Partnering for Good with Levenger Products

At Levenger we express our support of lifelong learning mainly through the products we create and sell. These products are designed to be helpful, and sometimes inspirational, to people who are pursuing their professional and avocational work involving reading, writing and thinking.

We also support lifelong learning through the financial support of the Levenger Foundation, which provides small but important grants directly to libraries, literacy groups and the National Book Foundation.

And happily, we also support lifelong learning by combining these two approaches. We do this by partnering with libraries, museums and other institutions to create products from their collections and paying them a portion of the proceeds. We call it Partnering for Good. It’s part of a movement today generally described as Conscious Capitalism.

In the last twenty years, social good has been accomplished by profit-making companies (beyond the normal good of creating jobs and advancing the economy). Companies like The Grameen Bank, The Body Shop in the UK, and Patagonia and Whole Foods in the US have demonstrated on a large scale how company profits and social profits can be mutually reinforcing. In our small way, Levenger has been doing similar things.

On the video below is a gallery of some of the products we've created with nonprofit institutions since our first partnership with The New York Public Library in 1993. Perhaps you own one of these products. That makes you a partner in our Partnering for Good—you’ve already helped lifelong learning more than you may know.

Since Partnering for Good began, Levenger has paid more than $160,000 in earned contributions to nonprofit institutions.

As always, we're interested in hearing of more institutions in the United States and worldwide that would like to partner with Levenger in such fashion. We would consider it a favor if you'd make an introduction.

Just click on the Comments link below with your submission. (If you’re reading this as an email, click here and you'll connect to Comments).

With best wishes,

Steve

Click on the video below:

In 1993, just six years after our start, Levenger partnered with The New York Public Library to reproduce the handsome brass desk lamps in its famed reading room. Levenger sold the lamps and paid a royalty to the library. Since that first lamp, we've worked with many institutions to create other equally enlightened products.

Comments

[E. Melvin]

Thank you so much for the work you do. I work in a Title I school as do most of my friends, and through the work you and others do we are able to improve literacy in our communities. Now I can feel less guilty as I imbibe in my own "Guilty little pleasures." Thank you again, not only for your amazing products, but for giving to communities everywhere.

[Mark]

I've been in George Eastman's house many times and never made the connection between the products in your catalog and the mansion. Great video.

[John T (Jack) Garland]

Hi Steve, We have been great fans for many years as we enjoy quite a few Levenger products. Thoroughly enjoyed a presentation you gave in Delray (sponsored by either Northern Trust or Cornell Alumni Club of Eastern Florida) illustrated by slides of products that did or did not sell well, and outlining the process of development. We visited the warehouse several times before it moved (and we moved to MN).

This thank-you is prompted by observing our grandson use an old lap desk (propped on a pillow) to make his new small train climb up. Know you are interested in new uses for your fine products.

Best regards and wishes for the new year.