The Maisons du Monde Foundation also participated in the 1% For the Planet Philanthropic Associations Meeting in October, bringing together the 1% network to raise funds for 41 environmental associations. The Foundation participated in awarding the collective prizes, and awarded two "Coup de Coeur" and "Coup de Pouce" prizes on this occasion.

In the report you can read about all the forest conservation projects (11 projects), wood reuse projects (6 projects) and community actions (4 programs), including four new projects selected during the 2017 call for projects.

Download it here (only french).

In 2018, 1% of companies in France implement ARRONDI, and Maisons du Monde is one of them! For this new edition, all the partners were able to celebrate the 20 million micro-donations made since the start-up began operating!

microDON is a Social and Solidarity Economy start-up that develops innovative solutions to facilitate and promote social commitment. The solutions are designed to encourage and enable everyone to be an actor of change easily and at their own level.

The ARRONDI cash desk round-up scheme gives us the opportunity to educate our customers on the Maisons du Monde Foundation, and show them how they can make their purchases meaningful by donating and co-funding environmental and social projects such as forest conservation.

Selected during the 2018 call for projects, NGO’s receive support from the Maisons du Monde Foundation for a period of three years. Following the selection of six projects by the panel of experts of the Maisons du Monde Foundation, the company's employees voted for 4 associations to be supported by ARRONDI for the year 2018!

In 2017, thanks to the generosity of our customers we won  the prize for the best store participation rate in 2017 with 56% of participation. More than one customer out of two rounded up their purchases by a few cents. Thank you to our store colleagues for their dedication and our customers for their generous donations: this prize recognises the collaborative work of the community!

Selected during the 2018 call for projects, Ishpingo will receive support from the Maisons du Monde Foundation for a period of three years.

Following the selection of six projects by the panel of experts of the Maisons du Monde Foundation, the company's employees voted for the associations to be supported by ARRONDI for the year 2018, and Ishpingo was one of them!

Ishpingo is an NGO that focuses on preserving natural resources and helps Kichwa indigenous communities manage their natural resources more sustainably.

The funds collected via Arrondi will make it possible to:

• Regenerate and protect the forest resource;
• Train beneficiaries in productive and organic farming;
• Build, equip and legalize the fruit processing plant;
• Develop fair trade production, processing and marketing chains for fruits from reforestation.

Starting on July 9, make a round-up at the register micro-donation at any Maisons du Monde store in France and support the Ishpingo project.

(Re)discover the previous project which you supported from April to July. Thanks to your donations, Envol Vert received €94,928,22 to protect the last remaining forest habitat of the cotton-top tamarin monkey in Colombia.

Up until 12 November 2018, associations can apply for the Maisons du Monde Foundation’s new call for projects “Forests & Climate, Wood & Climate”.

Under the aegis of the Fondation pour la Nature et l’Homme, since its creation in 2016, the Maisons du Monde Foundation has supported projects based on two themes:

• Protecting forests and their biodiversity in southern countries
• Recycling wood materials in France and Europe

Trees lie at the heart of all the projects supported. In addition to being a source of raw material, trees are a source of life. They provide ecological services, are social places in some communities, and are one of the climate’s best allies.

Deforestation is responsible for 12% to 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet forests are one of the best solutions for capturing and reducing greenhouse gases. In parallel, at the end of the production chain, 345 million tons of waste is generated every year in France. In this view, many structures are attempting to give it value, especially wood materials, by capturing deposits destined for recycling.

For its selection committee in February 2019, the Maisons du Monde Foundation is launching a call for projects on the theme “Protecting forests” and “Recycling wood” with “climate” as the dominant theme. Projects justifying a climate component will be given priority (reduction, adaptation). Special attention will be paid to associations that show vision and a project that can be replicated, as well as a method for monitoring and measuring its impact (trees, volume of greenhouse gas avoided, capturing of waste deposits, etc.).

The 2019 call for projects is open until 12 November inclusive. Associations can apply to the Foundation for funding of €20,000 to €30,000 a year in the frame of a 3-year partnership.

Project sponsors can download the funding application form and all the documents required on the Foundation’s website and submit their project by e-mail: fondation@maisonsdumonde.com.

Effervescence at the Bellevilloise in Paris last week for the Rencontres Associations et Philanthropes (RAP): over two days, 40 associations came to present their projects to the patrons brought together by the 1% for the Planet network.

In France, this network gathers 170 companies and €5 million paid annually to support environmental causes.

Over these two days, the associations had the opportunity to pitch on one of the seven themes:

• Agriculture, soil and food
• Ecocitizen movements
• Biodiversity
• Active education in contact with nature
• Rivers and oceans
• Climate and energy
• Heath and Environment

Thanks to fund-raising by the 1% for the Planet prior to the event, the best projects were financed immediately. The associations discovered the winners at the closing event on Wednesday 10 October.

For the third year running, the Maisons du Monde Foundation took part in the associations’ presentations and financially supported several projects. Alongside other major patrons (Léa Nature Foundation, Caudalie, Laiterie Vrai, Nature et Découvertes Foundation, Fondation de France, etc.) and through the participation of Fabienne Morgaut, Director of the Foundation, Lisa Mimoun, Project Coordinator, and Marion Martin, CSR reference network coordinator, the Maisons du Monde Foundation contributed to awarding a collective prize for each theme.

