Two years ago, KIND, the healthy snack company, learned first-hand why most businesses don’t ask customers to do good deeds for them– and certainly don’t reward that behavior. “It just kind of ended up being a logistical nightmare,” says Kristin Lane, the company’s associate communications manager. “We had people logging on and saying, ‘I gave my friend a glass of water.’ There was no quality control.”
Those were the early days of “Do the KIND Thing,” an online movement meant to encourage folks to pay it forward in real life. Today, though, the experiment has shifted, transitioning from a warning story into a new kind of template for how companies might better harness the power of “social enterprise,” that business model where for-profit brands get more buy-in from consumers because they exist for a larger, socially helpful purpose. It looked rocky at first, but KIND has found a way to give their customers a bigger emotional stake in the company by making them a part of larger feel-good missions. “It’s about humanizing people on the streets,” says Founder and CEO Daniel Lubetzky. “We try to inspire unexpected acts of kindness from the people who you’d least expect it.”
How? Let’s start with how-not-to do this first. In early 2010, the company began directing customers to a website – kindmovement.com – via messaging on boxes and snack bar wrappers. There, they found a list of non-profits representing about 150 causes total that needed funding. The idea was to do a good deed, then log-on and list it as a vote in support of your cause celebre. At the end of three months, the top three vote getters would share $40,000 in additional funding.
The problem: As charities rallied supporters, some gamed the system, focusing on quantity of deeds over quality to cast as many votes as possible. The bigger loss was that as several front runners broke away in the voting, many people doing really authentic deeds lost interest. There was too much emphasis on competition and not enough on cooperating toward a greater good. In June 2010, Lubetzky realized that, though he had generated tens of thousands of acts of kindness, more isn’t necessarily better. He shut down the operation to re-think it.
In February 2011, KIND tried again, re-launching in a more Groupon-like format. Each month, fans of the brand, called KINDaholics, can log on and commit to a KINDING Mission, one small but specific act like giving a warm beverage to someone else during the cold winter. If enough users commit to an action, the company will jump in with its own, thematically significant BIG KIND Act, like donating a mass shipment of coats to homeless shelters. They often partner with recognizable charities like Soles 4 Souls or the National Breast Cancer Foundation. (And yes, the KIND tends to use KINDtastic words to describe lots of things.)
Since the revamp, KIND’s volunteer corps has committed more than 200,000 now not-so-random deeds, inspiring 16 BIG KIND Acts reaching an estimated 500,000 people. Total cost to the company: about $200,000 annually. For Lubetzky, it’s a way to actually live out the company motto: “Do the KIND Thing for your body, your taste buds, & the world.” Bars are made from mixed nuts and dried fruits and as opposed to other highly-emulsified, artificial or ultra-chewy offerings.
Of course, Lubetzky downplays whether the initiative is boosting the bottom line. “I don’t want anyone to think that we are doing this to sell more bars,” he says. But that belies that fact that he is already a master of social enterprise. Lubetzky actually trademarked the phrase “not-ONLY-for-profit” more than a decade ago for another company, PeaceWorks, which seeks to inspire global peace by creating other business ventures between historically polarized cultural groups like Israelis and Palestinians. Today, KIND bar sales are up 182 percent year over year, compared to just 17 percent overall among competitors, the company says. The brand has won prime shelf space at grocers like Whole Foods and mega-chains like Starbucks. “The brand will be stronger because people believe in the sincerity of our mission and our focus,” Lubetzky adds. “And because the product is delicious.”
But using KINDaholics as brand ambassadors is actually a win-win-win. It not only creates great word of mouth for the company, but there is emotional payback for both the good deed giver and receiver. “If you surprise someone with an act of kindness you make their day and really feel fulfilled,” Lubetzky says.
