FabFitFun, a U.S.-based seasonal lifestyle subscription box full of goodies from skincare to fashion and home items — also available to Canadians — partners with a charity each season. That does not include charities often associated with some of the products available in the box.
Previous partners include Wildlife Conservation Society, Girl Rising, American Heart Association, UNICEF, Joyful Heart Foundation, More Than Me, The Starlight Foundation, Pencils of Promise, The Purple Purse Foundation and Tribe Alive.
The Winter 2017 box — valued at USD $200 at a cost of $49.99 — not only includes full-size products such as Anderson Lilley’s beach butter body cream and D.L. & Co’s Bergamot Woods candle, but a custom-created Starlight Children's Foundation pin to raise awareness for the 30 million children in the U.S. who suffer each year from critical, chronic or terminal illness. To help raise awareness, FabFitFun also asks its 200,000 subscribers to take photo of the pin and share a holiday wish, using #wishonastar #fabfitfun.
The latest inititative from Starlight, which was founded in 1982 by filmmaker Peter Samuelson and his cousin, actress Emma Samms, are its brave gowns, brightly coloured hospital gowns that “replace unattractive, uncomfortable and embarrassing hospital garments,” according to the Starlight web site, and are available for kids, ages 2 to 12, for $25 (USD).
Samaritanmag spoke with FabFitFun co-founder Katie Ann Rosen Kitchens about the charitable side of the business.
Was the charity component part of FabFitFun from the start?
It's always been a part of the way that we curate the box. Even before we had an official nonprofit partner with each season, we were really motivated to find products that gave back in some way.
So, we worked with brands like The Giving Keys, who are an amazing company based in Los Angeles. They take old keys and put brand-inspiring words on the actual key, like “love” or “hope.” The idea is that you wear the key until you find someone that needs the message more than you do and pass it along. But, what's really amazing is that she employs homeless men and women downtown to create the product. It was a story that really resonated with us, and that was the start to this idea of being able to have a box that also gives back.
Second to that, we worked with a brand called Tribe Alive, who's another amazing partner. We decided to do a trio of bracelets, and we were able to support an entire village in Honduras for a full season of work to create the bracelet that went into our boxes. And they work with fair trade wages. And, after the campaign wrapped, we got this amazing letter from Tribe Alive explaining how we had changed these women's lives. And we were lucky enough to send some of our editorial team over to Honduras to talk to these women and talk about different ways that we in the United States can really make some impact in their everyday living. That was the beginning. From those two in-box partners, we decided that it could be really interesting to incorporate a particular charity each season.
And so, we launched that initiative in fall 2015 with the Purple Purse, which is a charity that focuses on raising awareness around domestic violence. [Actress] Kerry Washington is the face of the charity. What was really special was the Purple Purse was able to include this very chic little purse charm in the box and what’s nice is it's definitely a conversation starter. When people see the piece on your purse, they tend to ask, “What is that?” The idea is that it starts an open dialogue around domestic abuse. And we did some editorial on the site to go along with the campaign around the idea that domestic violence can affect anyone. It's not a particular race or age or income. In fact, I think the statistic is one in four women would be faced with some sort of violence within their home, and we wanted to help spread a better understanding of what that looks like. We found that that partnership resonated with our members. The social rally around those Purple Purse charms was pretty incredible. People photographed them individually and talked about different women that inspired them and that inspired us to go ahead and find a different nonprofit each season.
You did something similar with the social media campaign with the Starlight Children's Foundation with the little star pin that you had in the winter box. How did that go?
Exactly. The Starlight Foundation is near and dear to my heart. I have two young daughters. They're one and three. This idea of being scared and alone in a hospital is something that brought me to tears. And what we learned about the brave gowns, you don't want to be in an itchy, uncomfortable sad gown. It's just a little cheer that they're able to bring. They're superhero themes and pretty cute. When we were on the phone, first discussing the initiative, I was already in tears. Granted, I just had my second baby, so I was a little hormonal, but I was immediately drawn into their message, just making sick children happy, and, again, that was a message that really resonated with our audience. The majority of women on our list are moms. So they wanted to show off the pin; they were excited to wear it. It was actually a product that FabFitFun created and developed ourselves and put in as a way to raise awareness around the amazing work The Starlight Foundation is doing.
Do you gauge the success of something like that from social media?
It’s a combination. What we are as a platform is a marketing opportunity. So, for our typical partners that go in the box, the idea is that we can help them raise a hundred million impressions by partnering with us in a box and that’s through social media, influencer marketing and editorial that we create on the sites, articles, videos et cetera. And we do the same thing for our non-profit partners. We work to create original video with all of our non-profits, that then gets promoted to various channels. On top of that, we also have what we call our add-on program. For members, it’s a month-long flash sale that allows us then to customize their box experience. And in that platform, we have passed through donations, similar to the supermarket model; people can add a dollar or five dollars to their add-on purchases, which gets directly funneled back to the non-profit.
Do people do that? Like at the supermarket check-out, it’s hard to say no when they ask.
You always feel bad not doing, right? It is just a dollar. You bought all these stuff for yourself. It’s really been resonating with our members so we are excited to be able to help raise money for our partners.
We also feature them [the charities] at our quarterly events. So, for our winter party, we did a big ‘90’s themed holiday formal. One of the asks was to bring an unwrapped toy that would then go to the Starlight Foundation and it was several thousands of dollars’ worth of toys, which was an extra bonus. We want to make it as comprehensive and inclusive as possible for our non-profit partners. So whether it’s many donations or awareness for media, we want to give it all to them.
You have business partners in FabFitFun. Are you all on the same page with the charities you support? One person might be into animal rights while another might have a relative with Alzheimer’s.
A hundred percent. We try to balance it as much as we can because we know that that’s the case. Everybody is competing for their own belief and it’s a wonderful opportunity, even from an internal team perspective to shed light on this amazing non-profit. We’ve also worked with ASPCA [American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals], which is very near and dear to members’ hearts. We ask them to post a picture of their favorite animal and FabFitFun donated a dollar for every picture posted.
The boxes are so well curated. Some of the products also have a charitable aspect. In the winter box, the Marie Mae notecards said that the purchase of this product helps support artisans around the world. Is that important when selecting each product that the company gives back in some way?
A hundred percent. Creating the best box possible is our number goal and part of that is the story behind these companies. So, partnering with these brands who have these give-back components is important for us. Whether they are the Giving Keys or whether they are an amazing nonprofit, these people are doing better things than we are. We feel very lucky to be able to work with these amazing brands and support them in any way we can, whether it's buying their products to go in for a box or being able to showcase who they are through, our different media components. We look at a variety of different things, certainly female-founded brands we also try and support because we know how hard it can be. It's just different pieces to making the most interesting box possible.