I wanted to send a quick late night report from the Skoll Forum at Oxford University.  It was an incredible day.  It started with the presentation this morning to a packed room.  There were so many amazing people there – many foundations, other social entreprenuers like the founders of Kiva.org, and so many other amazing leaders.  Jeff Skoll and the head of the Skoll Foundation were listening to the presentation as well.   The audience was so excited and interested by what we are doing and the way we are approaching it.  I was humbled by the number of people that came up to me to say – “WOW I loved the presentation!  What you guys are doing is so amazing.  It could help so many producers scale if you can really achieve the model you are going for.”

I was super happy and excited when I saw this blog post from the Acument Fund Blog that covered our presentation.  Here is the part about us:

“Perhaps the most compelling speaker was Priya Haji, co-founder and CEO of World of Good, which offers ethically sourced products through more than 1300 retail stores, including Whole Foods and Wild Oats. World of Good has recently partnered with eBay to build the world’s largest online marketplace for “people-positive” products.

While World of Good is a for profit company, Priya is also co-founder and Chair of World of Good: Development Organization, a 501 (c) (3) focused on creating clear standards (e.g., wage standards) which will hopefully become industry-wide and improve the quality of life for craft producers worldwide.

Editor’s note: World of Good was featured in a recent Stanford Social Innovation Review article about hybrid social enterprises, which we blogged about here.

It was fascinating hearing Priya talk about the dynamics between the for-profit company, which holds the brand, and the non-profit company, which creates the standards for the public good. When asked how she would feel if, say, Wal-Mart created a comparable brand she replied that that would would be just the kind of inspired competition she would like to see. In other words, if the end result is a significant percentage of gift spending going to ethically sourced goods (not the case today), Priya considers that a success whether or not they are World of Good branded or otherwise. “