The same article of clothing that some of us literally walk all over is the same item being used to address today’s most urgent social issues.
According to a 2019 Zion Market Research study, the global socks market was valued at around $11.7 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach around $24.16 billion by 2025.
So, if we’re already buying socks, why not make a difference doing it?
Supporting businesses that actively seek ways to connect us to important causes is an almost seamless way of ensuring that our purchases are met with positive, sustainable solutions.
Whether you’re looking for a funky new pair to add to your collection or for gifts that will make an impression, socks are a great way to show off your values and style.
We’ve curated the ultimate list of sock companies that are making it easier for us to elevate our sock game while supporting the causes we care most about.
Do good, look good, feel good!
By the way, some of the products and links in this article are partners and affiliates, which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Everything in this article was independently and honestly written by the Good Good Good team. Thank you!
Shop the best socks for a cause —
Conscious Step
Conscious Step creates stylish, sustainable, and cause-centered socks that are vegan, GOTS Organic, and Fair Trade-certified. Every pair gives back to a dedicated nonprofit organization:
- … that builds homes
- … that conserves rainforests
- … that educates kids
- … that empowers women
- … that fights for equality
- … that finds a cure
- … that plants trees
- … that protects endangered animals
- … that provides fresh meals
- … that provides water
- … that restores oceans
- … that saves dogs and cats
- … that saves LGBTQ+ lives
- … that supports mental health
- … that supports self-checks
- … that supports space exploration
To date, customers have helped contribute more than $800,000 (and counting) to organizations!
Whether you’re in the market for a pair of crew or ankle socks, a thoughtful gift box, or a subscription service featuring different causes and designs every month, this company provides an easy gateway for you to give back.
Conscious Step is also a part of 1% for the Planet (just like Good Good Good!), meaning it gives 1% of its annual gross sales to the organization’s approved nonprofit partners that are working towards environmental solutions.
→ Shop socks from Conscious Step
Bombas
Socks are the #1 requested item in homeless shelters, and Bombas provides socks to individuals facing housing insecurity across the U.S. The B Corp-certified business was named after the Latin word for ‘bee,’ because Bombas believes that just as bees work cooperatively to make the hive a better place, so too should humans.
For every item purchased, an equal item is donated to Bombas’s network of over 3,500+ Giving Partners, including overnight shelters, transitional living facilities, street outreach teams, rehabilitation centers, Title 1 schools, and medical service professionals. That’s a lot of toasty toes!
To date, customers have had a hand in donating over 75 million essential clothing items. Bombas has also expanded its product offerings to underwear and shirts — the #2 and #3 most requested items at shelters.
(Explore our full review of Bombas based on 8+ years of experience.)
→ Shop socks from Bombas
→ Shop Bombas socks on Amazon
Pals Socks
Pals Socks makes socks that come as a pair of “mismatched besties.” The vibrant and playful patterns tap into the LGBTQ+ woman-owned brand’s mission to create a more open-minded, empathetic, and colorful world. They’re perfect for kiddos — or any adult who wants to make their day a little brighter.
That mission also comes with a number of fundraising efforts, as well. Pals saw that most fundraising programs typically donate about 10-30% of their revenue and wanted to make something with an even bigger impact.
The Pals Fundraising Program helps nonprofits, schools, and other community-driven organizations to fundraise on a case-by-case basis, partnering to develop a unique webpage. Each organization gets ongoing support and graphic design resources from Pals Socks, and 50% of each sale goes directly to the fundraising partner.
Since the program launched in 2019, Pals has helped organizations, like Family Equality and the Cerebral Palsy Foundation, raise over $250,000 in total.
Parks Project
Parks Project was born out of its founders’ love for national parks and desire to see them flourish. They discovered that even though many of our favorite parks welcome more visitors a year, the lack of funding and the effects of climate change were causing devastating damage.
So they decided to look for the helpers: The organizations focused on preserving and protecting these precious lands for future generations.
Purchasing socks from Parks Project means investing in advocacy and education, habitat and wildlife restoration, visitor programs, and youth initiatives. That’s a lot of power in just one pair of socks!
The brand offers retro and nature-inspired sock collections of crew and fuzzy socks that are great to pack on your next hiking trip.
To date, Parks Project has contributed over $2.4 million to help fund vital projects in national parks around the U.S. — including some of your favorite national parks like the Grand Tetons, the Great Smokey Mountains, and more!
