Help Support A Sustainable Amazon Owned By Nature

An Ambitious Plan To Create The Most Inclusive And Sustainable Global Store.

My father is a successful entrepreneur and humanitarian. I learned from him that anyone could positively impact the world with enough effort and some smarts. As I grew up, my father regularly talked about going back to India to do something to help the poor. So from a young age, poverty captured my attention. It didn't make sense to me that we lived in a beautiful house, with all the comforts one could need, while I'd see families in NYC, India, Latin America, and various places I had visited, living on the street and hardly able to feed themselves.

While social issues continued to capture my attention, as I got older, my passion for the environment grew as well. As Climate Change, the plastic epidemic, decreasing biodiversity, and various ecological issues developed into more apparent problems, it became harder and harder for me not to help somehow. My entrepreneurial mind, combined with my love for both the planet and all life, pushed me to look for ways to solve these problems. Unfortunately, always leading to dead ends.

Then back in June 2020, the initial ingredients of an idea came to me that could address both of these issues directly. I thought, what if we created an online marketplace that only sold sustainably made products and immediately distributed most of its profits to the company's key stakeholders (ie. workers, customers, etc).

This type of business would have the double benefit of helping to create a more sustainable society, but it would also be far more financially equitable to all parties involved.

Our Plan

I want to introduce myself quickly. My name is Vivek George. Alongside my two super talented, hard-working co-founders, Erika Leguel and Urszula Niemczewska, we have created a multi-stakeholder cooperative (co-op) business called, Yuti.

If you are wondering what a co-op or multi-stakeholder cooperative is, put simply, it's a type of business owned and run by its members (workers, customers, etc, not outside investors), and who share the company’s profits.

We can organize in various ways as a multi-stakeholder cooperative, but as the name indicates, we are a business that's owned and run by multiple "stakeholders." These stakeholders can be the workers of the company, customers, vendors, Nature (as being designed in our situation), and/or other groups as needed. Yes, Nature will help to determine how we are run (via environmental non-profits) and share in our profits!

While slightly complex, especially to start, once established, being a cooperative can be extremely powerful and is a key ingredient to our mission for three fundamental reasons:

If you haven't read our blog post detailing our entire vision and plan, I recommend checking it out.

So What's Next?

This is our flag in the ground. This is our call to action. CO-OPs, unlike traditional businesses, are truly community projects. We are a democratically run and a member-owned business. Because of this, we can't be owned by big investors and can't rely on traditional equity investments. We need people like you who believe in our work and want to see it come to life to back us financially.

This means if a community wants us to exist, we will exist. If not, we will either not be able to operate or remain a small organization.

That's where this GoFundMe campaign comes in. We are seeking seed capital to get off the ground. In the future, we'll need to organize a more significant community fundraising effort via one of those traditional startup crowdfunding sites. For now, this $25K goal will help us cover some basic expenses and investments in the business that are needed - tech tools for the site, co-op legal requirements, branding/marketing, various operating expenses, community outreach, and more.

Perhaps more importantly, it sends a powerful, positive message to the world (consumers, product makers, the media, foundations, etc) that what we are building is wanted, needed, and important. This broad awareness and curiosity will help us develop a more thoughtful platform, gain diverse support, and successfully launch.

If what we detailed above sounds exciting, please consider donating however much you can. No amount is too small or large. So many people out there want to develop a more sustainable future, and together we can create the change we know is possible.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

Final Thoughts

Thank you for being so interested in Yuti. It means a great deal to all of us on the team.

We don't need to be helpless in the face of environmental and social issues. Cooperatives have a long tradition of being a powerful force in combating various social and community problems. We hope you'll accompany us to create a new type of marketplace. One that takes a whole system approach to building a healthier planet and more resilient communities!

Thank you :)

 

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And if you are interested in helping in other ways, please check out our help page.