After being asked by a recruiter at a job fair what he was going to do to help military Veterans, Mario Barret ’07 started thinking.
He found the answer in a new business model he hopes more Veteran entrepreneurs will adopt. Barrett and his fiancé founded a sock subscription company, Sockwork: Socks With A Purpose. They send subscribers new pairs of socks every month and donate a percentage of profits to several Veteran charities they’ve partnered with. They hope to pioneer a new business model where Veteran entrepreneurs start for-profit companies with a percentage of profits earmarked to donate to a rotating base of Veteran charities. By teaming up, they create a community effect and can provide valuable donations over the long-term. Barrett expects monetary donations to drop for Veteran causes as our nation moves further from its recent wars. When the model catches on, he envisions new streams of donations coming in from Vets who start their own companies.