PS, if you or someone you know is also a big national park fan, we’ve got the national park gift guide for you! Plus, check out our collection of national park quotes.
→ Shop socks from Parks Project
Pact
Pact is a clothing brand that partners with Fair Trade-certified factories to make socks and other basics from organic cotton and earth-friendly materials. The brand uses using sustainable manufacturing practices that aim to support both people and the planet.
Its men’s and women’s sock collections come in a range of fun designs (like this cute floral set), and styles (like this rainbow No-Show pack). Each product page discloses where the socks were made and the resources used (and saved). It’s so cool to immediately see your impact as you hit “add to cart.”
The give-back component comes in Pact’s partnership with Give Back Box, which offers its customers a zero-hassle, free (yes, free!) way to donate gently used and forgotten items to participating charities. Items received are sorted and sold to fund community-based programs such as job training, job placement services, and transportation.
→ Shop socks from Pact (and Give Back, too!)
→ Shop Pact socks on Amazon
Awesome Socks Club
The Awesome Socks Club is a monthly sock subscription service that donates 100% — yes, 100% — of its profits towards decreasing maternal and child mortality in Sierra Leone — the country with the highest rate of maternal death in the world.
Headed by famed YouTubers, authors, and philanthropists John Green and Hank Green, Awesome Socks Club mails subscribers a uniquely designed pair of socks every month. And, y’all, they really are awesome.
This simple and meaningful business model allows the team to focus on achieving big, long-term problems instead of short-term profit. In its first year, over $1 million was donated to Partners in Health, an organization co-founded by Paul Farmer, dedicated to helping strengthen healthcare systems in impoverished communities.
So far, purchases made through this — and the Green brothers’ newest Awesome Coffee Club endeavor — have helped build a hospital in Sierra Leone where the next generation of Sierra Leonean healthcare workers will be trained! The duo aims to raise more than 25 million dollars over five years.
To ensure it never creates waste by overproducing socks, the Awesome Socks Club only allows new sign-ups a few times per year. It’s the coolest exclusive club to be a part of. You can check out the site to find out if subscriptions are currently available.
→ Subscribe to Awesome Socks Club
Explore our article on the Awesome Socks Club and its ambitious mission
Darn Tough
Darn Tough is a family-owned business (and the fastest-growing American manufacturer of performance outdoor and lifestyle socks) committed to crafting premium merino wool socks to help end food insecurity in Vermont.
The company, which has been hand-knitting socks for 40 years, has served over one million meals to its local community through its Giving Tuesday efforts — an event in which Darn Toughthey donates 100% of itsthe profits to the Vermont Foodbank. That’s pretty darn cool if you ask us!
In an effort to expand on its annual Giving Tuesday efforts, the brand they launched the Knit to Give collection — an online-exclusive program that features uniquely designed socks every quarter. Each pair is created with overstock yarn — excess material from knitting mills — with all profits supporting the Vermont Foodbank.
→ Shop socks from Darn Tough
→ Shop Darn Tough socks on Amazon
Solmate Socks
You might just fall in love with Solmate Socks. This cleverly named B-Corp-certified company has been in the sock game for over 20 years. Through its Solmate Socks Give Back Collection, each purchase contributes to various charities across the U.S. that support cancer survivors, ocean conservation efforts, and saving the bees, and more!
Its vast sock collection has something for kids and adults alike, including classic, everyday, and performance styles made from sustainably-sourced, eco-friendly fibers. You love to see it (and step on it).
All of the brand’s products, including its socks, are manufactured at its own mill in Hickory, North Carolina. Solmate takes pride in not only supporting important causes but also in caring for its employees by paying each of them a living wage and medical benefits — which only a handful of mills in the American hosiery industry offer.
→ Shop socks from Solmate Socks
→ Shop Solmate Socks on Amazon
Shongolulu
Help protect wildlife just by stepping into the world. Shongolulu is a wildly passionate brand dedicated to protecting endangered animals and their habitats. A portion of the proceeds generated from each sock purchase goes towards global wildlife conservation efforts.
The organizations Shongolulu support are committed to fighting poaching and deforestation, as well as rehabilitating and releasing injured animals back into the wild. (Which is a lot better than my dog stealing my socks when I’m trying to do laundry).
Shongolulu’s mission isn’t solely focused on financially contributing to conservation efforts. Each pair of socks (like these cheetah and rhino pairs) highlight an endangered animal in an effort to provide lasting impact through education and awareness.