This year, the Foundation chose its “favourite” project from the “eco-citizen movements” category and provided €10,000 of funding for the Reporterre association, an independent media that works with young journalists in order to lend a voice to the inhabitants of working-class neighbourhoods about the challenges of climate change and ecological issues.

Each year, the Maisons du Monde Foundation is supporting projects based on three major themes: preserving forests, recycling wood and acting for the environment. After its annual selection committee in March, the Maisons du Monde staff members were asked to choose their four “Favourite” projects. These projects will be financed by the Foundation and also supported by the ARRONDI operation at checkouts. Among them, AICO La Manufacture will benefit from donations from Maisons du Monde customers!

The brand offers its customers the chance to round up their purchases in order to support an environmental cause: forestry preservation in southern countries or association working to recycle wood. Rounding up has become a permanent feature in French stores since 2017: this generosity-based mechanism is supported by customers who round up their purchases more than one time out of every two!

At the end of October, customers in stores will discover the AICO La Manufacture association, based in Prades, Pyrénées Orientales France, and its wood recycling project. Its goal: helping unemployed women to get back to employment and acquire new competencies: craftsmanship with wood.

With this project, AICO La Manufacture hopes to offer these long-term unemployed women a place in society by restoring their confidence (skills, creativity) and presenting the products created to the general public.

The Maisons du Monde Foundation has decided to support this project for three years with a joint environmental and social vocation.

The funds collected at checkouts with Arrondi will help to:

• Increase the reuse of furniture recovered from bulky waste (via the customisation and reconstruction of this furniture)
• Acquire a workshop and a storage room for this activity
• Train the association’s employees and hire a technical assistant
• Raise awareness among the general public with activities and courses on wood recycling

The Maisons du Monde Foundation's mission is to support associations that contribute to the safeguarding of forests and biodiversity, for and through local populations.

Each year, following the Foundation's selection committee, the company's staff choose their "favourite" projects, which will be financed by the Foundation and supported by customers through the "ARRONDI en caisse" scheme.

Every time customers go through the check-out, the store teams suggest rounding up the amount of their purchase to support an environmental cause: the preservation of forests in southern countries, or the recycling of wood-based products.

Since December, Tchendukua is the association benefiting from micro-donations made by Maisons du Monde customers (Tchendukua means "where thought converges"). This association works in Colombia in Sierra Nevada, a region with rich biodiversity but where only 17% of the original forests are still intact. This region is inhabited by four peoples, including the Kogis and the Wiwas, who have lost a large part of their territories.

The association's plan is to help the Indians legally recover their ancestral lands, and thus safeguard their cultures and special relationship with their environment.  

In 2016, API’UP was among the very first associations supported by the first selection committee of the Maisons du Monde Foundation. In 2019, the Foundation renewed this partnership for an additional 3 years! Following the “staff favourites” vote, the API’UP project was chosen to be presented to customers at French stores via the Arrondi Round up operation. Thus, API’UP benefits from the visibility brought by the ARRONDI operation and customer generosity: about one customer out of every two participates in the solidarity Arrondi Round up operation at Maisons du Monde.

API’UP is an association that works to support people in great professional and social difficulty towards employment (long-term unemployment, isolation, etc.). For this, the association has formed an integration work project, the aim of which is to help people in need going back to work by training them in the recycling of waste, including wood.

In 2016, the Foundation financed the purchase of equipment for the “From Waste to Design” workshop. The star product produced at this workshop is the “LEXI” unit, made entirely from solid wood waste.

In 2019, the Maisons du Monde Foundation has renewed its partnership with API’UP to allow them to:

• Extend the materials used to leather and textile
• Conduct research work in order to create new materials from recycled materials!

Thanks to the generosity of customers, the sums collected with the Arrondi Round up operation will finance:

• The team in charge of the design and research and development of new products.
• The purchase of equipment to launch the MATERIA 4.0 programme: the aim is to process even more waste such as leather, fabric, and chipboard furniture in order to make new objects.

On 11 July, the total of the donations collected via the ARRONDI Round up operation exceeded the one million euros threshold. Indeed, since the launch of the ARRONDI Round up operation in all our Maisons du Monde stores in France, customers have made more than 8 million micro-donations to support the forest preservation and wood recycling projects selected by the Maisons du Monde Foundation.

For the occasion, the brand wants to thank its customers for their generosity, but also the staff, in particular the checkout teams, which work daily to promote the associative projects that benefit from the ARRONDI Round up operation. Thus, at Maisons du Monde, about one customer out of every two on average makes a contribution to arrondi at the checkout.

Since 2016, 10 associations have seen their projects financed: Envol Vert, Tchendukua, Le FOYER Notre-Dame-des-Sans-Abris, Ishpingo, GERES, API’UP, AICO La Manufacture, Forestever, Cœur de Forêt and Awely.

Every year, it is these projects that welcome a team of randomly selected Maisons du Monde staff members who are offered the chance to discover the impacts of the donations collected, in the field. For them, the idea is to spend a few days participating in the life of the association which supports the local communities in preserving their environment.