If you’ve shopped at natural or whole food stores, you’re probably familiar with Dr. Bronner’s, the natural soaps complete with aphorism-covered labels that have been a feature of the natural products movement since the company’s founding in 1948. Not many people know, however, that at 75 years old and counting, this family business is a solid model of both corporate citizenship and corporate philanthropy. Since its founding, Dr. Bronner’s has given more than $100 million to nonprofits and recently celebrated the five-year anniversary of its international giving program, through which it gives a minimum of 1% of the company’s sales to its participating international markets annually for local efforts abroad supporting social justice, environmental sustainability and animal advocacy.
In other words, Dr. Bronner’s has done something truly unique for an organization whose hippie-vibe labels can make it seem like a relic of the 1960s. Instead of either fading away or selling out, this company has endured, grown and is making an impact as both a philanthropic donor and an example of capitalism done better.
Dr. Bronner’s has been described by GQ as the last corporation in the country with a soul. Whether or not that’s true, Dr. Bronner’s seems to stand by the “All-One-God-Faith” philosophy of its founder, which evinced a belief in the unity of mankind across borders and peoples and religions. Its 2024 report is filled with examples of progressive corporate leadership, from the company’s support of the Palestinian West Bank olive farmers from whom it purchases oil to its analysis of the company’s environmental impact. Glassdoor raves from former and current employees and a company pay structure that caps executive salaries at no more than five times those of its lowest-paid workers attest to its mission to go beyond enhancing its own bottom line.
A “nonlinear” giving process
Dr. Bronner’s gives both nationally and internationally. Its All-One International Initiative, which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, has provided more than $1 million to nonprofits including Australia’s Eat Up., which provides food to students in need, and Black Lives Matter Canada. Nonprofits in Taiwan, Israel, the U.K. and Germany have been among the initiative’s beneficiaries.
On the domestic front, in 2023 alone, the company gave more than $5.6 million to nonprofits engaged in issues including animal advocacy, criminal justice reform, fair trade and fair wages, and drug policy reform, which received the majority of Dr. Bronner’s 2023 giving that year at $2.6 million. Bronner’s seems to focus its giving on lesser-known nonprofits: The Black Veg Society, Fair Shake, Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, and The Ecology Center are among Bronner’s grantees. The firm also supports causes and organizations that some people may find controversial, for example, by using its annual report to call out the suffering of Palestinian West Bank olive farmers or its $50,000 grant this year to a psilocybin treatment center in Oregon.
The company doesn’t use open applications to find potential grantees. Instead, individual team members are involved in the process, from inviting nonprofits to apply to vetting the applications once they’re received. In addition to specific staff members whose work is focused on philanthropy, according to Vice President of Public Relations Ryan Fletcher, “we have a variety of team members throughout various departments and task forces that also engage on philanthropy, depending on the issue area.”
The process is nonlinear, Fletcher said, “but generally giving and activism is such a core part of what the company does and how we honor our mission, that many different team members touch the process and come to it through a variety of different ways.”
The company’s Constructive Capital department guides its overall giving, Fletcher said, while some employees also lead specific initiatives. CEO David Bronner, the founder’s grandson, heads the giving for drug policy reform and regenerative organic agriculture alongside VP of Constructive Capital Les Szabo, while Fletcher said that he guides Bronner’s’ animal advocacy giving. In addition to corporate giving, Bronner’s hosts participatory grantmaking circles among its team members and there is also an annual, employee-led giving program where the entire staff nominates and directs money to an organization of their choosing. Most of the firm’s philanthropic money is moved through the corporation, but there is also a Dr. Bronner’s Family Foundation, which has its own process. The family foundation reported net assets of nearly $244,000 in 2023.
Dr. Bronner’s support isn’t limited to moving money; for example, last year, its Social Action department coordinated donations of food and other necessities to Ukrainian war refugees, and the company supported California Assembly Bill 660, a law to standardize food date labels that passed the California legislature and now awaits Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature. The firm also made use of its most uniquely visible asset with last year’s release of a special, limited-addition “Protect Orcas!” soap label to promote the film “Coextinction” and raise awareness of southern resident orcas, which face extinction.
As a journalist covering philanthropy — which, these days, seems to be at least as much about the ways that wealthy people and institutions hoard money as it is about the positive changes that some of that money makes in the world — giving in to cynicism is a tempting prospect. It would be wonderful to be able to say that for every instance of wealth hoarding, crappy/abusive funding practices or just plain hubris in the philanthropshere, there is at least one example like Dr. Bronner’s out there to balance the scales. I can’t prove that, so I certainly cannot write it. What I can say is that Dr. Bronner’s stands alongside Donor Revolt, the Solidaire Network, MacKenzie Scott and many other organizations and individuals who prove that wealth doesn’t always corrupt those who have it. There’s certainly room to hope that others will be inspired to follow their example.
Correction (09/19/24): The original version of this story stated that the majority of Dr. Bronner’s 2023 giving went to migration justice; instead, the majority of its 2023 giving was to drug policy reform, which received $2.6 million.
In addition to unique funders, Dawn Wolfe covers issues including abortion rights/women & girls’ philanthropy, racial and economic justice, the struggle for recognition of LGBTQ equality under the law, and philanthropic reform including the nonprofit worker burnout/hiring crisis. She can be reached at: dawnw@insidephilanthropy.com
