach sales and retail. It’s been a challenge.

JS: Based on your experience, what do you think are some of the most important factors that have made your company successful?

EG: When it comes down to it, the FEED bag was a good idea. Lauren saw a need in the world both from a fact that people need to learn about school feeding, and also because the whole ‘raise [money with] a bag’ movement was a good idea. I also think that we happened to ride this ridiculous wave–actually three waves I would say. One is that first, when we launched in April 2007, it was the first year that most major magazines had green issues and we didn’t plan that. That was not part of our consciousness. And of course, FEED being a green product, happened to get into that whole [movement]. The second is that in 2008, we were riding this other wave of all these social entrepreneurs (like TOMS Shoes) doing social entrepreneurship. We were at the front of that wave too. And then, I think over the last three years, we have been at the front of the whole food movement wave too. Part of it is has been luck, but part of it is just being on trend with things–not trend meaning the right necklace but trend meaning that these are three really big movements that are happening–and we just happened to be doing the same stuff as these three movements.

JS: There has been a huge surge in social entrepreneurship by highly motivated people who want to make a difference and are creating social change in a way that they can’t be empowered by other institutions. Do you think social entrepreneurism is a temporary fad or a fundamental shift, changing the way we run businesses today?

EG: I think it’s totally a shift and I think we know, even from people we are meeting in the government, it’s something that people are noticing. Lauren was really inspired by Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Peace Prize recipient and founding member of Grameen Bank) who wrote a book called Building Social Business where you can have a business that’s not necessarily just for a profit motive. It’s about the fact that we don’t have structures in place to make it easy for people like us. But I don’t think it’s a fad. I think young people want to do this and customers demand it now. For example, we get more questions about our products than any random t-shirt or bag maker in the world. I hope that’s not a trend. I hope that’s something that people continue to do with everything they buy. Conscious consumers will help to make the world a better place.

JS: What are the biggest near term challenges for FEED?

LB: I would say the challenge has been evolving and keeping things new and interesting while staying true to our brand and what we believe in and what we want to support, which is any brand’s challenge. And finding partnerships that really get it and want to be supportive in the right ways and for the right reasons.

JS: Where do you envision FEED 5 to 10 years from now?

LB: The goal is for everyone to have a FEED bag and be able to participate in the food system change or hunger cause through our products. We are not going to solve hunger per se, but there’s no limit to how many bags we need to sell to keep making an impact.

Feed Projects display in Milwaukee's Whole Foods Market

JS: What is the greatest lesson you’ve learned from your experience at FEED?

LB: I think the greatest lesson I’ve learned is that if you have a simple clear idea, and a simple clear message and a great team, you can accomplish what you want to accomplish. And seeing [your idea] come to fruition and continue to come to fruition in great ways has been [so rewarding]. It’s just about putting the right puzzle pieces together and continuing to do so.

EG: We’ve had really amazing experiences just getting to know people around the world. I’ve lived in New York for a long time and [consider myself to be] a liberally minded person, meaning I [have always] thought that everyone was equal. But when you do this kind of work, you really are faced with whether you really believe that all children are equal.  And when you see a kid starving in a dingy slum in Nairobi, is that child really equal to the children that my friends have?  And I think we both have been faced with that. I’ve come away with all the traveling and experiences being like, whoa, every human being really is so similar and so equal and if we don’t reach out into the world and help our fellow man, it’s a big loss for us.

JS: What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever given or received?

EG: I think we both run on the motto that no is not really no. That’s literally how we have done everything. And I think if you’re a person that just accepts no, then there’s not much you can really do. We’ve had people tell us no so many different times, and we come back to our apartments and think about a way to get around that. But we definitely both run on that motto.

JS: Who are your heroes in real life? Which living person do you most admire?

LB: Well, Muhammad Yunus is so great in his promotion of social businesses. The whole business mentality of ‘we have to grow X-amount each year and make X-amount of money.’ Yes, we all need to live and we should not condemn ourselves to a life of poverty just because we want to do good, but at the same time, why not be more innovative in the way we do business and not be as greedy and do it for better social purpose? I love his way of articulating that and spreading [this message] around the world.

EG: I think the reality of it is that most people can be pretty heroic. I mean for us, we both freak out every time we see someone carrying our bag. To me, that’s like, wait, that person doesn’t even know us at all. This total random person went out of their way to buy that product because they actually care about feeding people around the world. And to be honest, that’s how I think the real work gets done.

–Jennifer Sung

Email Jennifer Sung here with your thoughts about this interview and be sure to follow her on Twitter @Changingtide