• Español

This case is interesting though difficult to analyse. The story starts in 2006 when American Blake Mycoskie (who was 30 then) visited Argentina to learn play polo with an argentine friend. During his stay, he visited the Northern region of the country where he saw many destitute children, barefoot and with injured feet. He met some local social workers who were giving out slippers and it was then when he started considering a sustainable way to distribute footware among children. It was in this same trip that he saw for the first time the typical argentine rope-soled canvas slippers, called alpargatas.

So Mycoskie decided to found “TOMs shoes”, a company that sells alpargatas of different models, priced from 40 to 70 dollars. For every pair sold, the company gives out an identical pair to a destitute argentine and african child.

He started a company and not an NGO to make the project sustainable. As he himself explained it in an interview with Bill Clinton at one of his events: “ I decided to start a company because it was a sustainable way to keep on giving footwear to children. If we had been an NGO, we would now depend on donations, and maybe someone who made a donation the first year, would have turned to another cause the second year, hurricane Katrina, for instance”. He also explains why they don’t spend money on advertising or marketing, and that is how they can afford an extra pair for each child, and still make a profit. Mycoskie considers that each buyer becomes both a philantropist and a donor for his cause and, therefore, he promotes his products under the motto: help us change the world. He thinks that footwear makes a dramatic difference in these children’s lives. Until today, TOM’s Shoes has given out 140,000 pairs to children in different parts of the world. These shoes are basically improved alpargatas. In his native country, Blake Mycoskie is considered by many an examplary social enterpreneur, who conceived an innovative bright idea: For every pair you buy, we can give an identical one to a disadvantaged child.

Now, let’s ask ourselves some questions: Giving destitute children a pair of shoes is enough to change their condition in the long term? Is there a follow-up of every assisted child? What happens when their feet grow bigger? Where are their products made? Under what conditions and costs? Is the real idea behind the project to assist children with footwear or is this actually used as a mere selling point?

As you browse through the Press section in the company’s web page, the great focus put on the initiative by the media becomes plain clear: Rolling Stones Magazine, New York Times, People, Vogue, MensHealth and Elle are part of a long really impressive list.  We can also appreciate some very well-produced videos, the use of social nets, and a careful artwork and design, which is undoubtedly the result of hard work.

How can all this be achieved without a budget for advertising and marketing? The question wouldn’t be relevant for a common for-profit company. But in this case, the choice of creating a company instead of an NGO was only to make the project sustainable, not to generate profit. This said, the question is relevant here.

In terms of its value as an approach to social change, I think that the impact of a pair of alpargatas for children with dozens of unfullfilled basic needs is questionable. That is why if Mycoskie had created an NGO in pursuit of that single aim, he wouldn’t have obtained too much support, logically. Having a company, he is – in a way- freed from the burden to give explanations about his activities to local communities. Besides, he doesn’t have to become deeply involved in strictly social subjects or weigh whether his activity has or doesn’t have a social impact.

Beyond these considerations, I think there is an initial flaw in his analysis: his idea that an NGO can’t be sustainable because “it relies on donations & sponsors”. I consider this is a serious misconception; many NGOs have proved sustainable and have endured even in times of economic crisis. This was possible – and definitely still is- thanks to proper planning and well thought-out strategies. The donors or sponsors also become valuable assets of these organizations since they are more committed to the goals they support and will demand from organizations to improve and search for excellence in the development, deployment and achivement of their programs. This is not the case of consumers of TOM’s Shoes, who may feel a philanthrophic drive to buy a pair of shoes, but do not question or familiarize with the cause they intend to support. To my mind, quite a strange way of changing the world.

Giving away 140,000 pairs of shoes means the same number of sold pairs (one sold, one given out). An average price of 50 dollars per pair amounts to 7 million dollars in 3 years. This a figure that many NGO working with hundred of children and communities carrying out dozens of programs have never dreamt of. Shouldn’t funds raised be analysed according to NGO standards, taking into account their percentual efficiency, the impact of the programs on the community, transparency, etc?

One of the videos available at the company’s web page is quite enlightening as regards certain doubts when it shows the launch of a partnership with ELEMENT, a company that makes skateboards. Thanks to this partnership, ELEMENT will give out a free skateboard to a child in Durban, South Africa, for each skateboard sold, “to provide shelter from the dangerous streets where they live”. Yes, you’ve read correctly, to children in need in South Africa, skateboards…

So, I pose the question and it is up to each of you to answer it: Is this questionable initiative of doubtful impact a sincere social enterprise or are other people’s needs simply being used as a selling point?