(Photo above: (L-R) Jordan Sofro (Directory of Product), Tor Naerheim (Chief Creative Officer), Christian Rea (Founder & CEO), Nate Kay (Chief Strategy Officer), Vinny (Shop Dog) | Photo Courtesy of Pixypics)
Do Good Prints on a Mission to Change the World
Thousands of children carry out the arduous fight against cancer and other debilitating illnesses every day, where uplifting and encouraging moments can be few and far between.
A native to Bend, Christian Rea founded an eCommerce benefit corporation, PixyPics, in hopes of capturing the special instances children cherish with their families through digital prints.
“Celebrating those life moments through photography,” Rea explains, “is exciting to me and helping capture that with our customized photo products for kids is a great inspiration of mine.
The philanthropic opportunity spoke personally to me in building a business for good that could support a lot of efforts. As a father of two, your heart goes out to people that are disadvantaged across the age scale.”
Printing your photos on blankets, pillows, canvas and metal art, PixyPics offers an array of custom made products to support nonprofits. Twenty percent of the company’s proceeds go to charity partners, including Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and KIDS Center, as a means of enriching the lives of children struggling with abuse, illness, eating disorders or lack of access
to education.
Next Up? PixyPics is expanding its causes it supports. Enter… Signature Causes by PixyPics.
In addition to supporting worthy causes with twenty percent of company profits, PixyPics is launching a new marketplace called Signature Causes. The mission? This new platform contains campaigns that connect epic artists with epic causes.
The platform commissions art and photography from local artists to print and sell custom products that give back to nonprofits and promote stories of inspiration.
The company is focusing its outreach on people passionate about philanthropy, as well as influencers and personalities searching for a marketplace to sell their artwork and photography on PixyPics products. A requirement is that they contribute at least twenty percent of their sales to a charity of their choice that
aligns with the organization’s mission to do more good.
Rea notes that building an audience and creating partnerships with charitable organizations and artists remains a priority for 2018. More recently, PixyPics is teaming up with Doernbecher Hospital to give away 100 free plush fleece blankets to young cancer patients.
“We thought it would be a great idea to find partners with this program to be able to give blankets at Doernbecher, so children could have their family with them at their hospital bed,” says Rea. “They can look down at their blanket and see their mom, dad and siblings’ faces.”
Prior to launching PixyPics, Rea spent 13 years in Rochester, New York, the imaging capital of the U.S. and the birthplace of Kodak and Xerox. He got his initial start with Applied Graphics, which was eventually bought out by Fujifilm. He notes that participating in all different parts of the business and understanding how they all impacted one another, is one of the best lessons he has learned throughout his career.
Rea returned to Central Oregon in 2013, working as a project manager for local digital marketing company G5, before setting his sights on creating his own business.
“What inspired me to go on my own a few years ago was to be able to create a business that delivers value, not only to the people that work there but also the community around it. The underlying philosophy for us is being able to know that what we do every day is the best source of inspiration we can find and that ties in our vision for being a benefit corporation and the easiest way to put it is we’re looking to be the Tom’s shoes of photos, that are power players in the space that have a social conscience. It’s nowhere near where we want it to be and that’s what we’re out to solve.”
The real inspiration behind PixyPics is to be a brand that supports a movement, the movement of social entrepreneurship that embraces the motto of business as a force good. To contribute in building a future where new generations asks what a product stands for every time they make purchase decision.
PixyPics.com • christian@pixypics.com • 585-943-5826
