Opinion: Social-Enterprise Group Questions Toms Shoes Model

The head of an organization that works with for-profit social enterprises says in a New York Times blog post that the buy-one, give-one approach popularized by footwear firm Toms Shoes risks perpetuating rather than alleviating poverty.

Adriana Herrera is the CEO of Fashioning Change, which sells social enterprises’ products through its Web site. She writes in the Times’ small-business blog You’re the Boss that Toms, which gives a pair of shoes to a child in the developing world for every pair it sells to consumers, “actually needs poor children without shoes” to pursue its business model and marketing.

Ms. Herrera says Toms could have a much greater impact by using its manufacturing and supply chain to create jobs and attack the root cause of poverty. She praises the firm for moving in this direction in its new venture selling eyewear, which funds ocular surgeries and the employment of doctors and nurses.

Listen to a Chronicle of Philanthropy podcast about Toms Shoes’ approach to philanthropy and social entrepreneurship.