I believe that when women are empowered, so are their families, their communities and the world. That’s why our mission to empower women and girls out of poverty is at the heart of what we do at Lily Anne Family Brands.

Before I conceived the company name, which means pure blessing, I coined the phrase: ‘Social Selling for Social Change’ and decided to embed this concept into the fabric and culture of the business from day one.

It was important for the social impact we were out to create to be sustainable. That’s why we are such a big supporter of microloans. The money is recycled when women pay back the loan and then lent to another woman to build her small business. We’ve contributed to over 1000 micro loans so far and we’ve only been in business for four years.

But we don’t just focus on microloans. The education of women and girls, improved sanitation and the concept of a ‘hand up’ are key to addressing poverty. For most of us we are lucky enough to live in a country where we have access to life’s simple things, like running water, an education and finance. But that’s not the case for many women and girls who live in developing countries.

In many developing countries like Africa, two out of every three women cannot read nor write. A staggering 600 million households in South East Asia don’t have access to adequate sanitation. And most women don’t have access to their own bank account, let alone finance. Without these basics, women are stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty from one generation to the next.

That’s why we are partnering with non-profits to work in the areas of education, sanitation and microloans and have set goals for social initiatives in each of these areas.

We are proud of our partnership with Opportunity International Australia and its Women4Women initiative. Our goal this year is to support the training of 35 health leaders in India, who will in turn train and support 7,000 members of their local communities.

It’s important to me to have real and tangible results come from our social impact. In fact, I’m taking a group of our consultants to India in October next year to see first-hand that impact.