Full Transcript for Why Do School Dropout Rates Spike at Puberty? with Cherie Hoeger

because I didn't have it till I was a woman in my thirties, where I thought, what do other women use for their periods? Goodness, my family in Venezuela is having trouble accessing these disposable products. What else can be used? What are they using? And then you start researching, realizing when girls are able to take care of themselves, they use things that are very resourceful. They get creative, they use banana leaves. They use bits of mattress pad. They'll tear paper from school books. They will even exchange sexual favors to obtain a single pad from professors. And so they can be exploited. It brings on a host of problems that can be tied to periods. Because when they have nothing and they don't have options, then they're put in a place that causes them to be vulnerable or exploited in a way. So you're talking domestic violence and they're not able to be educated. So it's something that has a ripple effect that goes beyond what most people are aware of. speaker-1: Well, that's an aha moment for as well. Why isn't every woman using these what historically has been the reason why not? It sounds like it's a mixture of education of understanding first that there's something out there. Second that you mentioned they're more comfortable than people think. And the only thing that I could try to relate to this is and is probably not really relatable, is the whole concept of reusable diapers. There's a convenience factor or a convenience assumption that a reusable diaper is not as quick or easy to do or exchange and there's work of and it's dirty and what were some of the reasons why these aren't used more and how have those reasons evolved over the past ten, twenty years? speaker-0: Yeah, I love these questions. It's so insightful. So it really is because of stigmas and a lack of education. So those are the two. When you talk about the barriers to use, like reusable diapers, and I'm gonna make a confession here because I'm a very sustainably minded person and I don't use reusable diapers. I use reusable peer repair, I use reusable paper towels. There's so much that I do, but that's one barrier that I haven't gotten over yet with six kids and running a business. I'm like, I could. But very honestly. those barriers are not as high as it is with a reusable diaper when it comes to your period. And that's because with a cup, it is, it does take a learning curve. So it's education around them. There's stigmas, right? It can be seen as a fringe alternative product. People also just have doubts like, how do I use this? Is it gonna fit? What if it gets stuck inside of me? They have fears. And so I came from a technical writing background and really what I do all day is I educate. I teach people how to use it. I make it approachable. And we try to bring it to a mainstream consumer. So we have our products in Target stores, they're in Walmart stores, we have them on Costco.com or in boutique retailers and places like REI. And that helps bring legitimacy to the category. And also when we have big features, I was on Good Morning America and the View, where we're able to do these deal segments around our products. And they really are the gold standard product, but it takes the education, the behavior change and that moment of bravery saying, I'm gonna make a change, right? That everybody goes through when they're trying to adopt something different and sustainable. Especially with something so intimate as these products. So really my job is to make them approachable. And that's what I do as a mother of five. My five daughters wear these products. And even my own daughter had some reservations about it. Mom, I'm gonna try tampons first. I know you own a period care period cup company, but I'm gonna try that first. And I felt like one of the most fulfilling moments of my life is when she came to me after her first period, after that first week and she didn't tell me, but she tried both a tampon and she tried a cup, but she said Mom, I don't know why anyone uses tampons. Cups are so much better. And I was like, Yes, okay. If I can convince my own daughter then I won. Because our kids are like the most skeptical people. speaker-1: I bet they have the highest bar too, especially being your kid. They're like, All right, yeah, we're gonna test it. speaker-0: Yep. So why it's a lack of awareness. It's education. And so every day we're just trying to showcase how to use them. We're trying to combat those stigmas, combat those doubts. And when we're able to do that, then people will make the switch. And that skepticism works for and against us because they're so skeptical about the products that when they do make the switch, they don't have very high expectations. And then when they find how amazing they are, they forget they're on their period, they're better for our bodies and planet. They don't ever have to buy tampons again, so no emergency tampon runs. And suddenly they say, This is life changing. So we have an internal Slack channel. That's the number one phrase we hear is, Wow, these products are life changing. The second thing we hear is, I wish I would have tried it sooner. speaker-1: Yeah. For a woman that maybe tried these these products five years ago or ten years ago and wanna give another shot now, what would be the difference now versus five or ten years ago? speaker-0: Are you asking for a friend, Joseph? speaker-1: I maybe. speaker-0: Do you know someone? Yeah. No, this is it's a very speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. speaker-0: it's a very real experience. 100%. I would say number one, give our products a try. This is gonna reflect my bias, and I do believe we have the best products. They are the best reviewed on Amazon. And we've got about twenty to thirty percent of the market share there, we're told by our agents would see, and we have hundred we have thousands of reviews. And then also they're the best selling cup on Target stores. So if you tried it. Try our product. We made it specifically so that

