Changing the World

Novica, the popular Los Angeles-based global handmade crafts seller, ranks among a growing number of socially responsible companies following through on heady promises to "help change the world." More than just a revolutionary business model, Novica.com is a revolutionary idea that promotes fair trade for artists and artisans around the world. A collective arts agent, with communal entrepreneurism at its heart, Novica works with families and communities in developing countries to enable artisans to showcase and sell their work. It is the recipient of prestigious cultural and business awards, most recently the America Economia Excellence Award for Cultural Preservation, The Schwab Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and Fast Company’s Fast 50 winner, commended for "thinking locally, acting globally."

National Geographic invested in Novica in 2000, saying that the company took National Geographic’s mission one step further, from dissemination of information about world cultures to actual preservation of world cultures. And, Novica is now strengthened through key partnerships including Amazon.com and National Public Radio.

When you know a little about the dreamers and doers behind Novica, you understand why it has become the world’s biggest online arts marketplace in the short time since its 1999 launch.

Novica was founded by an international group of family and friends, including Novica's President Armenia Nercessian de Oliveira and her son-in-law and Novica's CEO Roberto Milk. After moving from her native Brazil to study in Europe when she was 17, Armenia has never stopped traveling. She worked for the United Nations for 16 years, much of it with three small children in tow. She was stationed with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees team that won the 1981 Nobel Peace Prize for its work and with UN peacekeeping missions in such hot spots as El Salvador, Central America, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her work has included negotiating tense standoffs between armed rebel troops and government.

Like his mother-in-law, Roberto grew up with an internationally shaped background. His father was a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, when he met Roberto’s mother. Roberto and his brother Andy (Novica’s chief operating officer) traveled often with their parents, who, Roberto says, "didn’t believe in spending money on anything more than traveling." Roberto loved going to local markets and collecting indigenous artifacts, and he spent much time with his Peruvian grandmother, a passionate weaver.

Roberto and Armenia met ten years ago, when Roberto began dating Armenia's daughter Milena (who would also become one of Novica's founders and Roberto's wife). At that time, Roberto was finishing his undergraduate degree at Stanford University. Within a week of meeting Armenia, the idea for Novica was born.

With a grassroots start from the basement of their Santa Monica home, Roberto and Milena, with the assistance of family, friends, and the international expertise of Armenia, created what seemed to many impossible: a mission-driven company that simultaneously established offices in countries all over the world, paid artists more than they have ever made before, shipped purchases directly to customers worldwide, and designed a back-end system to handle all the complex logistics, so customers could enjoy low cost, fast, and efficient shipping.

Novica's success wowed the dot.com world--and the rest of the world too. With monthly hits averaging 2 million and some 20,000 products available at any given time, everyone wins.

Consumers gain access to a culturally diverse world of artisans and pay less than the high markups of importers for works of art, while artisans are able to preserve their traditional cultures and earn more money by increasing exposure and setting their own prices for an enthusiastic market. More than 2,000 master painters, ceramists, glassblowers, jewelry makers and fabricators of musical instruments and furniture--who employ an estimated 10,000 artisans--now have an unprecedented and sustainable opportunity to sell their works directly to consumers worldwide.

Novica not only helps the artisans to set fair prices and showcase their work without charging membership nor listing fees; it also has seven regional offices throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America with local staff to help the artisans. Arts and cultures experts consult with artisans to help them maximize their sales potential. Other employees assist in shipping and logistics, as well as with discovering new artisans interviewing and photographing them, and writing descriptions of their work.

Through Novica, artisans earn 10 to 50 percent more than they could locally, and Roberto estimates that buyers pay 50 to 75 percent less than they would for items marked up by middlemen. When an artwork sell, Novica earns 30 to 50 percent of the profit.

Novica encourages artisans to sign their work, which is the opposite of what they are often told by middlemen, who try and conceal creators’ identities. Each artisan’s biography and portrait is available alongside his or her works. Visitors can read letters that other customers post, and the letters are translated into the artisans’ native language too. Each purchase arrives to the customer with a biography of the artist who made it.

"People really crave authenticity and meaning in their lives in this anonymous era of mass-manufactured goods and chain stores," says Roberto. "They want to know who made the decor in their home, what culture it came from, and what deeper meaning it hold."

With it's revolutionary site, Novica's founders have come one step closer toward realizing their ideal of peace through better understanding and appreciation between people.