Clothing Company’s Giving Is ‘in the Bag’

Company: Coleccion Luna, a one-person handbag company in Atlanta.

How it gives: The business donates handbags to CARE, which the charity gives to its supporters at meetings and fund-raising events. For example, CARE provided Coleccion Luna’s handbags to people who attended an event in Washington to welcome Helene Gayle, the charity’s chief executive, to the organization.

Stephanie Jolluck, the company’s founder and an Atlanta native, also organizes fund-raising events for the charity and contributes 25 percent of profits from the company’s “yoga bags.”

Where the idea came from: Ms. Jolluck says she had always respected the work of CARE and even applied for a job with the charity after she graduated from college. A few years after starting the business, she contacted CARE and said she wanted to help.

Ms. Jolluck’s business, which she founded while living in Guatemala, employs Mayan Indian women who create the bags using a 2,000-year-old textile tradition. In August, Ms. Jolluck and a friend, Jackie Patterson, started a second business, Dialogue, which designs T-shirts and other products to raise awareness of specific causes and issues.

Last month, for example, Ms. Jolluck and Ms. Patterson held an event at a local restaurant in Atlanta that publicized and raised money for CARE’s work in Darfur. The pair designed a T-shirt related to the Darfur crisis that they sold at the event, with the proceeds going to CARE.

How much it gives: Ms. Jolluck says that Coleccion Luna has donated about $25,000 in cash and products to CARE in the past two years.

Why it works: Vidhya Sriram, development specialist at CARE, says Ms. Jolluck’s friendships with local business leaders have helped the charity gain a stronger foothold within that world. “She’s tapped into a whole segment of people that we’re not reaching,” says Ms. Sriram.

Ms. Sriram also emphasizes the importance of Ms. Jolluck’s familiarity with CARE and its work. “With advocacy, in particular, you have to be somewhat picky about who you work with,” says Ms. Sriram. “With Stephanie, she’s lived in Latin America and she’s very interested in development work and we know she’s speaking very knowledgeably about what we do.”