it was easier for beginners, but also give yourself grace. This takes a learning curve. And we also are the only company out there that has proprietary design that we've created in three product lines: in our cups and also our discs and period underwear. So the last thing I'll say is if you didn't find success with cups, we have a firmer cup, we have a softer cup, we also have discs that come in two sizes. And then we have period underwear for those who don't want to use in cervic products. So we are really trying to walk the walk of providing sustainable alternatives for any way that you use period products. And we have all of those options. So if you didn't find success with the cup, try disc. I'm a disc gal now. I started with the cup. I love the disc. I have a lower cervic. There's different reasons why you'd use them. I'll give you just the high level really quick. The cups are often the best for beginners. And They are maybe slightly easier to insert and to understand how to insert position. If you have a low cervix or if you have a weak pelvic floor, then discs can be better. And if you have a very heavy flow, this disc that holds six times the amount of a tampon is the highest capacity menstrual product out there at all. And so it's incredible for those who struggle with, you know, irregular periods, heavy flows, and you know, just sometimes don't even leave the house because their flows are so heavy. The discs are incredible. There's also a bonus, and this is for girls and guys, but they can be used for mess-free period sex. So you put them in, they have a flexible basin, they don't sit in the vaginal canal, so they can be used during intercourse. Nice perk. So there's a lot of reasons why you could use a cup or disc and try something different. Or if neither one is your cup of tea and you just like tampons, then we go for the underwear because the underwear has this built-in absorbency and it's super thin. We try to make our underwear be like your favorite underwear, something that was soft and flexible and felt like a second skin and super thin and dry. And we have a patent on our technology specifically that specifically is to make it thin and dry while still being absorbent. So this this underwear for those who are watching on video, it's about as thin as a nickel and it holds six pads of flow, which is incredible. But the technology that you can have with fabric these days. And so it's just a better option and a lot less of a learning curve so with underwear. So if you've tried reusable, then you're not really sure there's different ones you can try, give it a go. speaker-1: Yeah, I had never knew about period underwear prior to being introduced to SALT. I have two daughters. They're young too young for this currently, but my wife, we've been together for eighteen years. We're expecting our third kiddo in March. So after speaker-0: congratulations. speaker-1: that, yes, we'll have to restart thinking about this. But this is really insightful. I opened with you. Yeah, go ahead. speaker-0: All right, you bring up a good point. Maybe I'll touch on that in just a minute. But for those who have daughters who will eventually, hit the period years as they get into puberty as they hit their teenage years, or for those who had teen, we do have teen products. We have a teen period kit specifically, like it's a first period kit and it comes with our underwear and it also comes with the teen size cup. But I have five daughters. So I we specifically made underwear that is good for active teen because they're so active these days. My girls are gymnasts, they're dancers. And so it's this performance fabric that also has a heavy absorbency that covers them. And the beautiful thing is I never have to worry about them as a mom because they wear these every day and they're literally always covered. And my daughters will never have that experience in math class where they're tying their sweater around their waist or have to put the tam on up the sleeve because they've started their period and had that surprise because they have a basically a built-in pad in all of their underwear they wear every day. I know they have a question later on of where is salt going? For me, I think underwear, all women's underwear should have absorbancy in it because we leak some kind of fluid for twenty four days out of a twenty eight day cycle. And it's something that should have been innovated a long time ago. So I truly believe it's not period underwear, it's everyday underwear. speaker-1: Yeah. Wow. I have a plan now for my daughters as they get older. It is amazing. I opened this with you guys Salt is a B Corp. First of all, for people that don't know what a B Corp is, talk to us about what a B Corp is and then more importantly, why was that a route that you chose for your incorporation? speaker-0: Yeah, this is such a great question because B Corps reflect a third party certification done from B Lab. They're out of California. And essentially it's like a stamp of approval saying this company walks the lot. They do what they say they're gonna do. So it prevents greenwashing and it prevents good washing. And they have a rigorous assessment that you have to pass, you have to have at least a year of revenue. So we were able to get our B Corp status after we'd launched it back in twenty eighteen. So it was twenty nineteen that We're able to get the B Corp status. And since then, we've recertified two other times, because you recertify every couple of years. And you have to pass that assessment in six major categories. And it includes governance, it includes community and workers and environment. And essentially, you have to consider all stakeholders. And all stakeholders means everybody that you influence. And in fact, you adopt language into your governing document that considers all stakeholders in all the decisions you make. So when we make a decision installed, we have to consider people, planet, in profit,

