Ten Thousand Villages - Today

Today

As an importer, wholesaler and retailer, Ten Thousand Villages is a successful non-profit enterprise. The Ten Thousand Villages headquarters is currently located in Akron, Pennsylvania. The company uses sales profits to increase purchases from artisan partners and to expand its domestic distribution channels. In 2006-2007 fiscal year, the company increased purchases from artisans by more than one million dollars.

Ten Thousand Villages markets products through multiple sales channels, from its retail network of more than 80 stores nationwide to an e-commerce website. The company also works as a wholesaler to supply several hundred retailers nationwide. Additionally, local groups at churches, colleges and community centers around the country host festival sales, the company’s oldest distribution channel.

Individual stores are staffed by volunteers ensuring that administrative costs are kept at a bare minimum. However, in recent years Ten Thousand Villages has been operating more like a business. In order to improve management quality, the stores now have fulltime managers who are paid. This came into effect under the observation that volunteers are more effective workers when they have consistent and focused supervision. In doing so, Ten Thousand Villages is participating in a larger trend among non-profit organizations to employ private sector business strategies as a means to more effectively raise funds.

There are currently 51 stores in Canada alone with the most recent being located in Cobourg, Ontario.