Fashion designer and model Lauren Bush Lauren recently announced that her next collaboration will be with none other than Blake Mycoskie’s TOMS. According to Stylite, Mycoskie and Bush will team up to create a special shoe that in addition to providing a pair of shoes for a needy child as per TOMS’ One for One model, will also “send meals” to them as well. Bush Lauren is just one of many celebrities who have either worked with or endorsed Mycoskie and TOMS, who have recently expanded their product line to include eyewear (which, naturally, helps give eyesight to a person in need for every pair purchased.)

If you’re going to write a piece on “corporate social purpose,” Blake Mycoskie (founder of TOMS Shoes) is your go to example. From Forbes:

It’s now possible to improve your business by giving away your products and services. Not by traditional free trial offers. By embedding your social purpose in what you don’t sell.

Here are three inspiring examples of companies that had the courage to abandon the  most fundamental principle of business and built or strengthened their firms in ways that wouldn’t have been possible without offering their products for free.

Since its founding in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, TOMS has matched every pair of TOMS shoes purchased with a new pair given to a child in need. Mycoskie calls the matching concept the One for One movement. Even some of the most cynical Gen-Y’ers are supporting the company by raising awareness about the impact a pair of shoes can have on a child’s life at more than 1,200 TOMS Campus Clubs across North America.

Just in: TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie’s new book, two years in the making, Start Something That Matters. The book hit #1 on Amazon the week it came out. 

TOMS Founder Blake Mycoskie on PBS’s Tavis Smiley show, talking about his new book, Start Something That Matters, and his famous One for One socially conscious business model.

TOMS founder and social entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie tells young people (and middle-aged people and old people) that the best thing they can do to find success, as he has, is to “incorporate giving into your life.” Mycoskie, a Lavin keynote speaker, explain how this has paid him back a thousandfold.

On June 7th, 2011, Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS, will unveil the next step in his company’s fabled history of One for One giving. Starting as a shoe company that famously gives away a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair it sells, TOMS is now expanding to become, simply, a One for One company. Their new product will launch tomorrow. Stay tuned…