that triple P bottom line. It's that triple P approach. It's fantastic for the world. I love the B Corp standard. And not every company has to have an impact mission, but we chose to have one. So we have a 1% give back mission. You have Patagonian who does 1% give back. You have Coda Paxi who does Athletas a B Corp. There's Bette Jerry's. There's so many great B Corps out there. And with our give back mission, we focus on four major pillars. And that's improving menstrual health and environmental sustainability and girls' education. And the last one is wash, water sanitation and hygiene. So being a B Corp and working for a B Corp is a wonderful way to combine purpose and profit together. And I could talk about this for a long time. I have so many friends in the nonprofit sector. And what happens with these friends is they're so passionate about something that they love, that they want to change in the world and they want to bring their influence and their energy to something. But when they get into the nonprofit space, what they find themselves doing most often is fundraising because they don't have a mechanism to be able to also fund their passion of what they do. So they put a lot of energy into it. And I love all my friends that work in nonprofits because they're just some of the most stand up people that I've ever met that just have high integrity. They have a high passion for doing good, for changing lives, for making the world a better place for the next generation. And I always feel For them because they don't have this mechanism and they spend so much time fundraising that they don't have as much energy for what they set out to do in the first place, which was doing good. And so the beautiful thing about B Corps is because we're a for-profit business that has a philanthropic arm or has a passion or purpose. We personally, so I'll just speak for what we do, but we like to pair our business with amazing nonprofits who are doing the work and we're funding and we're giving them. ongoing funding. So I call this the shotgun approach or the targeted approach. So many companies may have some allocation for philanthropy at the end of the year. And the shotgun approach is, okay, who do we help this year? Let's fund this grant this year and this grant this year. The next year we'll do another grant. What they're doing is instead of targeting an area and saying, I want to make a sustainable impact in that area, they're just saying a little here, a little there, a little here. What does that do to nonprofits? They have to continually ask for money, right? They have to continually ask for funding. What we do with those partners that come to us instead is we do go through a vetting process and we make sure that they have on the ground staff because people need to be able to troubleshoot our products. We give them a small allocation of products that it's basically a pilot program. We teach them about our products and we don't take that white savior approach. We make sure that they're teaching about our products and that they're distributing to their community base and that people can come back and we give them ongoing donation and then ongoing funding to be able to teach about the products and to be able to address other areas that holistically affect menstrual care like water access and so forth. And we call that the targeted approach because we say we're targeting four major pillars. That's where all of our funding goes. We have a lot of people who will contact us say, hey, can you support this cause and support this cause? We say no, this is what inherent to our business, to our product. And we need to stay in these lanes because this is where we can have the most influence. And then because we're giving them that ongoing funding, then they don't have to come back to us and spend so much energy giving us their proposals. Instead They're just reporting. We have a relationship. And I think it's a beautiful symbiotic relationship. And I wish that more companies would take that influence that we have as B Corps and pair them with nonprofits and make this happen because it's a question that always comes up on like how are you going to get that funding to sustain a nonprofit? speaker-1: And how that structurally works, you have the one percent. Is it one percent of profits or revenues, or how's that one percent determined? speaker-0: Yeah, we do revenues because profits can be finagled too much. We can say, yeah, profits weren't this much after we took a big dividend and you bought a company car, who knows what? So we try to keep it straight by doing revenues. speaker-1: And that one percent revenue carve off goes into those four major buckets that you mentioned to help fuel that also. speaker-0: It does. It goes right into a budget and then we allocate that budget. We actually did start our own five one C three called the SALT Foundation just recently. So that'll funnel to the SALT Foundation so we can also take in incoming funding for people who want to do more. speaker-1: Right. Amazing. And then partners that come to you, what are some examples of partners that are aligned to those four pillars, maybe recently that you've worked with? speaker-0: Ooh, I love that. So we like to find partners that already are aligned, like you said, who already are doing work within women's progress a lot in girls' education. So one partner I'll highlight is Her International. Their primary operations are in Nepal and in rural Nepal, it's in an area called Dao. And they built something called the Unico House there, which is a community house, and they were really focusing on girls' education because in Nepal, what their founder had found. What she visited was that girls were being sold into bonded slavery or bonded servitude as young as five years old, all the way through their teen years, because families couldn't afford their living in these families that were it's called the Taru people, who are people

