Love Your Melon is a success story all too familiar in the e-commerce world. A simple startup, founded by two college students, now a multi-million-dollar business. But, that's where Love Your Melon breaks the mold. Where most e-commerce stores are all about profit and growth, Love Your Melon is based on the ethos of giving to children battling cancer.
That goal has been more than successful, and to date, Love Your Melon has donated over $2.6 million to nonprofit partners including but not limited to the Make-A-Wish ® America, Ronald McDonald House Charities, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Be The Match, and more.
In 2016, Love Your Melon teamed up with Extensiv as part of their Campus Crew Program, a program made up of college ambassadors who represent the brand and give beanies to children in hospitals all over the country. Extensiv helps them manage fulfillment and distribution of their Campus Crew program merchandise.
What is Love Your Melon?
Love Your Melon was founded in 2012 at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota simple idea of putting a hat on the head of every child battling cancer in America. Originally a class project, the project exploded as the idea caught on. The initiative eventually sold more than 61,000 hats in the first year and has seen exponential growth every year since. To date, Love Your Melon has given over 110,000 beanies to children battling cancer, vastly surpassing their goal to put a hat on every child battling cancer in America. To continue giving to children in need, Love Your Melon evolved their goals and now gives 50% of total profits to charities fighting and researching pediatric cancer.
Their line of apparel, which began as beanies, now includes hats, bandanas, T-shirts, and other Accessories. All of this is manufactured right in the United States. Love Your Melon doesn't outsource, which increases production costs, but does allow them to contribute to another good cause by creating jobs and resources right here at home.
While their ambitious and generous goal of giving 50% of profits away might seem unsustainable to some, Love Your Melon is rapidly scaling, and in 2016, saw revenue in excess of $21 million. Love Your Melon now has 22 employees, and is planning to double growth again for 2017.
The Campus Crew Program
Love Your Melon attributes part of their success to the Campus Crew Program, which works to get college students involved in fighting pediatric cancer. Campus Crew Members are dedicated volunteers from across the country who personally engage with charitable initiatives and raise awareness for childhood cancer, and who represent the brand through promotional events.
The Campus Crew Program works to build crews of students who want to get involved, raise money for charity, and distribute beanies to kids in hospitals. Participants build volunteer experience and distribute hats to children battling cancer dressed as superheroes.
“We used Extensiv for our day-to-day needs for our 2016-2017 Campus Crew Program. It helped us to keep track of products so that Campus Crews could carry out Giving Events all over the country.”
Extensiv stepped in to help with this initiative, providing the ERP for the rapidly growing initiative, which was selling apparel through its own store online. We helped Love Your Melon to fulfill orders as the Campus Crew Program grew to include over 840 campuses, enabling students to successfully carry out Giving Events for hospitals and support facilities with the goal of improving the lives of children battling cancer. During the 2016-2017 school year period, Love Your Melon utilized Extensiv for all sales from the Love Your Melon Crew, successfully fulfilling thousands of orders around the United States.
