Founded 2006 Type Non-profit Services Online bookstore | Founder Dr. Jane Cherrington Location New Zealand Website GoGoodBooks.com | |
Good Books International is an online bookstore based in New Zealand. Since its foundation, the company has operated as a non-profit, donating all its proceeds to Oxfam.
The profits donated to Oxfam are then invested in projects throughout the world to reduce poverty. Dr. Jane Cherrington setup Good Books NZ in early 2006. She worked as Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation in New Zealand. She currently works in advertising as head of brand strategy for String Theory.
The initial offering was an online bookstore, which donated all its profits to charity. Good Books International signed a partnership with Oxfam recently, to donate the company's profits from book sales to joint venture projects with the charitable foundation.
The company received critical acclaim in 2012 for their viral online video, promoting the Good Books ethos. It compared how other large online booksellers often made huge profits on book sales while other parts of the world struggled. The advertisement went on to win a gold and bronze award at the London International Awards later that year, as well as many others including the coveted D&AD Yellow Pencil for Film Advertising Craft.
The digital campaign known as "Good Books Great Writers Series", where each short film attempts to creatively tell the Good Books story in the style of the world's most famous literary talents, and hand-picked directors donate their skill and time, free of charge, to create films for the charity.
The series had a follow-up advertisement in late 2012. Named ‘Havana Heat’, it was written as a steamy love letter to Good Books, in the bodice-ripping language made famous by Mills & Boon books.
In 2014, it was announced that the non-profit had begun to work on a similar project with Oxfam Canada, as well as Oxfam New Zealand. During an interview, it was stated that it had taken over five years for the deal to be reached. The reason for the project's delay was due to the innovative nature of the project.
Good Books again received attention in 2015 for a for the third installment of the Good Books Great Writers Series, We Need to Talk About Alice, an ethereal rendition of Alice in Wonderland, which was a finalist in the 2016 AXIS Awards For Good category.
Oxfam partnership
Good Books have run a number of schemes with Oxfam to provide charitable donations to fund projects in partnership with Oxfam. Each time a book is purchased from Good Books, a percentage is given to Oxfam to fund these projects. Much of the work carried out by the projects has been based in the Oceanic regions of Asia including, East Timor, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Their work varies dependent on the region, but includes clean water, sanitation, agriculture development and access to education.
As part of the scheme, Good Books International also suggests that customers sign up to Oxfam's donation service.