VISION

OVERVIEW |

Movement121 is a social innovation company whose vision is to transform the lives of 1,000,000 people trapped in unfathomable poverty to become self-sustaining. The company mission is to activate a movement to grow legacy-changing businesses in the poorest regions of the world through the purchase of CAUSEGEAR® and CAUSEWEAR™. Powered by fair trade, micro-investment and one to one® relationships, consumers become world-changers, and the poorest of the poor become self-sustaining.

THE BACKSTORY |

Often, we see pictures or hear various statistics that boggle the mind but harden the heart. We live in a world where more than 1 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day. So many tens of thousands of kids die every day because they don’t have enough food or clean water. What are we supposed to do with that?

After a while, these statistics and pictures start having the opposite effect of what they’re meant for. We’ve been there — it’s easy to think about these problems as too big or someone else’s problem or too far away. Or maybe those stats and images make us feel powerless to change anything and even guilty for our own fortunate circumstances. Usually, it leads us to put up a wall that prevents us from caring or thinking about the reality of this moment – we have enough stuff to deal with in our own lives, right?

But then we saw these “statistics” face to face in Africa, Haiti, and Asia. We knew their name. We got to see their life. We could feel a parent’s anguish when their kids were sick. We were flabbergasted at how hard they worked in return for so little. We felt how deeply joyful they were just from being around their family, yet we saw hope drain out of even the smallest of children. We were inspired by how much strength they garnered from having one another, and how beautifully they relied on one another.

We went from feeling guilty and complacent about our own circumstances to seeing our background, skills, and resources as blessings we are called to share for the benefit of others – as creatively and sustainably as possible. We are so grateful and humbled for the gift we’ve been given, and Movement121™ is our passion to do our part.

CORE VALUES |

So, how can we best help? What does “best” look like? This is shaped by some of our core beliefs.

We believe that too many of today’s efforts are trafficking the “feel good” emotion of American consumers, instead of going for “real good.”

We believe that hand-outs, outside of emergency relief, hurt, in the long run. We believe that the marginalized many and the fortunate few need each other to experience the greatest significance in life. We believe that the world is not fair for many of the marginalized – that the cards are brutally and systematically stacked against them. We believe that business is one of the most powerful forces on the face of the planet, and if harnessed correctly, can provide impact in a freakishly sustainable way. We believe that too many of today’s efforts are trafficking the “feel good” emotion of American consumers, instead of going for “real good.”

VISION & MISSION |

With these values in mind, our vision at Movement 121 is:

To transform the lives of 1,000,000 people trapped in unfathomable poverty to become self-sustaining.

We believe the best way to do that is our mission:

To activate a movement to grow legacy-changing businesses in the poorest regions of the world through the purchase of CAUSEGEAR® and CAUSEWEAR™. Powered by fair trade, micro-investment and one-to-one™ relationships, consumers become world-changers, and the poorest of the poor become self-sustaining.

We also unpack our vision and mission more on the blog.

For us, this is a movement about one-to-one relationships. Between you and me. Between you and the individuals making our CAUSEWEAR and CAUSEGEAR. And between our loved ones and us. This movement raises and falls on the quality of these relationships – a movement One to One™.