BeadforLife 
Tagline: Eradicating poverty one bead at a time
Founders: Torkin Wakefield, Devin Hibbard and Ginny Jordan
Founded: 2004
Mission: BeadforLife creates sustainable opportunities for women to lift their families out of extreme poverty by connecting people worldwide in a circle of exchange that enriches everyone.

In living rooms throughout the United States, women are holding BeadParties, selling colorful jewelry handcrafted in Africa and, at the same time, helping to pull Ugandan women and their families out of poverty.

The beads aren't the only attraction at the parties. Women who attend these get-togethers learn the stories of the indomitable Ugandan beaders. "We try to keep the story connected with the beads," says BeadforLife co-founder Torkin Wakefield. "The beads are beautiful. But the beads plus the story are compelling."

BeadParties are the brainchild of Torkin Wakefield, her daughter Devin Hibbard and good friend Ginny Jordan, co-founders of a nonprofit organization called BeadforLife. The organization also sponsors community development projects in health, vocational training for impoverished youth, affordable housing, and business development and entrepreneurial training for its member families.

The goal is for women to rotate out of BeadforLife after 27 months, either by starting their own business or by developing new revenue streams.

BeadforLife was founded in 2004, after Wakefield and her husband, AIDS physician Charles Steinberg, sent their second child to college. They decided to take their empty nest to Uganda, where Steinberg secured a three-month position teaching AIDS care at a medical school in Kampala.

Jordan and Hibbard were visiting Wakefield in Uganda when the trio came across a Ugandan woman named Millie, who was making bead necklaces out of colorful, recycled paper. She told them she worked in a rock quarry for $1 a day because there was no market for her beads.

Discovering a Market
Captivated, the threesome bought a few necklaces, showed them to friends and began to suspect there was a market for the jewelry after all. They had Millie gather some friends who were also beaders and bought a few necklaces from each of them. Back in the U.S. over the summer, they shopped them around. "Wherever we went, people were fascinated by the story of the beaders. So we had a nice product and incredible stories of hard-working, resilient women," Wakefield says. At the end of that summer, the trio founded BeadforLife as a nonprofit organization.

Wakefield and Steinberg returned to Uganda, and Hibbard and her husband followed shortly thereafter. Jordan stayed in Boulder, Colo., to run the business.

BeadforLife has stores in Kampala and in Boulder, plus about 20 retail partners. Wakefield and Hibbard buy beads every two weeks, and they pay the beaders upfront. They keep the price point low so anyone who attends a bead party can afford to buy the jewelry, which ranges in price from $5 to $30. At the same time, the beaders make about seven times what they were making in their previous employment, Hibbard and Wakefield say.

"We started it rolling, and we've been chasing it ever since," Wakefield says. The community development work arose out of the business model, as the founders learned of the members' many needs, from school fees to housing.

"We began to see in our research that housing was a big, important part of poverty eradication," Jordan says. So they bought 20 acres of land outside Kampala. They named it Friendship Village, and the women help each other build their own homes, often using beads as currency to pay the mortgage. "Everybody can afford to build a house because we'll take it in beads," Wakefield says.

Health care is another important need. Without health, there's no way to sustain steady work. And many of the beaders are HIV positive, according to Jordan. They need medicine and better nutritional options, which a steady income can provide.

"We are not doing handouts," Jordan emphasizes. "This is about income generation and full empowerment." That's why BeadforLife teaches entrepreneurial skills. At the end of her rotation, a woman might buy a vegetable stall. Another might hire six relatives to roll beads and expand her own business. Meanwhile, a cottage industry has sprung up since BeadforLife began. "There are seventy-five other organizations where people are making beads and selling them," Hibbard says. "You can find beads in every town now."

Although the organization is an NGO, it hasn't had to raise funds through donations. "The business generates funds for the nonprofit," Jordan says.

Encountering Generosity
That's thanks, in part, to a happy accident: A freelancer for O, The Oprah Magazine wrote a short article just three months after BeadforLife launched. That article kicked off a lot of interest. "We had a huge response right before Christmas. And we were all completely stunned," Hibbard remembers.

"People naturally want to be generous," Jordan says. "You hear a story about this woman who's lost three children, she's widowed, HIV positive and she took in a neighbor's child when a neighbor died. And somehow, we want to be part of that."

The biggest challenge was getting the infrastructure in place and efficient, Jordan says, "and making sure that we grow naturally and appropriately. We want to assure that we stay a heart-connected organization and close to our roots--which are grassroots.

"We had such success so quickly--a $4 million return after four years," she adds. "We had to slow down to make sure we had enough inventory."

More than 450 women have graduated or are presently members of BeadforLife. Their households typically include seven to 10 people. In addition, many of them are also going back to their village and supporting others, Hibbard says.

BeadforLife members include women from 15 tribes and three other countries: Rwanda, Congo and Sudan. Some 250 youth are in vocational training. And the program also makes small grants to other poverty-eradication projects. So ultimately, Wakefield says, it affects tens of thousands of people.

Jordan's advice for others who'd like to become social entrepreneurs: "You just start."

"If you love what you're doing," Hibbard says, "you're on the right path. I think this is the best job we've ever had."

Jordan agrees. "It's not about us," she says. "We're much more interested in this story being told. We're weaving this fabric of hope and possibilities and real social change from a grassroots model. It's not ultimately that complex."