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The World Bank defines “extreme poverty” as living on $1.90 or less per person every day. In the Philippines, this equates to around Php 90; enough for an ordinary Filipino to get a haircut or buy a box of toothpaste.
For 736 million people globally, this is their everyday reality and that number can grow as the pandemic continue to tighten its grip.
Amid the extreme poverty, the world’s entire population spends $63 trillion on consumer products each year. With this, Australia-based social enterprise Thankyou aims to bridge the gap between the two extremes through the help of consumers and massive corporations.
Thankyou announced an invitation to P&G and Unilever – two of the world’s largest and most influential consumer goods companies – to make and distribute their products globally to help end extreme poverty. It aims to partner with organizations that have the ability to sustain products in the market through their competitive advantage, while they focus on building a brand with purpose.
“We believe that we, together with people and a partnership with one of the two biggest companies in the world, can change this by funneling the dollars spent on consumer goods into helping end extreme poverty,” said Thankyou co-founder Daniel Flynn.
Thankyou offers consumer products – personal care and baby product ranges – for the sole purpose of funding life-changing projects. After all the costs in running a business to get great consumer products to people are taken care of, every last cent that Thankyou makes goes toward ending extreme poverty. With this model, Thankyou seeks to flip consumerism for good.
Currently, Thankyou only sells its products in Australia and New Zealand, but with COVID-19 increasing both global poverty numbers and demand for personal care products, such as hand sanitizer, the company feels that now is the time to expand, and quickly. If either P&G or Unilever choose to accept Thankyou’s invitation, together they could change the course of history and route millions of consumer dollars to ending extreme poverty.
With such a big feat, Thankyou, through its campaign aptly named “No Small Plan,” is asking people around the world to get involved and show the collective power so that their message of change can reach P&G and Unilever.
To encourage P&G and Unilever to say “I’m in” and work with Thankyou to flip the system, Thankyou believes they need to see the collective impact of voices around the world rallying around one movement in the name of ending extreme poverty. Social media users all over the world can take part in the campaign by posting a photo or sharing the campaign social title with the caption, “I’m in, are you?” Then, they would need to tag @proctergamble and @unilever, and add the hashtag #thankyoutotheworld. They can also share Thankyou’s video to help this spread even further.
