Why I integrated a donation system from which I will never receive a penny
KristyI'm going to talk to you about something other than sports equipment today.
Since this week, there's a Solidarity page on Sportivearena. It allows you to support an organization you care about, wherever you live in the world. And I want to be perfectly clear about how it works before explaining why it exists.
Not a single cent passes through me
No euros, no dollars, no pesos, no currency. Nothing passes through my shop, nothing is paid to me, nothing finances my activity.
I do not collect donations. I do not take any commission. I do not receive anything from the listed organizations. The page directs you to verified directories, and you donate directly to the organization of your choice, on their own website.
This is intentional, and it's to your advantage: 100% of your donation reaches its destination, and you receive your tax receipt. If I had put a button "add €1 to your cart for an organization", it would have been more visible, more marketable — and less honest.
No purchase is required. No quid pro quo. You can donate without ever ordering anything from me, and that's perfectly fine with me.
Why I did this
Because a shop doesn't have to be just a place where you buy things.
You can come here, choose a dumbbell, and leave. Or you can come here, choose a dumbbell, and tell yourself that today you're also going to do something for someone else. Three euros for a shelter. Two hours of volunteering. A regular donation to a child welfare organization.
It's not much on a daily scale. On the scale of thousands of people doing the same small gesture, it becomes considerable.
And I wanted you to know who you're dealing with. My job is an entrepreneur, that's true. But I'm not someone who only thinks about money and turnover. I'm first and foremost a human being, and I want my work to serve something other than my personal comfort.
What I'm really preparing
I have to tell you something that few people know.
Sportivearena is not my final project. It's the step that should allow me to build another one: a business dedicated to disabled, abused, and abandoned animals. Dogs, cats, horses.
That's the real goal. The rest is the path to get there.
So why a sports shop, and not the other project directly? Because I didn't have the means to start with the end. And because sport, unlike many other areas, brings people together. It creates communities, shared habits, people who encourage each other. Together, we always go further than alone. This is true in training, and it's true for everything else.
So I'm building this activity seriously, so that it can finance another one that will have meaning, a future, and that may raise some awareness.
Only one life, for them too
We never forget that we are human. We more easily forget that animals also only have one life.
The dodo no longer exists. Not because of a natural disaster, not because of chance: because of us. It has disappeared forever, and no generation will ever see it again. This is just one example among hundreds.
What has been destroyed by man can, sometimes, be repaired by man. Not always. Not everywhere. But often enough that it's worth trying.
To save rather than to make disappear. To preserve rather than to kill. It seems obvious written like that, and yet.
It's not thanks to me
I want to end on this, because it's the heart of the matter.
This page will not save anyone by itself. Neither will I. What can change something is us — all those who decide, each on their own, to do a little good with the means they have.
You have no obligation. You can close this page, order your dumbbells and never think about it. No judgment, sincerely: not everyone can give, and not everyone has to.
But if you feel like it, it's there. An organization near you, in your country, for the cause that touches you — animals, children, homeless people, disability. And the world becomes a little more beautiful thanks to your own choices, not thanks to mine.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for being here.
— Kristy