who are more impoverished and basically lower caste. And so they were selling their daughters in order to be able to provide for their living. So she said, What if I purchased these contracts back? What if I purchased these girls and instead gave them an education? And instead taught them how to be self-reliant. And so she taught micro skills, microfinance skills, and then also was funding these scholarships. So she had an existing organization doing well in girls' education. What else could help girls' education? Solving period care, right? And so we came in adjacent to what she was already doing and said, Let's augment and amplify what you're doing and let's provide period care. And this is going to help your goal of providing education. So that's one example I can give a lot, but I think that's one of the most meaningful. We've been working in rural Nepal for the past nine years. We have thousands of people who use cups and who are the biggest salt fans because for them who have no period care, being able to have a cup allows them to work out in the fields, allows them to do what they love. And one of the most powerful phrases I ever heard, this was actually a girl in Kenya at an all-girl school in Kenya that we'd give them the cup to. She was skeptical at first about the cup and she talks about how she had to learn to use it and she was taught to use it. And then she tried it and she said, Now that I have a cup, I can run, I can dance, I can move freely, and I don't regret being a girl. speaker-1: Yeah. That's the power. The win. That's amazing. So I think one of the similar to what you mentioned of the nonprofit space and having to spend a lot of energy toward fundraising, I have also seen that as a part of that fundraising process, you have to spend a lot of potentially capital and definitely time towards measuring the impact that you're having as a nonprofit. You just shared so many impacts, just examples from the stories that you shared with Nepal. And stories that you shared from keeping girls in school and what are the downstream impacts of that? Being a B Corp, I'm assuming that you don't have as strict of requirements for measuring the impact of that 1%, but I don't want to make that assumption. But how much effort do you put towards measuring that impact? Is it as important or is it like you're just doing the good work and supplying these partners with product and funding and just kind of That's it. I'm wondering how do you balance the measuring and integrate that into the four pillars? speaker-0: Yeah. Okay. So high level, we try to measure as much as we can to do the right thing. We aren't under as much stipulation, like you said. What we are under when it comes to B Corp is just making sure that we are donating that one percent and that it's going to NGOs. They want to see the receipt and they want to make sure that it's being donated and that we're saying what we say we're gonna do. So like I said, B Corps don't have to have a give back commitment, but if they do, they're gonna measure and make sure that you're doing it, right? And so for the B Corp assessment, they measure also our environmental Commitments, they measure our carbon usage, they measure our environmental footprint, and then they measure how we're treating employees and so forth. So that's a different assessment that we have to keep on top of. But for our impact program, we voluntarily have metrics that we follow. So one of our biggest ones is adoption rate. For us, success means, and that's ultimately what it is. What does success look like for us? Success means people are adopting our products successfully because. We have reusable products that take a learning curve, right? So are we given enough education to make sure they're using it and it's not just sitting on a shelf and it's actually benefiting them. And we are so happy to say that we have an over 95% adoption rate, which people are surprised with because we're in sixty countries. And there people will think, I have so many reservations around these products. How are other people using these products? It's the way we educate about them. And also when you have no option, you're often more inclined to try something new. Because you want to go to school and you want to work and you're given a product and you're being taught about it. And so we try to do that sustainably. So it's amazing. And I won't dive into that more, but I'll go into the next metric. And that is are our products keeping girls in school? And in order to find that, it really is through surveys and it's through self reporting through our charities. And so we do have to rely on our charities and we've developed the surveys and then they have to do it routinely to do that. So do we do it as stringently as nonprofits? Probably not. But we're trying to do our best. speaker-1: If you were to look ten years in the future, do you think looking back people will be like, Do you remember when we used to use non reusable items in this space? Or do you think it's gonna take a little bit more time for the adoption? Or do you think it's gonna be a completely different product like Enio Chanel? speaker-0: my gosh, I love that. If remember when we use C D is it, Walkman's or Blackberries? remember when we use tampons, right? First I'll tell you a soapbox that I tell to ad journalists all the time. I always say, We have cars that go from zero to sixteen one point nine seconds and now the new roadster, what does that do? I c I don't even remember speaker-1: Seconds. It was like a second with the yeah for zero. Yeah. speaker-0: Talking about the future. Anyway, I had my own thoughts when I said this. I'm like, Young Les, can you make mammogram machines better? Can you also look at period care next? Because you're making cars fly, but really period care has been having the same innovation for the past century. Pads were invented in the eighteen hundred and tampons were invented in the nineteen

