Get “Good Karma” From GIVN Bottled Water
GIVN’s idea is simple: buy a bottle of GIVN Water, and the company will donate enough money to provide a day’s worth of clean drinking water to a person in need.
“We kept seeing that the everyday consumer, almost everybody, wishes they could do more good,” says Liz Skalla, co-founder of GIVN. “We’re making it easier for people to do good and get good karma in return for making a very simple change in choice.”
GIVN is a parent company, and bottled water is their first product. Co-founder John Houseal decided to start with water because it’s a product that people already purchase often.
“1 in 8 people on the planet lack access to clean water, while in America, the average consumer drinks over 200 bottles of water a year,” says Houseal. “It is a massive untapped potential for good.”
The company’s smart concept caught the attention of SOSV’s food accelerator, FOOD-X, and GIVN is now participating in the program.
Joe Foxton, Interim Program Director at FOOD-X, believes GIVN is making a positive impact: “There is so much untapped generosity of spirit out there, with so few convenient opportunities to do some good in our busy day-to-day lives,” he says. “GIVN works giving into our daily routine, at compatible price to any other premium water, with a biodegradable bottle.”
How GIVN Gives
With so many charities and nonprofits out there, people don’t always know which ones to give money to, or where their money is going. GIVN does that work for you. They’ve partnered with organizations like Water Is Basic (South Sudan) and Water.org (Global) to make the giving possible.
“100% of GIVN’s donation goes towards getting a person an entire day of clean drinking water,” says Skalla. “We wanted to make sure there was never any question of ethics in our give back program, so we actually have a third party auditor.”
GIVN calculates the amount of money needed to supply a day’s worth of water to someone in need, and the auditor ensures GIVN is funding the number of days they should be funding based on sales. To date, GIVN has funded over 150,000 days of clean water.
Growing GIVN
GIVN’s headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois. After beginning to sell water on Amazon.com, the next logical step was seeing if people would buy offline.
“We started calling a number of retailers, and in about 4 months have about 30 retailers carrying and selling GIVN water,” says Skalla. One of GIVN’s largest customers today is Snap Kitchen, and they’ve been in talks with larger retailers.
“The business is still very young, and it’s a really fun stage,” says Skalla. “Talking to the mentors from FOOD-X, and having Shen Tong and Joe Foxton guide us on investor material development is invaluable. The program is adding a ton of value and helping us turn our idea into a structured business,” says Skalla.
GIVN is on track to graduate from SOSV’s food business accelerator FOOD-X and pitch their idea to more investors and consumers in December.
Originally published at sosv.com on October 29, 2015.
