The establishment of Open Supply Hub (OS Hub) as a non-profit organization comes down to one word: trust.
An original idea is a powerful thing—and when you’re nurturing one, as OS Hub’s Executive Director Natalie Grillon was in 2017, you find yourself with a responsibility to direct that power in one of a few available directions—a traditional for-profit corporation, a non-profit organization, a socially-driven business enterprise. How do you choose?
A Deep Dive Made the Choice Clear
Open Supply Hub (previously the Open Apparel Registry (OAR)) is an organization that makes choices like this with deep intentionality.
Before there was any kind of map or profiles of production locations, Natalie and her team conducted extensive research and stakeholder engagement. This process included an in-depth exploration into what kind of entity the organization should be. In addition to laying the groundwork for ongoing engagement with global stakeholders, those discussions made it clear that the only choice was to be a neutral, non-profit data institution. And that’s because our stakeholders talked about trust as the key to our success.
Our research and conversations revealed time and again that the right governance structure and clear positioning were imperative to gain stakeholder buy-in. To do that, we knew we had to position the organization as a neutral entity, built for the benefit of (initially) the entire apparel sector and, shortly after, supply chains across all industries.
Convincing Companies to Open Up
After all, what eventually became OS Hub relies heavily on the sharing of information that has historically been considered intellectual property and kept under lock and key. But without knowing where things are made, identifying and collaborating on solutions for global challenges, like forced labor or deforestation, is impossible.
Sure, there are plenty of for-profit supply chain tech solutions. But their data is too often behind closed doors, shutting out civil society, unions, and governments—three critical stakeholders for tackling issues like human rights and environmental protection.
For our platform to be successful, we had to convince brands, civil society, and governments alike to open up their data and collectively help us make the platform the global resource we knew it could be. To do that, we couldn’t just talk the talk of neutrality—we had to walk the walk. We heard loud and clear that stakeholders of all kinds would not have been as willing to share their data with a for-profit company with potentially vested interests.
Our openness is key, too: OS Hub is the world’s first open database of supply chain production sites, approaching this data as a public good, believing this crucial information should be neither monopolized nor owned. It’s another way of showing our faith in collective, long-term solutions to deeply entrenched problems.
Collaboration and Transparency in Action
To this day, we find a great deal of meaning in our identity as a non-profit organization. It conveys our neutrality to stakeholders and our belief that everyone along the supply chain deserves to have a seat at the table as we try to shed light on and address deep, systemic issues. And as a non-profit, we’ve been able to build those values of inclusiveness and transparency into our governance structure. We’ve mandated in our bylaws that different types of stakeholders—unions, brands, civil society organizations, service providers—have equal seats at our table. No one group is “good” or “bad”; everyone is trying to create a better supply chain ecosystem for the benefit of people and the planet.
Our non-profit status is also key to our long-term financial sustainability. We were initially established with 100% philanthropic support as we refined and launched the platform. Then, we introduced Premium Features (OS Hub’s API and Embedded Map) as paid-for services, expanding our funding streams beyond sole reliance on philanthropic funding—also crucial for our neutrality to not be beholden to any entity or industry. (We do offer a program for non-profits and other civil society organizations to apply for free access to our premium products.)
Our success, built upon our belief that everyone needs to gather around a single table to solve a set of massive global problems, is a celebration of the entire OS Hub community: early adopters, as well as new users and contributors; major global brands and small civil society organizations; industry multi-stakeholder initiatives and individual production locations.
The beauty of OS Hub is our kaleidoscope of global users—and we are here to serve and work alongside them all, standing firmly and proudly in our non-profit status.
OS Hub is a non-profit platform that relies on philanthropic support to sustain the world’s most complete, open and accessible supply chain map. Join us in powering the transition to safe and sustainable supply chains by making a donation today.
