Brisbane social enterprise start-up Words With Heart has raised close to $19,000 through their first crowd-funding campaign, pre-selling eco-friendly stationery products that fund women’s and girls’ education projects.
Launched in September, local support and media coverage helped the organisation to pre-sell over 1,000 notebooks and journals within 30 days, with each campaign sale contributing a dollar towards non-profit organisation One Girl.
“I was so thrilled at the success of our launch campaign. It proved that many Australians are passionate about promoting gender equality, and they want to buy products that have an important social impact,” Lauren Shuttleworth, Words With Heart Founder and recent School for Social Entrepreneurs graduate said.
Frustrated by sexist phrases found on girls notebooks at a popular store, Shuttleworth began the eco-friendly stationery brand to promote strong messages of equality and empowerment. Words With Heart also donates 50% of its net profits to charities working in women’s and girls’ education.
Words With Heart was selected and supported by the ING Direct’s Dreamstarter Initiative as a noteworthy social impact project.
Now that the campaign has ended, Shuttleworth said: “We’ve got our launch collection in production and we’re working on some really exciting retail and partnership opportunities, including getting involved in some of the G20 events next week.”
To purchase Words With Heart stationery products, and for more information about their social impact, readers can visit www.wordswithheart.com.
