Buy1Give1 - Seven-Year-Old Feeds Hungry Children In India

Seven-Year-Old Feeds Hungry Children In India

Last week in Brisbane, a little Australian girl experienced a new way of giving firsthand. She discovered that by buying a simple bag of muesli, she would feed a child in need. This new way of giving, which is a world-first, is called Buy1GIVE1Free™ - Buy One Give One Free.

Sometimes children just see the obvious and take action. Maple Muesli - a top-selling hand-made Muesli manufacturer in Brisbane Australia recently partnered with Midday Meals in Mumbai India, through Buy1GIVE1Free - a new global web based social enterprise service that is allowing businesses to give to charities of their choice and market their giving effectively. Midday Meals is a charity that feeds over 125,000 children EACH day. Now every bag of muesli sold feeds a child. Magic. And Maple Muesli only has to contribute $30c US per sale out of its marketing budget which they are so happy to do. This is just one of the incredible values of Buy1GIVE1Free.

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release

(Singapore) 10 March 2008 – Last week in Brisbane, a little Australian girl experienced a new way of giving firsthand. The seven-year-old, with a big bag of muesli in her tiny arms, walked over to the cashier with her mother. Upon scanning the bag, the cashier mentioned that with every purchase of Maple Muesli, a hungry child would be fed. The girl tugged at her mother’s blouse and asked, “Mummy, can we buy another bag of muesli so we can feed another child!”

This new way of giving is called Buy1GIVE1Free, (Buy One Give One Free) becoming known as B1G1 – a new global service that partners any business with a worthy cause on a ‘buy-1-give-1-free’ basis. Every time a person buys a B1G1 Business Partner’s product or service, a portion of the profit is given to cover the costs of a related product or service a B1G1 Worthy Cause Partner is offering.
In the previous example, Maple Muesli in Australia partnered with Midday Meals in Mumbai, India. Midday Meals is a charity that feeds a staggering 125,000 Mumbai children every day for just US 30 cents per meal. And most significantly, the meals are provided in schools so that the under-privileged children have to get an education to get the meal. Already, the program has boosted school enrolments by over 60 per cent.

Imagine the global impact that Buy1-Give1 has when applied to thousands of everyday consumer products around the globe. Just imagine for example filling up your car and a tree being planted automatically. Or buying a large screen TV and giving a cataract blind person the gift of sight. Imagine having a meal at a restaurant and finding out you have just fed a child. Automatically.

The founders of Buy1GIVE1Free are Masami Sato (from Japan), Paul Dunn and David Anttony (who both originate from Australia). They launched B1G1 in Australia in mid 2007. Since September last year, they moved their global headquarters to Singapore.

Masami Sato says, “We are flipping Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on its head - from Corporate Social Responsibility to Customer Social Response-ability – the ability to powerfully and positively involve existing and potential customers directly in the giving process. When businesses get that, it turns CSR into Supercharged CSR!”
People can participate in the B1G1 mission via three platforms: B1G1 PERSONAL, B1G1 Business and B1G1 Worthy Cause.

Through B1G1 PERSONAL, individual givers can make contributions online in some or all of five areas - the Environment, Education, Food, Shelter and Health. People can also make the choice to support and shop at B1G1 Businesses.

Worthy Causes (non-governmental organisations or NGOs, charities and non-profit organisations) can sign up with Buy1GIVE1Free to partner top companies around the world. By getting a steady flow of funds, Worthy Causes can focus on their core purpose of existence – serving communities or the environment. Studies show that the average costs of fundraising in the UK and Australia# are 18% or 22% respectively. This figure does not even include huge administrative costs. B1G1 cuts these massive fundraising and administrative costs down to zero. Every dollar received goes to the worthy cause.

Buy1GIVE1Free is a global profit-focused Social Enterprise. As well as providing a social service: they also donate at least 10% of its profits to worthy causes. Furthermore, for every full paying business member, B1G1 gifts a free membership (normally costing US$200) to a Worthy Cause.

Business leaders are looking for opportunities to give back in effective yet simple ways. They are seeing the tremendous value B1G1 offers them from a marketing perspective. With powerful ‘impact-matching’, businesses are gifted with attention-grabbing marketing stories. Compare a business that gives away a million dollars to charity with one like Maple Muesli, that lets their customers experience the joy of giving with Buy1Give1Free™.

The B1G1 movement is growing every day. The website (www.B1G1.com) is now live and people can sign up, discover more and make contributions online. The Buy1GIVE1Free global network stretches to places like Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Australia, Malaysia, UK, India, the Philippines, Africa and Nepal and is now starting to gain momentum in countries around the world.