How an Idea Turned Into a National Fund-raiser

The It Gets Better campaign served as the inspiration for a
“weekend of charitable shopping” being held in CB2 stores
across the country, showing that some dividends of the viral video phenomenon
are still coming to fruition even a year after its launch.

All day long today and on Sunday, the modern furniture chain
will donate 5 percent of its sales to The Trevor Project, which helps combat
teen suicide and has worked closely with project. Anything bought across its
website, catalogs or in stores will factor. But the idea started much smaller
than that, with the staff of just one store in New York City.

Jen Cutler manages the CB2 store in Soho, and during last
year’s Pride festival, she and her team wanted to do something to show their
support for gay rights. But what to do? They could run a float in the parade.
Or maybe volunteer with a local organization. And they considered a range of
ideas, including those.

“We really felt that we wanted to publicly support the gay
community and started brainstorming different ways that we could do that,”
Cutler said. They decided on donating a portion of their sales to a charity
because “we really wanted to do something that was a little bit more impactful.”

One of the store’s associates suggested giving the money to the Trevor Project, which Cutler hadn’t heard of, and then explained its
connection to It Gets Better, which she had. And a partnership was born.

The Soho store hosted a kickoff party for the “weekend of
charitable giving” June 16 and more than 350 people attended, which is a
good turnout, but now it’s going national. Cutler’s corporate bosses heard
about the idea when she pressed it in cooperation with the Trevor Project, and
they quickly picked up on it.

Marta Calle, product director for CB2, praised the store associates
for thinking of the idea, which helped their marketing “have a purpose.”

“Several associates from the Soho store knew someone at the
Trevor Project and put CB2 corporate in touch,” Calle said in a statement.
“With bullying and suicides of gay and lesbian teenagers in the headlines, CB2
was inspired by the Trevor Project mission to prevent suicide among lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth.”

CB2 is now an official “corporate partner” of the Trevor
Project, in no small part because of the group of coworkers in Soho.