30 Places We Want to Work

Companies. They are where we work. There are some bad apples (those are usually the ones you hear about on the news). But most are pretty quotidian: just the source of our weekly checks. That’s why companies known for their good

826 National

The After-School Special

With local tutoring centers that double as everything from pirate-supply shops to time-travel marts, 826 National inspires and improves student writing with committed volunt

New Leaf Paper

Print’s Not Dead

Everyone knows the pulp and paper industry eats trees, but New Leaf Paper looks far beyond the forests to do its part. This founding B Corporation extends its focus on susta

Zipcar

Community Commuting

When your idea is as catchy as your slogan—“Wheels when you want them”—you have a good thing going. Zipcar has not only introduced car sharing to a wide audienc

Code for America

Cutting Red Tape, Through Programming

Starting next year, this nonpartisan nonprofit will dispatch a crop of tech-literate “fellows” to a select group of cities, where they will buil

CreateHere

Homegrown Success

CreateHere is doing big things in a small city, by training a new generation of civic leaders and giving grants to artists and businesses in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The organization

Hessnatur

Organic from Day One

For 34 years, this German clothier has produced quality organics while also showing the notoriously wasteful and unethical garment business that it’s possible to make million

Etsy

The Other eBay

Five years ago, a former furniture designer named Rob Kalin had an idea for a website no one thought would work. Now, his online crafts marketplace generates more than $130 million a year, ha

Acumen Fund

Investing in Change

Ten years ago, Acumen Fund introduced a new model for aid: Instead of charitable donations or strictly for-profit development efforts, Acumen focuses on bringing the two together

Toms Shoes

Makes Giving Look Good

A pioneer of the buy-one-give-one model, Toms Shoes, which was launched just four years ago, just delivered its millionth pair of free shoes to people who need them. In so doing

Better World Books

Waste Not, Want Not

Founded eight years ago by three Notre Dame graduates, Better World Books has donated $7 million to literacy groups, delivered more than 550,000 textbooks to colleges throu

DonorsChoose.org

Giving Students What They Need

Cutting out middlemen is always a good business model. DonorsChose.org removes cash-strapped school departments from the equation, allowing you to donate directly

Whole Foods

Profiting, Organically

From its humble beginnings in Austin, Texas, to today, the grocer has become synonymous with sustainable living—and sustainable business practices. From perpetually short

Wieden+Kennedy

Like Other Agencies, Only More So

We tip our hats to the agency behind two of our favorite trends in marketing: Using social media effectively and combining advertising with real social impact. Re

Patagonia

Best Practices in Action (Sports)

Patagonia was so far ahead of the curve when it comes to responsible business that the rest of us are just now catching up. A list of their philanthropic contributions

37signals

Putting the “We” in Web

Talk about a company that lives its values: The suite of well-designed, cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools it developed have allowed it to build a dece

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

For Your Information

Investing $400 million with 1,000 partners to advance journalistic excellence in the digital age, Knight runs on the belief that information is &l

Equal Exchange

Plays Well with Others

As a leader in fairly traded coffees, teas, and snacks, Equal Exchange is a rare example of a for-profit business with a bottom line exactly aligned with the interests of fa

One Block Off the Grid

Staring at the Sun

By finding ways to make solar power accessible through innovative business practices (collective purchasing lowers the price of solar panels) and excellent design (an ea

New Resource Bank

A Financial Institution that Doesn’t Suck

Over the past few years, while most big banks were booby-trapping the economy, sneaking in new costs for customers, and lining their pockets, New

Seventh Generation

Transparency Amid Murkiness

When it comes to ingredients in home-cleaning products, most companies operate under a veil of secrecy. Seventh Generation doesn’t. A pioneer in sustainable,

EveryBlock

Hyperlocal gets More Hyper

This website, which stemmed from a project plotting Chicago’s crime data onto a Google map, is now the place to go for hyperlocal information: You can find Yelp review

Kickstarter

All or Nothing

Pioneers in “crowd funding,” this company, still in its infancy, rallies the rest of us to support causes, artists, and general do-goodery through microdonations given easi

TED

Lectures You Won’t Sleep Through

By now we’ve all learned something new and amazing from watching a TED talk. By helping brilliant but underexposed thinkers like E. O. Wilson, Jill Tarter, D

Charity: Water

Because Everyone Is Thirsty

So often with charities, donors don’t know where, exactly, their money goes. With Charity: Water, founded in New York City by the nightlife guru Scott Harrison in

Trader Joe’s

Your National Neighborhood Grocer

Great wages, great two-dollar wine, great customer service, reasonably paced growth, laudable employee ideals, reasonably priced food—Trader Joe’s

Catapult Design

User-Centric Problem-Solving

Lots of people design water filters, yet billions of people still lack access to clean water. When Catapult attempts a design solution—like wind turbines, solar

X Prize

Money Talks

By offering financial prizes for successful scientific discoveries, X Prize has given an incentive for invention. With contests for space travel, fuel-efficiency, mapping the genome, and more

Surfrider Foundation

Protecting the Beach, Every Beach

Guardian angels to beaches and coastlines the world over, Surfrider Foundation has, since 1984, embraced the mission of ocean protection through its 70 U.S.

IDEO

Enough Creativity for Everyone

This consultancy, formed in 1991 and based in Palo Alto, California, has worked behind the scenes, doing design pinch-hitting for companies you might not expect to need h

New Belgium Brewing Company

Drinking and Driving Change

New Belgium Brewing Company, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, is famous for its delicious Fat Tire Amber Ale. It became the world’s first wind-p