New England Footwear, parent of GoLite Footwear, recently launched a crowd funding effort on Indiegogo, an international site where businesses and charities solicit pledges to raise money. The goal is to raise $150,000 in order to: “Help fund NEF's first American factory and return footwear production to the USA!”
At http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/new-england-footwear-buy-a-pair-change-the-game-make-footwear-here-in-the-us, New England Footwear is looking to raise $150,000 by Nov. 4 with the funding campaign started on Sept. 5. The campaign will only receive funds if at least $150,000 is raised by its deadline.
Investors receive specified pairs of shoes based on donations of $45 for one pair up to $5,000 for 110 pairs. By September 12, $1,350 was raised.
The pledge request talks about the 30-year career of Doug Clark, founder and CEO of New England Footwear who also worked for Timberland, Reebok and Nike in the past. It notes that within a few years after Clark began his career with Nike in the seventies, “he watched helplessly as thousands of footwear factories closed all around New England, taking tens of thousands of jobs overseas. Many of Doug's close friends lost their livelihood, while U.S.-based product teams began making countless trips to Korea, Taiwan, and then China to get shoes made. Although Doug was resigned to the industry's drive toward lower-cost labor, it was then that he committed himself to someday find a way to return shoe making back to New England and America.”
Under “Our Made in America Approach” banner, the copy states that after nearly 30 years of producing in Asia, NEF has developed new techniques that allow for a better way to make innovative, high-quality footwear at a competitive price, closer to home.
In 2011, NEF won a Green Launching Pad Award from the University of New Hampshire. The grant allowed NEF to explore technology ideas and manufacturing techniques that would exponentially increase the productivity of a production line, and remove 70 percent of the labor from the process currently used in conventional “cut, glue, and stitch” Asian factories.
NEF stated, “After two years of innovating on designs, processes, and materials, we now know we can make the same or better shoe for less money – in the USA. And we're ready to take this novel approach to scale. We believe we can make the same or better shoe for the same or better price- in the USA, not in Asia. Our approach means less glue, less material, less waste, higher quality, and breakthrough designs never before seen by the consumer.”
Regarding funding needs, NEF indicated that its first two production lines will cost over $1.5 million to build and staff. Much of the cost can be borrowed through traditional bank loans and economic development programs to help us fund both equipment and the building. But NEF needs more “to show potential investors and/or lenders that there is a market and a passion for great footwear Made in the USA.”
NEF's request concludes, “Many marketers and researchers believe that “Made in the USA” is not that important or motivating to the American consumer. We aim to prove them wrong, one pair at a time. With thousands of pairs pre-sold through this campaign and your money in hand, we believe we can leverage, cajole, and hustle the additional funding we need to turn on the production line in 2014.”
