Please visit the PeaceTones website to learn more about our work

We take it for granted that if we wish to sell a product or service, we can create a website and connect that site to e-commerce systems, our bank account or other online marketplaces to make money. For millions of people this is not yet possible, but it is close to being a reality. You can help directly. Click on the PeaceTones icon to the left to learn more at this initiative at the PeaceTones website.

Millions of talented people in the developing world have few options when considering how to make a living from their natural talents and hard-won education. To be an artist, a musician or a skilled craftsperson in many areas of the world is to be tantalizingly close to a world of consumers, but cut-off from direct access. All that is needed is a bridge. You can help us build that bridge. When you do, you’ll know that your generosity made it possible for another human being to live a life in which his or her own self-expression and talent could find the global marketplace.

Building this bridge is fairly simple. On the developing world side we work with individuals to create products. On the developed world side we’re building digital marketspaces–websites and e-commerce relationships with other websites, so that the products can be seen by potential purchasers throughout the world. In the middle we complete this bridge by doing what a for-profit venture cannot: sending the highest possible percentage of dollars back to the local people who produce products.

With an e-commerce marketplace, where the profits go back to the individuals who create the products and the marketing power of the Internet, the support of the global philanthropic community and the good-will of people like you, we can reach the world and break down the Digital Divide. Then people just like you have the opportunity to hope, dream and build positive futures for themselves and their communities.

Esther Robuste, one of the participants in our PeaceTones Initiative, and her family

When we welcome the world to a global marketplace in which the people who make the products receive the profits from their labors, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing, without a doubt, that your generosity led to better lives for people all over the planet. As individuals prosper, communities prosper. As communities prosper, nations prosper. Under conditions like this young people get to hope and dream instead of simmer in anger or despair. Towns and cities get health care and clean water. Merchants can earn a living. Land increases in value. National debt is able to be paid. Freedom is expanded and marketplace economics replaces despotism and black market monopoly.

None of this happens from the top down. The world has tried top-down approaches for a long time. What’s needed is a bottom-up solution. We’re not the only bottom-up solution and we support all groups seeking to work with individuals and communities to increase education, health care, basic rights and bring food, water and shelter. But we fulfill a tremendously important niche: economic self-determination.

Please consider supporting our efforts. The next time you browse a catalog of imported crafts, a for-profit international marketplace website or a local shop with goods from the developing world, consider: who is really profiting from the sale of these goods? Where is the money really going? Do the people who make these beautiful things live beautiful lives?

If these things matter to you support us and build a more just, free, inclusive and hopeful human community!

Please visit the PeaceTones website to learn more about our work!