Team Members Provide Virtual Consulting to Artisan Women With Nest

November 30, 2020: This summer, 39 Qurate Retail Group team members volunteered to mentor women leaders at 15 small artisan businesses in the U.S., the U.K., Mexico, and Guatemala – 100% virtually.

These team members joined the Qurate Retail Group Fellowship Program, a collaboration with Nest, a women-led non-profit that equips artisan women with training, skills, and resources. The program, now in its second year, matches the skills of our volunteers with the needs of artisan businesses and places our team members into two-week, mentorship assignments with the artisans.

This year’s cohort of Qurate Retail Group Fellows represented QVC US, QVC Germany, QVC Italy, HSN, Zulily, Ballard Designs, Frontgate, and Garnet Hill, and their projects included web design, communications, production, rebranding, quality sourcing, media marketing, pricing, and others. And for the first time, due to the current public health challenge, our team members used only video conferencing and other digital tools to meet the artisans, share professional expertise, and stay connected.

The fellowship was rewarding for both the artisans and our team members.

Diana Alvarado, manager of Pixan Design, a Guatemalan organization that supports women weavers, said she has seen website traffic grow since she participated in the virtual mentoring a few months ago. The advice she received from Qurate Retail Group helped her leverage Pixan’s assets to drive search engine optimization, increase customer engagement on social media, and make the website more user-friendly.

“All the changes that the Fellows made to our website are working,” Diana said. “We have received more inquiries since we updated the product descriptions and the About Us information. I am beyond grateful to Nest and Qurate Retail Group for this opportunity. The results were beyond anything I ever anticipated.”

Dean Thomason, On-Air Planner for HSN, spent the fellowship working with Mozaique, a boutique social business based in Washington D.C. that promotes domestic and international artisan textile brands.

“The most rewarding aspect of my experience was seeing the fire and passion reignited in owners,” Dean said. “When we started, you could sense they were a bit tired, but by the end, I felt they were excited again.”

Natalie Subyak, Store Manager at Ballard Designs, worked with Alicia Wallace, cofounder of California-based Kazi Goods, a home décor brand that supports artisans and their communities through fair wages. “The work Alicia and Kazi Goods are doing isn’t just making and selling a beautiful product,” Natalie said. “Their artisans are learning to save money, sending their kids to school and escaping poverty. It is a deeply personal result.”

Qurate Retail Group has collaborated with Nest since 2016 to create more opportunities for women and women-led businesses. Our brands, along with our customers and vendors, collectively have donated more than $1.2 million dollars in critical funding to Nest, furthering the organization’s ability to grow its reach from 60,000 artisans to now more than 200,000.

To learn more about the 2020 Qurate Retail Group Fellowship Program, click here:  https://www.buildanest.org/qurate-retail-group-employee-fellowship-program-supports-women-led-artisan-businesses/