Maggie’s Organics
While you may have used an old sock as a DIY duster around your house, Maggie’s Organics is on a mission to clean up the apparel industry in a different way.
Each purchase goes towards supporting immediate and long-term needs facing our planet — such as helping Ukrainian refugees, organizations protecting endangered species, and community-led reforestation projects.
Maggie’s Organics includes a variety of fair trade, organically grown cotton and merino wool socks for kids and adults — even for those who have highly sensitive skin! Each pair is made by skilled workers who earn a fair, living wage and work in co-ops (that Maggie Organics helped build).
The company also proudly partners with the bioRe Foundation, an organization that provides farmers with training facilities, organizes pre-payment for seed, and hires agronomists (experts in the science of soil management and crop production).
→ Shop socks from Maggie's Organics
→ Shop Maggie’s Organics on Amazon
United By Blue
One brand’s trash is another brand’s treasure.
United By Blue is a B Corp and Climate Neutral-certified outdoor clothing brand obsessed with trash — particularly its negative impacts on our environment. For every product purchased, a pound of trash is removed from oceans and waterways. To date, the brand has cleaned up 4.1 million pounds of trash (check out its popular community clean-up events!).
Among many of the products it offers, United by Blue’s socks are responsibly made and sourced in the U.S. Each pair is crafted to be durable, antibacterial, and softer with every wear. Not only that, but the company partners with third-party-verified factories that hold the highest standards for its facilities and personnel.
→ Shop socks from United By Blue
Hippy Feet
Hippy Feet is a sock and apparel brand on a mission to support organizations serving homeless youth. In 2022, the company committed to donating 50% of its net profits to organizations providing “the holy trinity” of social services: housing initiatives, employment and job readiness programs, and healthcare.
Offering a variety of colorful designs and styles for men and women (even offering custom services), Hippy Feet makes each pair of socks out of sustainable materials like recycled cotton.
You can also participate in Hippy Socks’ Sock of the Month Club, where the brand ships out a pair of socks that directly contribute to programs providing valuable resources to youth experiencing homelessness each month.
Bonfolk
Bonfolk is a female-founded brand focused on providing essential items (like socks and towels) to homeless service organizations across the U.S. And its socks are super cute, too!
For each whimsical, unique pair of socks that are purchased, one is donated to nonprofits across the U.S — and 500,000 pairs of socks have been donated to date.
The socks donated to shelters are not just any kind of socks, but are specially designed to withstand constant daily wear and tear, contain reinforced soles, and have moisture-wicking technology. Not only are you able to rock socks like these darling Giddy Up ones, but you’re able to provide someone else with high-quality, durable socks in return — we call that a win-win!
Society Socks
Society Socks is a monthly sock subscription box service that ships two unique pairs of socks to your front door. For every pair you buy, two pairs are donated to charities across the U.S. and Canada.
Society Socks specializes in making playful and versatile professional socks made of ultra-soft combed cotton, so you can level up that sock game at the office. In addition to its men’s subscription box, you can find a limited collection of women’s socks as well as gift packages, and assorted sock bundles in bold styles.
→ Shop socks from Society Socks
Are You Kidding Socks
Are You Kidding Socks is a sock company founded and led by kid-preneurs, Brandon (15) and Sebastian Martinez (13). Through their colorful charitable sock sales, these kids have been able to support pediatric cancer charities like Stand Up To Cancer, Cowboys Who Care, and Kids Cancer Foundation — raising over $350,000. Yeah, we’d say they can graduate now.
The company’s sock collection includes wacky designs (like these Snake Socks) and charity-centered designs to support organizations like JDRF, Amigos for Kids, and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
These socks not only help support charitable organizations, but through their Kids Helping Kids initiative, the Martinez brothers work with schools to educate students on organizations like Stand Up To Cancer while raising funds for pediatric cancer research.
→ Shop socks from Are You Kidding Socks
Go beyond buying socks — donate socks in your community
Want to take matters into your own hands? Look into local nonprofits, community closets, or schools that accept gently used or brand-new sock donations. Or consider putting together a homeless care package. Whether you donate what you already own or bulk-purchase socks to donate, try to be mindful of the condition and quality of the items.
While any pair of socks certainly help, most aren’t designed for continual use. Opt for natural moisture-wicking crew socks with anti-microbial treatment — which help create an environment less prone to the growth of fungus and bacteria, and are a little more durable for continuous everyday use.
