A Day with an Effective Pro-Social Business

By Ashley Coale

Last week was the TOMS shoe company “One Day Without Shoes” – a day to raise awareness for TOMS’s mission of providing shoes to children who need them. I had the opportunity to be privy to the experience of two colleagues who were taking part and going shoeless.

The bare feet sparked an interesting discussion about the impact and success of the TOMS business model. TOMS’s do-good efforts are decidedly non-systemic, meaning they focus on the number of shoes donated over big, system-disrupting changes like health care infrastructure or education policy. And for the most part there is a significant lack of hard data on the business model’s impact. So how do we judge TOMS’s success?

To read more on the impact of pro-social businesses and TOMS shoes, visit the CSRHub blog >>