thirties. And the biggest innovation that us women have around period care was the pad with wing that we got in the nineteen eighties, okay? And so we've deserved modern and sustainably minded and better period products for a long time. Anyway, that's my soapbox. It's like the stigmas create a lack of innovation. Men wouldn't have put up with this. They would have changed a long time ago. They'd be like, we gotta solve this leaking. It's got to be comfortable. I'm not putting up with these bad things that we've got going on. So yes, I do believe that at the gold standard, as far as adoption rate and when we're going to see it hit that critical mass. For me, we're still in the early adoption phase. We're getting a little bit more into that mainstream, but you got the early adopters who tried it or they know about it. And that mainstream still says, I'm gonna use my play text gentle glide. This is what I've always known. This is what I'm gonna use. And they need a bigger reason to be able to adopt it. And usually that reason is a conversation with a trusted friend, which is why I do podcasts and which is why I try to talk about it publicly, because they see someone who's a mom of five daughters and who says, These have changed my life. These are incredible products. And we say, maybe I should try that, right? 'Cause it's someone trusted who was saying you can use this product, it's actually better. But yeah, I think it's gonna take some time. It is our goal. We wanna see that happen. That's our North Star. We wanna see reusables overtake disposable. And I think it will hit critical mass. How long it'll take? When you're talking worldwide, it's gonna be a long time. speaker-1: Yeah. Has has that market share been increasing over the years of reusable? speaker-0: It has, yeah. Underwear is growing at a twenty percent Kager, so compound annual growth rate. I think reusable. It's tough. It's not measured super well. They usually just have brick and mortar stores, so you don't get the e commerce numbers in there as well. But but I think it's around fifteen percent. And so it does continue to grow every year, but is an uphill battle with awareness and we do the best we can to educate and to bring awareness to it in a fun way. speaker-1: Final two questions for the general population that are listening to this, they're interested, they want to get engaged. What would you advise them to do? And then second part is for the 200 plus executive directors of nonprofits that are listening or people in the nonprofit space that maybe work with girls or women, what would their engagement path be in process? speaker-0: amazing. So we're at Salt.com. That's S-A-A-L-T dot com. And we have a menu item called impact. You can click there or you can go to saltgibs.com and you see our impact. And you can reach out to us anytime. We love working with nonprofits, especially who are in focus on women and girls. And we can take only a limited amount because if we're limited in

our one percent, we're still like a teenage company. We're not huge, but we've got a decent allocation. But we also have our 501c3. And so we take partnerships and we have the ability to take funding now as well. And so there's ways that we can partner. But we love donating our products. That's the primary way that we partner. And then we partner always for awareness and sometimes do funding as well. So we built four holes, we've built latrines, it is part of our wash initiatives to really help address all barriers to having a healthy and dignified menstrual experience. And so there are other ways that we partner, but we love Especially working with organizations in the United States. We do a lot of donations here in the United States and people are surprised to hear that because there is a lot more period poverty overseas. But here we have homeless populations, domestic violence populations, refugees, foster care programs. And then when natural disasters happen, people have the aha moment. my goodness, maybe we shouldn't be relying on this supply chain so much. So often when natural disasters happen, people turn to us and say, Can you send reusable products? I'll give one example. We saw that in Lahaina with the wildfires there in Maui and it devastated Lahaina and people companies were sending these pallets of disposable products and they said, Stop sending them. We don't have the infrastructure to be able to even take care of these. Please send reusable products only. So we sent five thousand products, both cups and our underwear, to cover the entire menstruating population of Lahaina. So these are just ways that we partner. speaker-1: This has been an amazing interview and eye opening and I've learned a lot. And I thought I knew a lot about this prior. So before we wrap up, is there anything you want to leave us with, maybe that we missed or something that you usually use at the end of interviews that you think is a good way to end them? speaker-0: First of all, because I get to talk to leaders of nonprofits here on this podcast, give yourself a pat on the back. I love everything you're about, your passion, and I know that you're working two jobs and you're doing this side hustle where you're doing good. You're doing great work because, like you say, it's greater than zero percent. Just take that first step. People ask me that all the time. What caused you to be able to go build a borehole in Nigeria or build these latrines or give this period care? And I'm like, I saw a need and I'm like, how much does it cost to build a borehole? What, $2,500? Yeah, we can do that. Okay, let's do it. You jump in and you're making changes. 500 million women and girls who live in part period poverty, that is such a behemoth goal. And that is our North Star to end it. And it seems impossible. But you have to start somewhere. And we've changed thousands of lives because of it. So don't get imposter syndrome. Don't let those huge goals and the massiveness of the problem stop you. Jump in. You're changing that individual life today. that you influenced, that you gave your energy to. And then yeah, look to partner with B Corp. Reach out to us. Look at others. You might have to tell them what your ideas are, but find creative ways to be able to get that funding because there are a lot of people who do want to support you. speaker-1: share, thank you so much for giving us some of your time on this Friday and have a good rest of your weekend. And we're honored to share your story. And people that are listening, reach out, go to SAALT.com and feel free to reach out to me too if you're an organization or nonprofit that works with girls or women, especially in this space. And again, Sharita, thank you for your time and we'll wish you the best and cheer you from the sidelines. And I'll keep you guys in mind as my daughters get a little bit older. speaker-0: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Joseph.