A New Magazine Salutes Good Deeds and Does Some Itself

The magazine is called Good and its first issue premiered in September. The magazine says it plans to examine the people, ideas, and institutions that are seeking to improve society. Its first issue profiled several organizations that do unusual, rather offbeat things to help their local communities.

But, the magazine is also involved in doing good. It has pledged the full amount of each $20 subscription to charity. Subscribers are asked to choose one of 12 groups as the beneficiary. The list includes Teach for America, Unicef, and the World Wildlife Fund.

What is cool about this magazine is that it is pitched to young trendsetters. Good tells potential advertisers:

Our targeted readers represent an emerging movement of ambitious, intelligent, youthful adults who want to be happy, successful and good. This participatory audience of educated, media savvy, engaged, creative, worldly, critical trend-setters comprises the young movers and shakers shaping the future of our planet.

Good Magazine is the brainchild of Ben Goldhirsh, a 24 year-old rich kid who wants to do good. You might say he is a young version of Warren Buffett except that he is starting with inherited wealth from a dad who earned his considerable wealth by founding and selling two successful magazines, Sail and Inc.

Ben and his sister lost their mother in 1999 and then their dad in 2003. Their father set up a trust and encouraged his children to invest in businesses and worthy causes.

Ben seems to have taken that advice very seriously, first founding Reason Pictures, which aspires to make films about socially relevant subject matter for mainstream audiences, and then setting up Good, hoping to make philanthropy cool with the trendy set.

You can get a sense of Good Magazine by visiting its website, which is actually a blog. The blog is sassy, youthful, and a tad self-conscious, but fun to read. If the magazine has the same tone, it should be interesting and appealing to just the audience it says it is wooing.

More about Good Magazine and its founder:

• Do the Right Thing (LA Times)
• Wealthy Son Aims to Build His Legacy (Wall St. Journal, free)
• Reason seasoning pix mix (Variety)