In 2019 Dr. Bronner’s launched the All-One International Initiative, a global philanthropy project founded by company President Michael Bronner and Public Relations Director, Ryan Fletcher. After years of work together developing the company’s international markets and promoting Dr. Bronner’s “soap and soul” around the world the two realized that more was needed to help elevate the “soul” side of the company outside of the United States.
Under the banner of “Global Mission, Local Impact,” All-One International was designed to provide the company’s international distributors around the world an outlet to make a positive impact in their markets on company-aligned issue areas. At the same time the program would help international customers more easily understand the ethos of the brand, while knowing their dollars were contributing to community betterment and social change locally. In the U.S., Dr. Bronner’s has existed in the cultural imagination as an iconic, soulful, counterculture body care brand for decades, often known for activism and charitable work. This new initiative would help ensure that Dr. Bronner’s mission and core values were more visible, and our impact more tangible, abroad.
Through All-One International, one percent of Dr. Bronner’s sales to participating international distributors, are given to local organizations working in support of social justice, environmental sustainability, and animal advocacy. Dr. Bronner’s and our local partners support organizations that work on a range of issues like racial justice, homelessness, plastic waste reduction, regenerative organic agriculture, farmed animal sanctuary projects, as well as creative media projects that seek to highlight the cruelty inherent in the factory farming industry. Further, All-One International is a participatory grant making program that involves multiple stakeholders in the decision making and organizational processes involved in making donations and building relationships with our partner organizations.
We were so proud to mark five years of the All-One International Initiative with the conclusion of our 2023 giving last year. Further, we are thrilled that the initiative will continue to bolster the work of diverse organizations working across multiple modes of advocacy. The All-One International Initiative was piloted in 2019 in Germany and the UK. Dr. Bronner’s initially supported only three organizations with a budget of $10,000. Jump forward to 2024 and Dr. Bronner’s has donated over $1,000,000 to 70 organizations in 20 countries in total since the initiative began.
The creation of the All-One International Initiative was driven by Dr. Bronner’s President Michael Bronner’s passion for supporting our international distributors in publicizing the company’s mission. When asked to share some thoughts on the initiative’s five-year milestone, Michael said: “Since the inception of our company, Dr. Bronner’s has always worked to be an engine for positive and meaningful social change. It is our mission to use our company to fight for and financially support our core causes, not only in the U.S., but across the globe. We are proud to have been able to provide over one million dollars since 2019 to effective and dynamic organizations around the world working to make progress for animals, people, and the planet. The All-One International Initiative embodies the ethos of my grandfather’s All-One! message and actualizes the vision he had about uniting and fighting for what’s right.”
As someone who has supported this project on a daily basis for the past two years, it has been such an honor to interact with powerful, impactful, and humble activists, organizers, and organizations that have used Dr. Bronner’s support to continue creating tangible change in their local communities. I really appreciate the funding model we practice through this initiative, and how it centers the needs of the organizations and local communities. Conventional international philanthropy is a hotly contested subject. There are powerful critiques of the ways in which conventional practices of international philanthropy have reinscribed unfortunate hierarchies of power and have replicated existing corrupt and rigged social and economic systems that prevent a humane and honest distribution of wealth and resources. The All-One International Initiative serves as a guide and template for progressive international giving practices that revolve around the needs of the local community.
Through the process of reviewing funding applications from the organizations we have supported all over the world, in collaboration with our international distributors and my colleagues at Dr. Bronner’s, I have gained a deeper understanding of Dr. Bronner’s “All-One!” mission. “All-One!” isn’t a statement or declaration that seeks to flatten out our differences or erase diversity, it’s a recognition that there are familiar themes and patterns that emerge in our lived experiences that connect us, and we must all be united in a common fight to do what’s right if we want to peacefully coexist and thrive.
For example, last year I reviewed a funding application for Homedoor, a brilliant organization that works on issues of homelessness in Japan. Directly afterwards, I read the funding application for Emmaus, Brighton, & Hove, an organization that is supported under the All-One UK initiative that works to stop poverty and homelessness at the root. I immediately noticed that even though Homedoor and Emmaus, Brighton, & Hove are located on different continents, there are still compassionate people working to fight against similar issues like homelessness in their local communities. I felt a similar moment of synergy when I read the funding applications from Edgar’s Mission, a farmed animal sanctuary in Australia, and Freedom Farm Sanctuary, a farmed animal sanctuary in Israel. I felt this powerful pull to bring these organizations and stories together in one space so that we can truly see the “All-One!” spirit in action.
It’s easy to zoom in on an All-One International chapter to see how the organizations and their efforts for social justice, environmental sustainability, and animal advocacy are all making tangible impacts in their local communities; however, once you zoom out and examine the organizations working to improve social and material conditions all over the world, you start to realize that each All-One International chapter represents one star in a larger constellation of change.
Some of the frontline organizations that Dr. Bronner’s has supported are making history. For example, In April 2024, Animal Justice, Canada’s only national animal law organization, successfully defeated much of Ontario’s ag gag law in court – a law that would have silenced whistleblowers and journalists who go undercover to document abuses in animal industries. The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, an organization supported through All-One Israel and led by Dr. Tareq Abu Hamed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2024. The Arava Institute works to educate future leaders who can meet the Middle East’s environmental challenges with innovative peace-building solutions to ensure a sustainable future in the region. Oogachaga, an organization supported through All-One Singapore, is Singapore’s most established community-based nonprofit organization working with LGBTQ+ individuals, couples, and families since 1999. This is just a small glimpse into the impact these organizations are making in our global community. We have so many incredible nonprofit partners through the All-One International Initiative!
At a time where there is so much uncertainty in the world, where conflict after conflict dominates the headlines, and where the fracturing of our communities is broadcast and put on display for public consumption on almost all social media and television channels, we hope that the organizations supported by the All-One International Initiative provide you with a sense of pride, unity, and hope for the future…and even hope for the present. Most importantly, we hope that you see how the “All-One!” spirit cuts through borders, languages, time zones, and cultures and offers new territory where we can all be global citizens who dare to work together to take care of the planet, to honor the dignity of animals, and to love each other as people who all deserve to exist.
Below is a list of each chapter that has participated in the All-One International Initiative, whether they participated in the initiative for one year, or all five. For each chapter you will find a highlight from one organization, and a list of the other organizations that have received support. Thank you to my colleagues abroad, Dr. Bronner’s International Distributors who anchor each of these All-One International Chapters in their respective locales, and thank you to Lilia Letsch, my colleague on Dr. Bronner’s PR Team who I work with on the day to day management of this program, along with all of the awesome members of Dr. Bronner’s International Sales and Marketing team. As I mentioned, this effort is a participatory grant making program, and there are many stakeholders, including Dr. Bronner’s senior leadership, and the Bronner family who make it all possible.
Most of all thank you to all the Dr. Bronner’s customers all over the globe who purchase our products, ultimately, we couldn’t do this without each of you!
UK
- Emmaus Brighton & Hove is an organization that provides accommodations and social enterprise occupation opportunities to formerly unhoused individuals. They are dedicated to fighting the root causes of poverty. Dr. Bronner’s funding has provided general support as well as helping with the renovation and redesign of their communal companion spaces.
- Other organizations supported:
- Surge
- Ecohustler
- City to Sea
- Less Plastic
- Compassion in World Farming
- UK Youth Climate Coalition
Learn more about the organizations supported through the All-One International Initiative here.
Dr. Bronner’s is a family business committed to honouring the vision of our founder Dr. E.H. Bronner by making socially and environmentally responsible products of the highest quality, and by dedicating our profits to helping make a better world. “All-One!”