The ETICA Impact fund was designed to give our producers and their communities the control to direct funds into their communities where they need it most. On top of paying a living wage to all our workers, this innovative fund allows us to truly understand what our producers need/want and lets them determine their own path to empowerment. So often people from the outside looking in (who truly mean well!) decide what is best for a community, whether it is deemed a need locally or not. For example, there is no use for school desks if we don’t have a local school. Every community has specific goals, specific problems and specific cultures and we do not pretend to know what is best for them.
ETICA Impact Fund takes the reins and hands them to the people who know best. Allowing the people who know their community and exist in it on a daily basis lets them define success for themselves. The fund works with an outside consulting firm, WorkAhead, to determine efficient and mid/long term impact projects to further the goals of specific communities, as defined by our producers with the funds from ETICA. As VIRTU grows more money is directed into this fund and more communities are able to empower themselves on their own terms. Our 50/50 profit model puts 50% of our profits directly back into every community we work with. Hence, the ETICA Impact Fund is directly funded by sales of VIRTU products, so our growth not only ethically employs more people and pays them a living wage, but also goes directly to desired development projects. Projects can focus on education, microfinance or humanitarian emergencies.
For example, as ZIKA becomes a real threat to communities it might be deemed an immediate community need for mosquito nets or other preventative measures to be put into place. Funds from the ETICA Impact Fund could be used to purchase the nets to distribute in the community. Letting communities decide for themselves what is an immediate need means that we can efficiently provide support and avoid sometimes extremely costly and ineffective, but well meaning, aid.
For example, as ZIKA becomes a real threat to communities it might be deemed an immediate community need for mosquito nets or other preventative measures to be put into place. Funds from the ETICA Impact Fund could be used to purchase the nets to distribute in the community. Letting communities decide for themselves what is an immediate need means that we can efficiently provide support and avoid sometimes extremely costly and ineffective, but well meaning, aid.
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