Your Cart is Empty
Your customers have questions? No problem. Here are the most common ones people ask... feel free to send us yours .
Both, actually. We’re a social enterprise which is an organization created to address a community challenge such as poverty with a market-based approach for sustainable impact. Our legal designation is an L3C, which is a low-profit limited liability company. More simply, we're a hybrid. We prioritize social benefit over profit as written in our founding documents. We prioritize social benefit over all else. You can learn more about L3Cs at Americans for Community Development.
Designed for good has a double meaning, which is why we like it. First, our candles are created from start to finish to positively impact people… you, the woman who made your candle, and when given as a gift, the recipient too. From quality ingredients to the story behind each candle, we hope to brighten lives with something that is really good in the world.
Designed for good also reflects our philosophy that nice things shouldn’t be thrown out. When we design a candle, we envision how it can be used when the wax runs out. Can it easily be refilled with a locally purchased votive candle? Or is it ideal for holding jewelry once cleaned? We imagine how it complements your home and can bring joy for many years.
Reuse, repurpose, recycled and recyclable are always on our mind.
Women are a great investment, and yet so often have limited access to resources. Around the world, women reinvest more of their earnings into creating a better future for themselves and the next generation, especially when it comes to education. So it makes sense to invest in them, and that empowering women economically leads to greater peace and shared prosperity. Discover more at UN Women.
We also believe that equal representation in all things – business, education, politics, science, board rooms, community leadership and more – strengthens organizations, improves lives, and leads to a more sustainable world. After all, women are half the globe's population.
Turns out that candles are a great way to create economic opportunities. They are a handcrafted, consumable product made with local materials for a global market, and candle-making is a low-cost enterprise that is highly scalable. An artisan can launch her business in the safety of her home (essential in places of social unrest) yet grow it well beyond - not be stuck there. She can transition from living in poverty to thriving in a matter of months with access to markets. How candles came to be the ideal product is shared on our Full Story page.
We combine our candles with unique vessels and accessories to broaden our impact and celebrate artisans around the world.
We have practiced fair trade principles from the start, building our model on the foundation created by the World Fair Trade Organization . We are passionate advocates for ethically made goods, and support the fair trade principles of gender equity, respect for the environment, and living wages in our studio.
We are B-Corp certified for social and environmental sustainability, recognized 2 years in a row by B-Lab as a Best for the World company.
We are a small group of people who believe that social enterprises can help solve many of the world’s problems. Our backgrounds span international development, business, literature, journalism and women’s studies.
Our founding team is Amber, Siiri and Ted. Today Prosperity Candle is a majority women-owned small business run by Patsy, Ted and Moo Kho who is a former refugee from Burma. The candle-makers in our Easthampton, MA studio are women refugees seeking a living wage and a first job opportunity... some are with us for years, others for a few months as they complete school and pursue their careers. Altogether we are 10 people at a time in the studio, plus hundreds of artisans who make candles and vessels for us in other countries.
And Riley! She's a rescued pup hailing from Louisiana. We’re told she’s a mix of Labrador and Whippet, but who knows. She’s with us all the time, pretty much owns the studio's couch, and comes home every day smelling wonderful.
We started in Iraq working primarily with widows and expanded to Haiti in 2012. Today most of our candles are handmade by women artisans here in our Massachusetts studio, all of whom lived for many years as refugees before relocating to the U.S. through UN and federal programs.
Through purchases of unique vessels and accessories, we also impact lives in over 20 countries from Afghanistan and Bangladesh to Kenya, Rwanda and Nicaragua. The work in Iraq and Haiti has also expanded and continues under our sister nonprofit, Prosperity Catalyst.
Read more about our model and where we work in the Boston Globe.
From the start we believed in going where the need is greatest, and where few others are willing or able to go. Our focus has been on regions of conflict and disaster where supporting women’s entrepreneurship can help rebuild lives and enable families to thrive. In the U.S., we work with women who are refugees from these same regions.
Shared prosperity is our way of talking about commerce as a force for good. When a business focuses on profit and the needs of relatively few shareholders, others in the world tend to lose. But when that same business balances profits with the common good, benefits accrue more fairly.. prosperity is shared, which in turn promotes peace and sustainability. To us, it's about taking fair trade one step further and trying to do what's right.
