How Parker Clay mixes profit and purpose
The Bentleys’ four tips for thriving as a social-impact company
- Find your purpose“Ask yourself why. Find the meaning behind your passion and rally around it. We can get stuck on statistics when we need to focus on the people.”
- Ask questions your customers would ask“If you’re a brand and you haven’t asked your factory leadership, How are you navigating COVID? What are workers’ wages? How are you making sure people are taken care of?, that should ring some bells. You can work with another factory. You just have to be a good citizen.”
- Balance impact messaging with product quality“It doesn’t matter how much impact you have. At the end of the day, people still want to feel good and look good with whatever they’re wearing or carrying. It was a really important decision that we weren’t going to compromise on. The community wants to know this product is having an impact. But they also want to be reminded that it’s beautiful and quality, and it gets better with time.”
- Build relationships“Prioritizing outreach and connections is crucial to scale impact.” They “asked partners to introduce us to like-minded brands and organizations” or to be cold-contacted via social networks to connect with nonprofits and NGOs, business leaders and sustainable companies.
It was a nightly news story that changed the course of Ian and Brittany Bentley’s life.
They were a successful couple with two young sons living in idyllic Santa Barbara, California – she was a freelance graphic designer, he was in real estate marketing – when they heard there were 160 million orphans worldwide.
That sobering fact became the center of regular conversations in their household and, in 2011, they traveled to Ethiopia to adopt their daughter. The country was not what they expected based on bleak headlines back home about famine and poverty but a vibrant country with one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa. Still, the Bentleys were struck by the number of women working in prostitution in the capital of Addis Ababa.
It was that trip that ultimately inspired the couple to found Parker Clay (named after their two sons; they have three daughters, including a second adopted from Ethiopia). The brand offers luxury products, such as bags and accessories, made with local Ethiopian leather by local hands to support the country’s economy and continue empowering women.
Today, the company that started with “a few machines and a few people” has grown 100 percent year-over-year and employs 18 in the United States and more than 200 in Ethiopia. More than 80 percent of their staff in Ethiopia are women, and they work in a company-owned factory, which was important to the Bentleys to ensure transparency of the working conditions.
“This newer, younger generation is absolutely pushing for more accountability.”
Providing transparency
“This newer, younger generation is absolutely pushing for more accountability,” says Ian Bentley. “They’re not going to accept the veneer of impact, the greenwashing — you can’t just sprinkle ‘sustainable’ on.”
Parker Clay provides vocational training, financial literacy and living wages paid in U.S. dollars to resist fluctuations in Ethiopian currency, plus a pension, a subsidized garden café and even a laundry service.
They’ve partnered with the non-governmental organization Ellilta Women at Risk (EWAR), which has graduated more than 1,000 women through their program, with 90 percent of graduates remaining free from prostitution.
“The thing I’m most proud of is that we’re building a community of people who give a damn,” says Bentley.
Building a community
Community is a big word at Parker Clay. They prefer it to “customer” or “consumer.”
“The thing I’m most proud of is that we’re building a community of people who give a damn.”
While they offer initiatives like planting a tree for every bag sold and donating face shields made with leftover leather to frontline workers, they also want the people who buy their bags to feel just as invested in the stories of women like Mesulu and Yeshi, who made them 9,000 miles away. Bags are guaranteed for life and come with handwritten cards, even if it’s a customer’s second or third.
Retail return rates can be as high as 30 percent; Parker Clay’s is 5 percent or less. “We have incredible reviews. People love what we’re about,” Bentley says. “That doesn’t happen by just sending product out the door.”
Drawing on community during COVID
This community was key to not only surviving when the world locked down due to COVID-19 last year, but to doubling sales and allowing the company to expand staff.
Sure, e-commerce soared and digitally native Parker Clay saw sales grow. But within a week last spring they came up with a Pay It Forward campaign. (“We innovate super fast,” Bentley says. “Brittany had an idea for a product on a Sunday, and I kid you not. we had a first sample of it on Monday.”)
They set up a landing page featuring a video of their family during quarantine — kids jumping all over the place, running a business from home — acknowledging the havoc the pandemic wreaked. “People want relatability,” Bentley notes. “We’re all going through stuff, and we can’t pretend to not have challenges.”
The campaign offered a deal: Customers backed the company for a certain dollar amount then received a gift card for that amount in the fall and then again in January 2021. It was a win-win-win: Customers doubled their original investment, the company sold more bags, and employees earned higher wages. The campaign was such a success, they had to stop offering it.
Choosing key business partners
At first the Bentleys didn’t consider becoming a Certified B Corporation, a company that meets rigorous social and environmental responsibility benchmarks, from the way workers are treated to a brand’s carbon footprint. “I don’t like playing political games, like, ‘Hey look at us, we’re certified this, we’re certified that,’ ” Bentley explains. “Some of it is about marketing. But there’s a greater degree of accountability being a B Corp. It’s a leading label for companies doing this the right way because it’s hard — you can’t fake it.”
Parker Clay chose to work with Afterpay in order to scale. “We joined early on when they were one of the first to market. It is exciting to see how we have scaled together as they have grown to be one of the largest,” Bentley says, adding, “Afterpay has allowed Parker Clay to be accessible to a wider audience, giving consumers the ability to invest in a timeless piece on their schedule.”
A company motto, “We go together,” comes from an African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” From the very beginning, the Bentleys wanted to go as far as they could, taking as many women as possible who just needed an opportunity along with them. And they are.
The Bentleys’ four tips for thriving as a social-impact company
- Find your purpose“Ask yourself why. Find the meaning behind your passion and rally around it. We can get stuck on statistics when we need to focus on the people.”
- Ask questions your customers would ask“If you’re a brand and you haven’t asked your factory leadership, How are you navigating COVID? What are workers’ wages? How are you making sure people are taken care of?, that should ring some bells. You can work with another factory. You just have to be a good citizen.”
- Balance impact messaging with product quality“It doesn’t matter how much impact you have. At the end of the day, people still want to feel good and look good with whatever they’re wearing or carrying. It was a really important decision that we weren’t going to compromise on. The community wants to know this product is having an impact. But they also want to be reminded that it’s beautiful and quality, and it gets better with time.”
- Build relationships“Prioritizing outreach and connections is crucial to scale impact.” They “asked partners to introduce us to like-minded brands and organizations” or to be cold-contacted via social networks to connect with nonprofits and NGOs, business leaders and sustainable companies.
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