Up From the Dust
Tagline: Supporting the global growth of women microenterprises
Founder: Mary Schnack
Founded: 2006
Mission: Brings handmade products to the U.S. marketplace that help support and economically empower women around the world.

Mary Schnack is a serial entrepreneur with a penchant for shopping. Happily for her, one of her businesses takes her all over the world to speak on the topic of business communications, where she can indulge her taste for ethnic items.

In 2006, her love of shopping led her into social entrepreneurship as the owner of Up From the Dust, http://www.upfromthedust.com/ which imports jewelry, purses and home décor from a wide variety of female artisans worldwide who want to grow their businesses.

Up From the Dust is one of three businesses Schnack owns. The others--which make Up From the Dust possible--are the public relations firm Mary Schnack Media Services Inc.  and the communications training business Communication Bridges. The latter allows her to travel the world as a speaker for organizations ranging from the National Association for Women Business Owners to SBO Training of Nairobi, Kenya.

Up From the Dust evolved because there are usually exhibitors at the conferences she attends, and naturally she'd buy items as gifts. "I'd buy place mats for somebody and they'd say, 'Oh, these are great. My sister or my daughter would love these. If you see this woman again, could you get some more of these?' So, finally, I started bringing things back here to sell."

Schnack says she began by exhibiting at women's business shows. She now sells primarily from her website but wants to expand her business to include home parties. "There are some obvious places to expand, and I just haven't had the capital to hire the employees to do that," she says. "I can put together all the materials for the home party network, but then I need somebody out there doing outreach for it."

The same is true of selling her wares to retail stores. A store in Bermuda bought a large number of items from her, but she hasn't approached any stores in the U.S. about doing the same.

Schnack typically extends her business travel a few days so she can locate artisans and buy goods from them. That way she needn't charge time or travel expenses to Up From the Dust. "What Up From the Dust needs to cover," she says, "is the trade shows, the website, the shipping and the products themselves."

All of her wares come with stories. Schnack buys woven items in Swaziland, which has the No. 1 rate of HIV infection in the world. As a result, many of the women she buys her wares from are grandmothers whose children have died, and who are working so they can send their grandchildren to school.

She recounts a story about a Kenyan businesswoman with breast cancer who realized that most of the women in her support group had either been kicked out by their husbands or been fired from their jobs because they were missing too much time for treatment. The businesswoman put together a group of women who make beads to support their families.

Schnack is adamant, however, that "you don't have to be sitting on a dirt floor to need help growing a business. It's so frustrating to me that all people talk about is microloans. What about the woman who has a business at a $10,000 or $50,000 level who stills wants to grow? There's no help for her." She points to a jewelry designer in Egypt who shares an apartment with her husband and two sons. She's trying to grow her business so she can be independent and leave her husband. She told Schnack, "We don't have support networks here like you have in the U.S. If I leave my husband, I'm on my own."

Up From the Dust sales were fabulous in 2006, when Schnack started her business, only to plunge in 2007, as women began holding onto their cash. "Instead of getting the $90 Kashmere shawl, they were getting the $30 silk shawl. It got to the point that I had to quit putting the $30 silk shawls out. Whatever was the least expensive that I would put out is what would sell."

Business bounced back in 2008, nearly doubling from 2007. Schnack's theory is that people bought her items because they felt good about helping others. "I think that in 2008, people were so conscious of how they spent money that the idea of spending that dollar and having that dollar go to help somebody as well as get them a unique item was very attractive."

The business has unique challenges. Cash flow is difficult to maintain because Schnack pays for everything upfront. So Schnack is cautious about buying items in the current economy. "I probably have $25,000 to $30,000 in inventory," she says. "In these times, that's a lot."

Schnack is careful to stick closely to her mission of helping women in developing countries grow their businesses, and to pay fair prices for the items she buys. "Two or three places I was taken to in Indonesia--yes, there are women here working, but it's a man who owns the business. That's not what the point of this is." She also insists on handmade items. "I'm not buying from a woman who might own a factory," she says.

Schnack doesn't negotiate price: In general, she pays what the artisans ask for upfront, or she doesn't buy the goods. She tells these women, "What you're asking for is what this is worth. But that's not what my market will bear." Sometimes a compromise is possible. For example, she says, "I buy beaded ball necklaces from South Africa. They were raising the price and I said, 'I don't have room to raise the prices on these.' They said, 'What if we put five balls on instead of six?' " That was a deal she could live with, she says.

Although her business shows a small profit, Schnack says those dollars go directly back into the business to buy more goods. "I haven't seen the fruits of the for-profit labor yet," she says. Nevertheless, Schnack has no regrets about setting her business up as a for-profit company. "It should be OK to be for profit and help others," she says.