the March of Dimes, Build, and Dress for Success. The site also allows shoppers to suggest the charities they’d like their donation to go to; it takes about a week for that charity to get activated on the platform, as Fashion Project needs to verify that it is in fact a 501 (c)(3).
“Our goal is to have every charity up there,” Rizk says.
For marketing and customer acquisition, Fashion Project looks to its charity partners to attract donors. “They’re really creative,” Rizk says. ”It’s great to see how they already work with their donor base.”
The charities are also getting the word out about shopping on Fashion Project’s site. Palmer says the incentive for consumers to help a charity of their choice is the potential to buy a clothing item they otherwise wouldn’t have. “It’s a really cool way of people experimenting with brands and luxury fashion items,” she says.
“You can open up your closet and look at all the charities out there and say ‘I want to support this one,’’’ Palmer says. An item originally purchased for about $400 could feed a family of four for a couple of months when resold through the Fashion Project, Palmer says. “The impact is gigantic—that’s the part of it that makes us really excited.”
Sites like Rue La La and Gilt Groupe have opened up those types of brands to consumers who may not have bought them without the steep discounts, and now the clothing market is starting to see the effects of that, Palmer says.
“We see us fitting into that puzzle of once people buy that, what do they with it?,” she says.