One of the most common questions people ask is how much of each candle goes to the woman who made it. The answer has always been 100%. Because everything Prosperity Candle does, every decision we make, every moment of every day is dedicated to helping her thrive.
But we understand what they are asking. In terms of labor, anywhere from 15% to 30% of the retail price of a candle goes to the woman who made it. It depends on the candle, where it comes from, cost of shipping from places like Iraq and Haiti, and how expensive the vessel is.
Our Eva Bowls, for example, were hand-painted by women artisans in Kashmir, where conflict and natural disaster have devastated communities. They are fair-trade imported, then made into unique candles and gift packaged by women refugees here in the U.S. When sold for $25, 25% is for the re-usable bowl which includes compensation to the Kashmir women artisans, 22% goes to the women refugees in the U.S., 19% is for materials (wax, fragrance, gift packaging), and the balance of 34% covers our rent, website, and overhead.
For us it's less about how much a woman artisan earns per candle than how much she can earn in a day. Because it is the daily income that indicates whether someone has escaped poverty and can put food on the table... $2 could be an exceedingly fair price for something, but if it’s as much as a person can produce in a day, then it’s still extreme poverty.
That's why we chose candles. An artisan can go from poverty to earning better than a living wage because the enterprise is so scalable. We love all artisan-made products, and are dedicated to fair trade principles. We just like to add what we view as an essential ingredient to ending poverty: the opportunity to truly thrive.
The first ideas for helping expand artisan opportunities were jotted down sometime in 2004. But it wasn’t until 2008 that candles and a focus on women in regions of conflict crystallized. We launched a pilot project in Baghdad in 2009 in partnership with Women for Women International, and Prosperity Candle was officially formed in 2010.
You can read more about our start in The Full Story.
We make both scented and unscented (100% fragrance-free) candles in over 100 fragrances. Most are poured-to-order, which means we don’t make them until requested by a customer. This ensures we have inventory of even our most limited edition vessels available in any scent and our candles are always fresh.
We use both essential oils and premium fragrance oils based on essential oils. Essential oil fragrances contain only botanical extracts. Fragrance oils include additional ingredients to improve scent throw and compatibility with waxes. Our fragrance oils are used in cosmetics, soaps and other personal products. All are skin-safe and phthalate free.
Most of our candles are poured with an all-natural soy and coconut wax blend. Our beeswax candles are made from combining the highest quality beeswax and soy wax, and carries the natural honey scent of beeswax. We do not add any dyes or enhancers. All waxes are made in the U.S.
All our wicks are 100% cotton or sustainably harvested wood. We never use wicks with metals or other unhealthy substances in them.
We believe in reusable first, and always recycled/recyclable materials. We don’t think any product should be thrown away. Many of our vessels come from around the world, including fair trade from Egypt, Honduras, Kenya, Nicaragua, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. We also purchase from artisans in the U.S., Canada, Turkey and other countries.
We source our baskets, soaps, coffees, teas, jewelry, scarves and other accessories from fair trade partners, and endeavor to support women artisans as much as possible. These items are made in the U.S. and in over 12 countries around the world including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Congo, Ecuador, Haiti, Ghana, Honduras, India (and Kashmir), Nicaragua, Pakistan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
Yes! We love creating unique private label designs, and offer lots of options. Visit our Private Label page for more information.
Yes! We offer a beautiful selection of corporate and event gifts that are ideal for clients, employees, conferences, speakers, Board members, donors and volunteers.
Unique products, exceptional quality, tremendous impact... and full customization - not just your logo. We custom design labels, packaging and note cards with your entire brand – logo, colors, images, messaging and more. It’s what we love to do.
And not only are gift recipients wowed and appreciative, but the company or nonprofit’s brand is enhanced at the same time. Our clients have included Accenture, Oxfam, CARE, Microsoft, Univision, Harvard University and many more.
Click here to contact us about corporate gifts.
Just ask! Call (413) 203-5444 or email us at wholesale@prosperitycandle.com. And if you have suggestions, creative ideas or stories to share, we’d love to hear them. Everything we do every day serves our mission and helps create connections with people like you.
What inspires you?