Hope Tank
What is Hope Tank?
Hope Tank is an awesome Business for Good) that for 11 years, ran as a gift store. It is now a creative event space located in City Park West in Denver. We rent the space for events that range from private parties, to board meetings, workshops, and photo shoots. We also host our own events that reflect the priorities of Hope Tank, which are supporting the small business community, providing needed space for BIPOC community members, social justice events, as well as fun classes run by our network of amazing creative local talents.
Hope Tank opened in February of 2012, and we started off selling handmade products by local artists who joined us in donating a portion of their sales to a charity of their choosing. We moved on to have all kinds of awesome products from companies all over the world that we used to connect our customers to our local nonprofit partners. We also sold products from companies that build giving back into their products, but we vetted them carefully, and their impact was focused in the United States. Every purchase in the shop came with a sticker that stated which nonprofit we were highlighting, and will have impact in the world and we wanted that impact to inspire people to action.
In 2022, we moved to our current space in City Park West which has allowed us to create a place for folks to be creative and connected. Read a bit from our founder on the latest in the Hope Tank journey here.
What is a Hope Slinger?
A Hope Slinger is someone who embraces the idea that hope is a powerful currency that we must be generous with. We want to inspire, educate and activate our community to SLING HOPE in ways that matter. Join us, share the ways you are slinging hope, and use #hopeslinger
About the founder, Erika Righter, Email Erika
“I am one of those people who experienced early on, the power that advocating for someone in need can have on a person’s life. I went to school to become a social worker and had the great fortune of working in the juvenile justice system, the foster care system, with low income senior citizens, and in rural emergency assistance.
I saw a huge gap between the work we were doing in the community, and everyone who actually lived in that community. There was a sense that unless you had a whole lot of money, you couldn’t really make any impact. I had lots of ideas and suggestions about how we could connect those people to our causes, and as most of us who have worked in nonprofit, began to dread the words that would inevitably come… “we don’t have capacity.”
In 2011, I worked for an adoption agency that closed, and we all found ourselves out of work. I had just gotten married, found out I was pregnant, and my husband was also laid off, all in the same month!
I figured that this was the opportunity to take the plunge, and try my hand at for-profit business for good. I opened Hope Tank, a for-profit social enterprise in here in Denver in 2012. Every item sold in the store supports our twenty local nonprofit impact partners, and comes with a sticker that says which nonprofit is being supported-that way, if you give a gift, the person who receives it will know the impact as well. We are able to engage the community about important issues, while doing something super fun- shopping!
I hope that we show people that you can have FUN and also do GOOD in the world!” -Erika Righter