Update (3/22): All purchases at neighborhoodgoods.com now generate some social good. We're providing donations to the COVID-19 Response Fund on 2% of all purchases. Our Neighborhood Goods line drives 10%. This equally divides donations across UNICEF USA, United Nations Foundation Inc., CDC Foundation, and Feeding America. No action needed on your end. It's included in your transaction. We handle the rest.
In May 2018, when we first announced Neighborhood Goods, I wrote a two sentence overview of our concept to share with the world:
“Neighborhood Goods is a new type of department store, featuring an ever-changing landscape of thoughtful, exciting, and contemporary brands, stories, and events.
More than that, Neighborhood Goods strives to be a place for community, bringing people together to shop, eat, discover, and learn across our growing number of stores throughout the country.”
Over the weekend, I found myself reading it a fair amount. We were in our newly-opened store on South Congress in Austin, Texas and these two sentences had been physically installed into a feature wall near one of the entrances.
Around lunchtime on Saturday, March 14, we made the call to close our stores. When it came time to write a note about the closure, I found myself reflecting on the second sentence, in particular, where we describe ourselves as being “a place for community,” a place where we can bring “people together to shop, eat, discover, and learn.”
So, when we put out a statement, we led with the comment: “We’ve always strived to have community at the heart of everything we do. And that continues to be the case. But, for the near future, that won’t be within the walls of our stores.” What I didn’t mention is that our vibrant and expanding community of visitors, customers, brands, investors, friends, family, and employees can — and should! — continue to come together digitally while our stores are closed.
So, we have some plans.
First things first, I should mention that our website is open for business. We’re currently working with over 100 world-class brands, many of whom could use your support. For us, we’re uniquely situated to make those products available to you — given the climate — a little bit more easily than we would otherwise.
Starting today, 3/17, all domestic shipping is free on our website. We’re also honoring many of our brands’ discounts and promotions, with their permission, so reach out if you don’t see anything reflected. Many of our brands who were not available for shipping are also opting for that ability through our website, so you’ll see those change rather frequently too.
We’re also going to be activating on-demand delivery for Austin and Plano on a similar basis, in addition to rolling out charitable donations and live chat on the site.
Outside of that, we have a lot of uplifting/fun/dumb ideas to contribute to this odd moment in history.
We feel obligated to provide as much support to this community as possible. So, we’re kicking off a series of experiments and projects, as a team, to keep our teams engaged and working, while we do as much as we can to keep you — all of our neighbors — feeling supported and positive.
We’re calling it 'Only Good Things' and it’s starting today, March 17, 2020, with all manner of memes, positive stories, in-home exercise and cooking classes, playlist and podcast recommendations, and spotlights on some brands — local and national — that could use your love. We may even open up some of our virtual team happy hours and the like to you all.
On the web, you’ll find an influx of informal experiments from us — some might be series, some might be one-offs — to see what we can all do to keep everyone bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in an otherwise messy time.
Tess Philips, who runs Brand Partnerships & Merchandising for us, used to host Craft Camp for kids and teens. We all like to talk about Tess’ Craft Camp. (For many different reasons.) And this is our time to bring that spirit to bear.
Follow us on Instagram, if you don’t already. Keep a tab open to our Stories page. And, in between it all, shop some of our brands. It’ll do them — and all of us — some good.
