LOVE FOUNDATION

SPREADING LOVE AROUND THE WORLD

Monday 8 June 2015, by kira

6 inspired

A. The main facts about the activities of the company.

Love Foundation was started by two students and a designer in Maastricht in 2013, after the founder of Viva con Agua gave an inspiring talk about their work. Viva con Agua is a charitable organization based in St.Pauli, Hamburg (Germany), campaigning for clean drinking water worldwide especially in developing countries. Shortly after the first party was organised to raise money for Viva con Agua the Love Foundation was officially founded as a non-profit foundation and started growing rapidly. Now, in 2015, the Love Foundation has spread LOVE around the world and is operating in Maastricht (Netherlands), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Santa Cruz (California), Perth (Australia) and Barcelona (Spain).
In the different locations, which are called Love Hubs, the Love Foundation is organizing a variety of events which have a unique touch in every city and are visually promoted in a unique way through the work of the Love Foundation’s own designer.
The Love Foundation Works together with a variety of partners ranging from visual and audio artists to fair trade clothing producers to small local shops, who support the cause and who help in building the network.

This foundation has the goal of supporting water development projects and spreading “love” around the world. In addition, they want to educate and raise awareness among citizens to rethink the capitalistic model based on profits.
Their main source of income are the different kinds of events as: concerts, parties, art exhibitions and sport activities. In addition the Love Foundation is selling a wide range of Fair Trade, organic cotton clothes. Ranging from Hoodies to T-shirts and Tanktops.
From the money that is earned, 20% are reinvested for future projects and the other 80% are used to support water development projects in India together with their partner organization Viva con Agua.
Apart from the support for water projects, the Love Foundation is building a global network of students, activists and artists to support each other from all parts of the world.
We really think that this foundation is inspiring for young students to motivate them and to implement their business skills that they are learning at university in a more ethical and sustainable way.

B. The Ethical challenges this company is addressing.

Water scarcity
Water scarcity is one of the worst problems for many people around the world. The Love Foundation is doing their best to enable access to clean drinking water for every human on the planet. The water development projects are built up on the principle of WASH, which stands for Water and Sanitation Hygiene. This includes not only access to clean drinking water but also to toilets and education about water related issues. Currently the foundation is supporting a water project in Bihar, India. Because, we consider that the education is the base of everything, and specially if we want to change something in a country where the poverty level is high and 32,5% of 1200 billion of poor people of the world that live with less than 1,25$ per day are located in India. On the other hand, why the water? Because, apart of being a big problem for Indian society, it is also the origin of the life.

Sustainability
In every activity the Love Foundation operates as sustainable as possible and is promoting all issues of sustainability.

Fair trade
To support and promote Fair Trade, all clothes by the foundation are fair trade, organic cotton and climate neutral (produced only with renewable energies).

LOVE
The Love Foundation is spreading the idea of LOVE around the globe through all its activities and connected through the Love-Logo.

Work in a friendly environment
The people that work at the foundation develop their activities in a happy environment and without feeling that
they have an obligation or that it is actually work they are doing.

Climate change
By raising awareness and joining climate protests, the Love Foundation supports climate protection.

C. What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it?

This company really spreads the ethical part and thoughts that they are implementing when doing business.
This company is managed by young students who really want to act ethically. They do not get a salary in exchange of their work, they do it voluntarily. That is, they have the aim of acting ethically and with love, so that’s what they do. So we can understand that money is not everything and you can help others without wanting anything in exchange.

It is easy to see what they are achieving in India with their water project and with their organic t-shirts. All these results show us again that another kind of business is possible and it changes the mentality in the structure of charity foundations where you don’t wait just the people’s donations from out, but it is the same foundations that gets the money through different events.
This is why we liked the foundation and we trust it.

D.The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

The love foundation is expanding little by little in other countries and universities, but to do that they constantly need more volunteers to get active. This is why they should organize some sessions to get known among all the students. Since most of them are young students which creates uncertainty once they finish their studies and they will have time to continue, because we can’t forget that still the money is the drug that we need to keep on surviving.

Moreover they need to motivate people from other ages as well to volunteer with them, not just young university students.
Another issue is competition. When organizing e.g. parties, every other event is competition and they need to ensure that the parties keep their high quality and stay innovative to outwit the competition.

The foundation’s philosophy is very inspiring for a lot of students, so they should implement it around other universities or young organizations.

However, to keep on functioning it is important to find a constant financial basis to fund the operations of Love Foundation.
The foundation could find some subsidies or partners to help them being able to continue expanding and developing new activities in India and around the world, specially from those countries where they are acting and exist.

Bibliography

http://www.love-foundation.org
https://www.facebook.com/LoveFoundation?fref=ts

Start a new discussion

1 Discussion / 1 Message

  • LOVE FOUNDATION 15 June 2015 at 15:14 , by elsiekitty

    This is definitely a qualified ethical business. By selling products made of organic and recycled materials, company raised the fund and devoted money in helping India’s water quality. I have been to india and their water does arouse people’s attention. It is a serious problem. The company does bring people hope and love as the name expresses.

Location: Maastricht (The Netherlands)

Official website: http://www.love-foundation.org

Nbr. visits: 254

Nbr. inspires: 6