About Us

Warm Heart Online is the e-commerce platform of the Warm Heart Microenterprise Project run by the Warm Heart Foundation of Phrao, Thailand, an incorporated nongovernmental organization, and Warm Heart Worldwide, Inc. of Highland Park, NJ, USA, a 501.c.3 nonprofit.

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The Microenterprise Project helps poor families help themselves. Your purchases contribute directly to improving the welfare of participating artisans and their families – grandparents, husbands and wives, children and grandchildren. Artisans’ earnings from Microenterprise Project sponsored businesses permit them to feed their families more, get them health care, keep their kids in school longer, improve their homes and sanitation, and reduce their dependence upon seasonal, back breaking work as agricultural day laborers. The income that your purchases generate in their tiny communities also has ripple effects as it improves the lives of little shop owners, local producers of fish sauce, and families that make roof thatching.

The Warm Heart Microenterprise Project serves Phrao, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand, one of the poorest districts in northern Thailand, despite its location in the shadow of Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second biggest city and a tourist hub. Phrao is rural with no jobs and a surplus of labor. It is possible for an adult to work full time in our community and still live below the local poverty line of $0.50 per day. As early as age 13 or 14, the landless – a third of the population – must seek work in the cities. The result is unstable families, disrupted educations and the worst consequences of persistent poverty. Until we can create the businesses in Phrao to give real jobs to its citizens, the systematic destruction of the families, villages and culture of Phrao will continue.

Your purchases play a critical role in our plans for the future. The Microenterprise Project is not a silver bullet. But as our volume of sales rises and artisans are able to leave day labor completely, grow their businesses, make longer term plans, and send their kids to high school, we see the start of something new and better for Phrao.

The initial success of the Warm Heart Microenterprise Project already provides hope and has proved that bootstrap entrepreneurship works.

We hope that you will continue to help, too!

How does the Microenterprise Project work?
The Warm Heart Microenterprise Project helps groups interested in establishing microenterprises to set up shop and we then act as the international marketing and sales agent for them.
 
Start-Ups
The Microenterprise Project does not focus primarily on the business of “microenterprise.” In many cases, the “groups” with which we start may be, for example, the HIV/AIDS affected people who congregate at a local temple or the old folks in a cluster of village. We help these diverse individuals form a coherent unit that can function as a “business.” Only then do we begin the process of creating a small business.
 
The Microenterprise Project finances this work with its portion of the profits of the International Marketing and Sales operation, including Warm Heart Online.

International Marketing and Sales
Artisans engaged in commercial production of “traditional” crafts are among the most exploited workers in the international division of labor. Working in tiny, unregulated workshops they often work for almost nothing producing the endless stream of baskets, Buddhas, elephants, Kleenex box covers and other stuff that fills the “traditional” markets of every Third World city and every dollar store in America.

We exist to ensure that our partners get a fair return for their labor and profit directly from the huge leap that prices take when products move from the developing to the developed world. Here’s how it works:

  • We buy from our partners at the highest local retail price.
  • We then assume all the risk for international sales – bulking, shipping, and marketing their product.
  • As product sells, we credit each sale to the account of the specific partner producer.
  • At the end of the quarter, we split net profits on sales 50:50 with each partner.
Our 50% of the net profit funds the Microenterprise Project.

Our partners’ 50% of American profits effectively triples the prices that most realize from their products.

Here is the immediate, dramatic effect of your purchase!

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