Marketing Minor, Kritika Cerreta Creates Knotprofit.com; Site Encourages Wedding Guests to Donate to Nonprofits
When Kritika and Joshua Cerreta set off to plan their wedding, they uncovered a clear need in the wedding industry – a socially and environmentally conscious wedding resource that provided donation-based wedding registry, favors, vendors and communications tools.
Unable to find this resource, they created KnotProfit.com. KnotProfit connects couples who are engaged to be married to nonprofit organizations.
“Like us, 74% of engaged couples live together before marriage,” said Kritika. “There often isn’t a need to receive traditional household items as gifts, so we allow couples to opt for donation-based wedding registries instead of accepting unneeded items from their wedding guests.”
It is common for the modern couple to want more expensive items or experiences, so KnotProfit allows couples to group-fund for any big ticket item, with a portion of every wedding guest contribution being donated to any charity the couple chooses.
"After interviewing many, many engaged couples, we've found that they want the process of supporting a charity to be as effortless as possible," she said. "We listened and adapted the site to reflect that - it allows couples to plan their wedding in a way that fits their lifestyle. The product is completely free for our couples."
KnotProfit allows couples to choose their wedding vendors, book them and add them to the site in addition to featuring parner vendors, all of whom donate 10% of their services to the charity of the couple's choice and reward the couple with discounts for fundraising.
“We feel that many couples would much rather start their lives together with deeply felt, meaningful contributions to worthwhile causes. With KnotProfit, a couple has their dream wedding while just happening to support a cause close to their heart,” added Kritika.
Kritika is a Marketing Minor, Urban Studies major and was the winner of the ideaLabs competition hosted by The Monte Ahuja College of Business. Through that competition, she and her then fiancé, now husband, went on to compete and were accepted into the FlashStarts Business Accelerator program.
As with all startups, they continue to make updates and enhancements to KnotProfit.com and plan to add a series of eco-friendly and socially conscious DIY workshops, bridal events and pop-up boutiques that each support a local charity that is Cleveland-focused. Their first event they co-hosted was with the Recycled Wedding Boutique, an eco-friendly pop-up wedding market, on January 25th, 2015. The event supported the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
