peaceBOMB Jewelry - Bomb Shards Gone Good

peaceBOMB's silver bomb shard necklace, $400. 1 Necklace : 30 meters of bomb littered land

Oh, you know, that's just a Secret War bomb shard made into a necklace. This is as real as fashion can get. peaceBOMB's line of jewelry is all hand-cast from bomb shards discovered in Laos, then cast in sterling silver in NYC. The idea stemmed from a group of ten families who learned to reshape scrap metal into spoons to supplement their farming incomes. These families now also collaborate on peaceBOMB jewelry with Article 22 and the nonprofit RISE Project.

Peace Ribbon Bangle, $298 - 12 meters of land

For each piece of jewelry purchased, the socially conscious business Article 22 also makes a set donation equivalent to clearing a set amount of land in Laos of undetonated bombs and bomb materials (which is why the meters of land are listed). Because during the Secret War, between 1964 and 1973, 30 percent of the bombs did not detonate, and remain cast about the country, along with littered shards.

Tribal Spear Necklace, $190 - 16 meters of land

Tag Wrap Bracelet, $46 (interchangeable, differently colored wraps are also available for $12) - 6 meters

See the rest of the rest of the jewelry options or learn more about the peaceBOMB mission. It has a pretty impactful, visual website -- another study in how mission and design meeting for good and good looks.

Thoughts on Good - Lookin' and Sellin' Great

In the last couple of days I've stumbled on a few good commentaries that back how I felt when I worked for a nonprofit (and still feel) -- that the communication, design and branding of everything from community based organizations to large nonprofits are really important. Here the commentaries are:

• Do CBOs Have an Image Problem? from blog How Matters
• Why Good Cause Needs Great Design from Stanford Social Innovation Review

CBOs, to me, are similar to small, socially conscious businesses -- they have something they're passionate about and know how to do something or address something the best (way better than large organizations in faraway locations). However, they aren't sure how to communicate this to a greater audience that doesn't necessarily have the same "know" but does have other more skilled-at-convincing options.

If I had gone a different route than being an English major who viewed technological skills as secondary, there is a program I've stumbled upon that I would absolutely love to take part in ... so if you're a killer designer already and wanna help out (and be in the very first class ever!) check it out: MFA Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts.

I've been meaning to post about how TOMS Shoes is incredibly successful at this, but haven't gotten around to it ... yet another "blog coming your way soon!" This picture, which illustrates it well, came from Fashion at Liberty's Tumblr:

Thoughts? Any small businesses or nonprofits that you think kick ass at this that I should know (and/or post) about?

Happy Monday, all!

Hulu Hosts Nonprofit Ads During NVW

National Volunteer Week ended April 25, but while it was going on, I noticed that every commercial during an episode of House (guilty pleasure) was for a nonprofit. Here are a couple of such (similar) ads:

This PSA (Public Service Announcement) for the NYC Food Bank was produced by award-winning director Stefan Forbes and features celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Alec Baldwin, and the actress from Crossing Jordan. Not a fan of the opening music, but the silence later makes up for it.

OK, this one isn't exact. The video I saw on Hulu for Charity : Water was comprised of parts of the organization's September 2010 campaign to bring water to the Bakaya people in the Central African Republic, as seen here. To me, Charity : Water is on the forefront of using multimedia and social media for fundraising and spreading the word. You can watch more of its videos here.

I like that Charity : Water's campaign deviates from the more traditional "what celebrities think" PSA which, while perhaps effective, can also be alienating. Bonus good news is that Hulu offers ad revenue for PSAs (in March, they posted a blog about what they would be doing to help after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan).