About

Our Mission and Vision: A Million Points of Light

Prosperity Candle celebrates women as a global force for peace and prosperity.

We invest in enterprising women living in distressed areas of the world who are excited to start their own businesses producing distinctive candles for local and international markets. We focus on places that are torn by conflict and social unrest, devastated by natural disaster, and trapped in never-ending poverty. Places like Afghanistan, Haiti and Rwanda. Currently we are working in Iraq where our pilot project is well under way. Read more …

We believe that when a woman is offered the opportunity to develop her entrepreneurial skills and create a thriving enterprise, she feels empowered and self confident, knowing that through her resourcefulness she can support her family with dignity and realize her dreams for a better future.

Our mission is to partner with thousands of women who are rebuilding their lives with determination, by providing them with the opportunity, tools and resources to start a successful business. Through our simple model of Shared Prosperity in which every entrepreneur can receive profit-sharing, each woman has the opportunity to earn well above a living wage, build her own enterprise, and provide employment and leadership in her community.

Our vision is bold – we imagine a world lit by millions of points of candlelight, each reflecting the resilience and courage of women who have survived inconceivable hardship and seek to create a better future.

To hear the women’s stories in their own words, visit Voices and our YouTube page.

Why Do We Do What We Do?

Why women? . Women are the key to global peace and prosperity.

Prosperity Candle partners with women entrepreneurs because we deeply believe that investing in women as business leaders creates the foundation for a peaceful and prosperous society. This is especially true in places where women are left to single-handedly rebuild their lives and support families in the shadows of conflict and the aftermath of disaster.

Women-owned enterprises have a central role to play in the world as an untapped source of employment, economic growth, and social stability. When a woman thrives, an entire community thrives.

Why candles? . Candles are the ideal product and enterprise.

To support thousands of entrepreneurs in places of distress, we need the right product and enterprise for a woman working from the safety of her home – an important consideration where there is conflict and unrest. The product should appeal to consumers around the world, and making it must offer a woman the opportunity to grow a successful business. Our focus is on how women can earn more than a living wage, and provide employment for others.

Candle-making is a highly scalable craft that requires incremental investments in low-cost equipment. It is a business that can begin in the safety of a home, then easily be expanded to employ dozens of people. Candles enjoy large local and international markets, are wonderful gifts, and play a central role in countless traditions and gatherings throughout the world. They are also a universal symbol of peace, reflection and hope.

Why places of conflict and natural disaster? . This is our passion and purpose.

Prosperity Candle goes where we are needed most, where few others are able or willing to invest. We go where international assistance is providing relief, but global business perceives undue risk. We focus our efforts on those difficult places where our unique approach to supporting women entrepreneurs can best succeed in helping them to rebuild their lives – and thrive.

Why shared prosperity? . We want to maximize social benefit.

We have created a simple yet innovative model we call shared prosperity that prioritizes social benefit by sharing success. Taking fair trade a step further, we view a living wage as the starting point for a woman in a place of distress to develop into a successful entrepreneur. Our idea is to think beyond survival and meeting basic needs, and instead help women to build thriving businesses that can offer employment for others in their communities.

With this goal in mind, we share Prosperity Candle’s profits with every woman who makes high quality candles for us – not at the end of the year as a charitable donation, but every quarter as a valued partner in this social venture.

Our Company

This company was created to serve one purpose: empower women entrepreneurs in places of conflict and natural disaster to build successful businesses… to not only survive, but truly thrive. It a bold vision with many challenges. But having proven our model in one of the most difficult places to work – Iraq – we are now expanding there and looking to the future in places like Afghanistan, Haiti and Rwanda.

We believe that business has a vital and transformational role to play in addressing the global challenges we face today, and that the well-being of women is critical to creating peaceful and prosperous societies. We also believe that the for-profit and non-profit sectors can accomplish much more with greater collaboration.

Six years ago we envisioned an innovative model we call shared prosperity. Simply stated, it is a business that prioritizes social benefit to a group that is among the most isolated from global commerce – women entrepreneurs in places of conflict, social unrest and natural disaster – through ongoing support, sustained market access, and regular profit-sharing. Taking fair trade a step further, our company considers a living wage as the starting point from which a woman can develop into a successful entrepreneur.

But the company on its own cannot deliver all of the support required by the entrepreneurs. It needs partners with aligned missions and special expertise. Recognizing this, we have also created the Prosperity Candle Foundation, a linked non-profit organization with a mission to inspire and support women entrepreneurs (visit Prosperity Candle Foundation for more information).

Thus, Prosperity Candle is both a social enterprise and a foundation that work together to achieve sustainable impact. Our foundation focuses resources from organizations and individuals on helping women in places of conflict and distress, while the business ensures the sustainability of our work, based on a simple model of shared prosperity.

The diagram below shows how we have modified a conventional import model to leverage the strengths of each of our organizations.

Prosperity Candle is a new kind of business – an L3C (Low-Profit Limited Liability Company). This simply means that our legal structure is perfectly aligned with our mission. We prioritize social benefit over profit, and are committed to empowering women entrepreneurs through sustainable, market-based commerce. The Prosperity Candle Foundation is a registered non-profit organization applying for 501(c)(3) non-profit status.

We recognize that working in regions torn by conflict or recovering from a natural disaster presents significant challenges. Success will depend on a sense of shared purpose, determination, and deep commitment to building enduring relationships with all of our stakeholders.

Our Team

We are a committed team of individuals who have spent decades supporting artisan entrepreneurs in developing countries. Together, we bridge the worlds of international development, social enterprise, importing and marketing, and promoting women’s entrepreneurship. We are passionate about our mission, and grounded in decades of relevant experience.

Ted Barber | Prosperity Candle Ted Barber has spent the past eight years working on poverty alleviation projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Inter-American Development Bank, and other agencies throughout Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. His focus is building successful enterprises through sustainable access to global markets. For more than a decade before that, he co-founded and managed a successful import and trade consulting company that focused on handcrafted products made in emerging markets.

Amber Chand | Prosperity Candle Amber Chand is the founder of the Women’s Peace Collection, a social enterprise that supports women’s micro-enterprises primarily in regions of conflict and post-conflict, including Afghanistan, Palestine, Rwanda and Sudan. The company sells high quality gifts created by talented craftswomen rebuilding their lives in the shadows of war, genocide, civil strife and crippling poverty. Recently, she launched The 100 Women: 100 Hopes Campaign to support women who are struggling in a Western Darfur refugee camp to earn a dignified livelihood.

Siiri Morley | Prosperity Candle Siiri Morley has worked on poverty reduction and sustainable economic development projects in Afghanistan, Croatia, Ecuador and Kenya, and was a business capacity development advisor with the U.S. Peace Corps in Lesotho. She received her MBA from the Heller School of Social Policy & Management at Brandeis University in December 2009, and has consulted on social impact measurement to design firm IDEO, and interned at Preserve, an eco-friendly home products company that promotes socially responsible business practices.

Interns & Consultants

Nichole C. Hardeman is working with Prosperity Candle as a sourcing and operations intern. Nichole has several years of retail experience working in the apparel and home furnishings industries. Most recently she was the Production/Operations manager for a high-end home furnishings company in New York City. Nichole is also a returned Peace Corps volunteer and served as a small business consultant in Morocco. It was in Morocco that she found her love for production of handmade goods and working with women. She worked with women weavers, helping to train them in marketing, sales and product development. Nichole is currently working toward her MBA from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

Julia Khodabandeh is working with Prosperity Candle as part of a lifelong journey exploring the intersection of social justice and business. A visit to Ghana as a teen opened her eyes to the greater world and inspired a career in fair trade. Julia has worked with Oké USA, a farmer co-owned fair trade banana company and with Equal Exchange, the nation’s first fair trade coffee company. Julia has an MBA in Sustainable Business from Bainbridge Graduate Institute and is a graduate of Seattle University with a major in French and Economics. She is fluent in French, is an avid cyclist, and loves to cook and explore local, artisanal foods.

Ananda Plunkett is a music major and anthropology minor at Kenyon College. Her love of travel led her to spend six months studying abroad in London, when she traveled throughout Europe and became an avid blogger. As the daughter of co-founder Amber Chand, a Ugandan-Indian refugee, she has grown up in an environment charged with dialogue about women’s struggles in regions of conflict around the world. She is honored and thrilled to now join the inspiring Prosperity Candle team, with the opportunity to impart her knowledge of web-based media while fulfilling her desire to lend a hand in helping global women thrive.

Supreet Sodhi is currently working as a marketing intern with Prosperity Candle. Her prior experience has been in the area of entrepreneurship and technology in India where she worked towards starting and building TechnoCreative, a professional web development and online business solution provider. Women’s empowerment is an issue close to her heart and Supreet has worked to create job opportunities for women in the workplace. She is currently working towards her MBA from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College, and has also consulted to a large US based consumer products company.

In the Field

We are very fortunate to work with an incredible pilot project team in Baghdad. Without them, this work would be impossible (and much less fun).

Ibtesam is the Director of Income Generation in the Women for Women International office in Baghdad, Iraq. She has been absolutely critical to the success of our operations! Since the pilot began, she has been busy training entrepreneurs, handling shipment logistics of candle-making kits and raw materials, paying the entrepreneurs, packing up candles, monitoring quality control, and keeping the women engaged and motivated. She is a trusted part of the team and we are thankful for her contributions.

George wears so many hats in the Women for Women Baghdad office that we are not sure how to describe his role. To us, he has been wonderful in complementing the work that Ibtesam does. George has ensured smooth communications with the team in Iraq, has been the videographer for most of our YouTube videos, and has taken on the production and shipping logistics with gusto. Thank you, George, for all of your help (and great Skype chats!).

Advisors

We are beginning to formally invite Advisory Board members to join our team. We are so pleased that the following individuals have become part of our valued inner circle!

Catherine Johnston (bio coming soon)

Terry Mollner is one of the pioneers of socially responsible investing as a new asset territory in the professional investment community. He is a founder and member of the board of the Calvert Family of Socially Responsible Investment Funds. Dr. Mollner is also the Founder and President of Trusteeship Institute, Inc., a think tank and consulting firm in economic and social development. In existence since 1973, its current focus is on the development of “common good corporations”, business corporations where the highest priority is the common good of humanity and nature.

He also stepped in to keep Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc. from being bought by Nestle and eventually facilitated the company being bought by Unilever, his minority partner in his earlier effort to buy the company himself. He now sits on that board which has primary responsibility for the social mission and brand integrity of Ben & Jerry’s.

His latest book, The Love Skill: Welcome to the Relationship Age! will be available soon. He is also one of the founders and chair of Stakeholders Capital, Inc., a socially responsible asset management firm in Amherst, MA, and Chair of yourolivebranch.com a website designed to unite and assist peace, environmental, and social activists around the world.

Brynne Speizer (bio coming soon)

Gail Straub is the co-author of the best book Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It, and the author of the critically acclaimed The Rhythm of Compassion as well as the award winning feminist memoir Returning to My Mother’s House. Considered a leading authority on empowerment, she co-directs the Empowerment Institute a school for transformative leadership. The Institute’s certified graduates, who come from cultures as diverse as Afghanistan, Africa, Russia, and Asia, are implementing the empowerment model in education, business, health, hip-hop, women’s empowerment, and social change. Over the past thirty years she has trained thousands of people worldwide in empowerment, engaged spirituality, and the wisdom of the feminine. She can be reached at www.empowermenttraining.com.

C.A. Webb – C.A. Webb has thirteen years experience working for a variety of mission-driven start-ups and rapidly growing organizations. Most recently, she was the marketing director at Preserve, the leading maker of performance-driven and stylish 100% recycled household products. C.A. has also worked with the Private Label group at Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas, served as Managing Director of the Trinity Boston Foundation and worked in marketing and business development for Fast Company Magazine and Boston Collegiate Charter School. C.A. is a cum laude graduate of Wellesley College and earned her MBA at the Simmons School of Management.

Pilot Project

Having conceived of Prosperity Candle in 2008, we thought it made sense to begin with a pilot project, which was successfully completed in June 2010. The goal was to field-test our custom candle kits, and make sure our model is sustainable and offers women in places of distress the opportunity to thrive.

So in March 2009 we partnered with Women for Women International – a remarkable organization dedicated to helping women survivors of war rebuild their lives – to implement a year-long pilot in Iraq. We started by training their staff, who subsequently taught 4 Iraqi women in Baghdad how to make candles using our equipment and guide. These first “chandler-entrepreneurs” field-tested the kits and then became our trainers for 50 more women entrepreneurs.

Throughout the pilot, these women (whose stories you can read at Voices) have dedicated themselves to learning the art of the chandler (candle-maker). Attending training workshops and practicing at home, they have acquired skills to make high quality candles for local and export markets. In February 2010, we conducted a comprehensive quality review, and in April we shipped the first Prosperity Candles for sale in the U.S. We were so pleased to offer beautiful, high quality pillar candles handmade by mothers and daughters of Iraq this past spring for our Mother’s Day launch. Mother’s & customers throughout the world were thrilled with these gifts that provided a strong woman-to-woman connection.

Needless to say, we are ecstatic. As of today, 50 women in a place of conflict have been given the opportunity to start their own businesses. All will be able to earn an income that is above the minimum wage in Iraq, and some of the most skilled candle-makers have the opportunity to earn twice that amount – close to the average wage in Iraq – simply by investing in more candle molds.

To hear the women from the pilot project in their own words, visit Voices and our YouTube page.

Impact

Social Impact

Prosperity Candle is committed to having a positive and sustainable social impact. The company was created for this purpose, and we will measure our progress in many ways. The narratives are as important as the numbers.

Listening to the women share their stories, give voice to their visions, and express candid opinions about how Prosperity Candle is affecting their lives will be the first measure of our work. We will then pair careful data collection with these stories and opinions to better understand the whole picture, because looking at whether the women are able to increase their incomes is only part of our work. We also want to see whether or not nutrition is improving, if women’s safety is enhanced, if more of their children are in school and receiving medical care, and how the women feel about their futures – are they hopeful? Are they taking leadership roles in their communities? Are their voices heard?

Our approach to measuring social impact must take into account all of these factors. And as a business that cares deeply about its environmental impact, we will be vigilant in assessing this area as well to minimize as much as possible our carbon footprint. We are committed to tracking and evaluating triple-bottom-line progress in ways that allow us to make better decisions and continually improve our model for broad and sustainable impact.

If we train a thousand women in candle-making to earn a supplemental income, we fail in our mission.

Why? Because we seek to empower as many as possible to build thriving businesses that can offer employment to others in their communities. This is the impact we seek to have. The diagram below illustrates the path we hope many women entrepreneurs will choose with ongoing support from us and other organizations.

As we grow and establish our systems for measuring impact, we will share the results with you and our partners. And here on this page, we will post useful information and lessons learned for supporters and others who are pursuing similar goals.

Environmental Impact

While our mission is focused on social impact – empowering women entrepreneurs in regions affected by conflict and natural disaster – we also recognize that sustainability issues are critical to our ability to run an efficient and environmentally sound business. With ever increasing greenhouse gases being emitted into the world, we want to be a responsible business that minimizes its environmental impact in every way possible.

Soy vs. Paraffin

: Soy cultivation

This was one of the earliest questions we asked. At first glance, soy wax or beeswax seem like the obvious raw materials to use when thinking about environmental sustainability. Surprisingly, this is not always the case. After much research, we have concluded that our custom paraffin-soy blend is the most sustainable choice we can make today. Paraffin is a material that is available regionally in large quantity, so using it means a much lower carbon footprint than with other waxes that must be shipped in.

Paraffin is also a by-product, which if not used would go into the waste stream. Further, we have found that most soy wax is sourced from agribusiness where large amounts of petrochemicals are used in carbon-intensive cultivation methods. Thus, as others have argued, paraffin can sometimes be a more sustainable option than soy when you compare total environment impacts.

Healthwise, food-quality paraffin burns as cleanly as other high quality waxes. At Prosperity Candle, we use only the highest grade candle waxes with natural cotton wicks (no lead or zinc) for a long-lasting, clean burning candle.

Sustainable Business

Our team consists of locavores in both spirit and practice. We eat produce from New England farms shares, buy local dairy products, and support artisans in our neighborhoods. But we also recognize that not everything we use can be made locally – and that there are people living in distant places who can greatly benefit from trade.

So while working to improve the lives of women in places of conflict and disaster, we strive to minimize our carbon footprint wherever possible. We consolidate shipments, select routes with the smallest carbon footprint (we are a strong advocate of ships using wind power to reduce fuel use), minimize packaging and waste, recycle & reuse everything we can, and regularly purchase carbon offsets. Most importantly, we are committed to tracking and continually reducing Prosperity Candle’s carbon footprint over time.

This is just the beginning! Following an assessment of impact in May, we will begin expanding the current program to include many more women who will have the opportunity to grow their businesses, earn well above a living wage, and provide employment for others. In June we will fulfill our pledge to the Clinton Global Initiative to enable 40 more women to start their own candle businesses. By early 2011 we plan to launch our next pilot in Rwanda, Haiti or Afghanistan. And by 2014 we aim to partner with more than a thousand women entrepreneurs in places of distress, each with their own thriving enterprise and group of employees.

Want to participate? Visit Products to buy a candle, and visit the Prosperity Candle Foundation to find out how you can help a woman start her own business and rebuild her life. Or just send us your ideas, suggestion and comments at Contact Us. We hope to hear from you!

Prosperity Candle participates in the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative's Annual Meeting in New York City