Consider TOMS Shoes started by Blake Mycoskie. The name of the company comes from its original incarnation as “Shoes for Tomorrow.” In this early video Blake Mycoskie tells the story of how he linked a fashion product to addressing rural child poverty while traveling in Argentina.

The “buy one give one” model has become more commonplace; the underlying concept of subsidizing charity via commercial purposes simply combines consumer activity and charitable giving into a single transaction. It is worth noting that the challenge of “sustainable business models” sometimes causes us to continuously widen our perspective on sustainability. TOMS’ charitable activity has come under closer scrutiny, leading the company to consider not just immediate impact to the individuals, but longer-term social impact.