The BOGO Business

February 22, 2008

in Business Models,Products

There’s a slow sprouting of Buy-One-Give-One businesses, where, for every product a consumer Bogo_double_lightpurchases, an identical product is donated to a person in need. We have Nick Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child, TOMS Shoes and, my latest discovery, the BOGO Light by SunNight Solar.

The BOGO Light generates clean LED light from rechargeable solar-powered batteries. The light sells for $25 and can be recharged by simply hanging from a clothesline or tree branch. Buy a light for camping in Joshua Tree and SunNight Solar will send a light to a child who works all day and studies at night, or a man in an unlit Kenyan refugee camp.

Let’s be clear that this isn’t a re-varnished form of charity. BOGO Light’s inventor and SunNight Solar founder, Mark Bent, is a former oil executive who recognizes that revenue and consumer expectations can extend the reach of your mission. He’s also a former diplomat committed to illuminating radical change.

Admittedly, consumerism is not the whole answer. But when it delivers shoes, light and, fantastically, computers with Internet, it’s an exalted step in the right direction.

Bogo_video_2

Possibly related posts:

  1. This Blog Helps Sell BOGO Lights for SunNight Solar
  2. If Businesses Can’t BOGO and NGOs Are Crushing Entrepreneurship, Where Does That Leave Us?
  3. Should Your Business Use an e-Commerce Philanthropy Platform? What You Can Gain and What to Be Wary Of

{ 3 trackbacks }

This Blog Helps Sell BOGO Lights for SunNight Solar
06.29.09 at 10:44 am
You Don’t Have to be a Big Company to Give Back
06.29.09 at 11:04 am
A New Shade of Cause Marketing: Reward Donors (and Convert Them To Consumers)
06.24.10 at 8:09 am

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