If you see me at the grocery store, you will more often see me talking to myself rather than shopping for salad dressing. "Ok, I need this and what about this and, oh that's right, don't forget, you can't forget this time..." ..you know… Add to the tornado of thoughts the addition of something I don't normally shop for: salad dressing. I can never make salad like I order in the restaurant, so I just don't do it. But, for some reason on this day I was looking for Italian dressing and had no clue was was "good" dressing. Being the overly analytical shopper that I am, I started looking at labels, carbs, blah, blah, blah and noticed that Newman's Own donated their profits to charity. So I threw it in my cart, and figured that if anyone complained I could chalk it up to the greater giving good and that would shut them up! I continued to talk to myself, but then realized that I was also skipping with a huge smile while pushing my cart. SO not a good combo while talking to yourself at the grocery store. Noticing that there could be a potential issue with the local police pepartment, I stopped to re-group.
Why the skipping? I'm much more of a tomboy than a skipper! How cool that I could buy something and it gave back. Pick A and they keep all the profits and pick B and WOW, look, I may have saved a whole country…..start skipping!!!! Ok, so I must admit that following my euphoria of my dressing purchase I got a bit pissed that there weren't more ways I could give back. Probably not a great word to use if you're starting a new company, which I didn't know I was. I wondered why I couldn't do this everywhere I shopped? That's just WRONG!
So like a bullhorn over the loud speaker in the store, I hear my dad saying at my frustrastion "you don't have the right to bitch about it if you're not willing to do something to change it." And again, he was right!
And so it goes after years and lawyers, and tigers and bears, with every real estate transaction in the US and Canada, 10% can to your favorite nonprofit!
So back to Dad's voice in my head, "put up, or shut-up." I've never been so good at the shut-up, so now we have Brokers for Charity.
