Children's birthday parties are meant to be fun, but they can often also have a huge environmental footprint, as Debbie Zinman says. Every guest drives to a store, picks out an individually packaged gift (each of which has been separately manufactured and shipped by truck), wraps it in paper that will soon be discarded... that's not even to get started on paper invitations and thank you cards.
Zinman and her business partner Alison Smith were looking to do something about that environmental drain when they launched
ECHOage in January 2008. And they came up with a concept that Zinman says makes a child's party "an opportunity to learn something," by helping others in a way that is "moving, inspiring and exciting."
The social enterprise's innovation was to create a website that would allow children to send invitations to guests, asking them to contribute to one large gift for the birthday child and to a good cause at the same time. Children choose charities to benefit from their guests' giving, and money received is split equally between the charity and the child's dream present. ECHOage gets revenue from a 15 per cent administration fee charged on each party.
Based in the Yonge and Eglinton area of Toronto, the company has ECHOage parties happening across North America, and Zinman says they have been growing at an ever-greater rate. She says clients have so far raised over $250,000 for children's charities and points to a scrolling list on the
ECHOage homepage of the donations' impact. In addition to the two founders who work "day and night" on the enterprise, the company employs three part-time staff.
Zinman says that the company is based on a community of parents -- overwhelmingly mothers -- who advise on every aspect of operations. To capitalize on that community asset, ECHOage launched an
Ambassador program last week to help spread the world through social networks.
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Debbie Zinman, co-founder, ECHOage