The Purpose Myth Summary and key ideas

The Purpose Myth, by Charlotte Cramer.

In Berlin, Charlotte Cramer and her friend Scarlett Montanaro were asked by a man experiencing homelessness for a euro. They declined. Soon afterward, they spent seven euros on coffee. The contrast stayed with them: they thought of themselves as compassionate, yet had just refused a small request for help while spending more on themselves. Cramer confessed that she had never given money to someone on the street and asked Scarlett whether she ever gave when homeless people asked; their conversation then turned to why giving felt so difficult.

Their answer was uncertainty. They worried that cash might be spent on drugs or alcohol, and wondered whether people would give more readily if they knew exactly what their money provided. That was their hypothesis, not a settled explanation for why people hesitate to donate. Cramer says the question of whether money might be spent on the wrong things is complex.

In the weeks after Berlin, Cramer and Scarlett spoke with friends and people who had experienced homelessness. One man confirmed their worry by saying that people thought he might spend money on crack and cider. His remark cemented the idea and name CRACK + CIDER: a shop where customers could buy essential goods for people experiencing homelessness, which the founders would distribute. At first, their ambitions ran far ahead of a test: they imagined warehouses, a delivery fleet, jobs for people personally affected by homelessness, and a much wider range of goods and services. Those were plans they dreamed up, not things they had already built. The project then remained unrealized for about a year.

When Cramer and Scarlett met again about a year later, they agreed to try a smaller, manageable version, though they still made no plans. Later, at a party, a conversation about homelessness turned to posters warning that street donations might fund alcohol or drugs. Cramer recognized this as the same concern she and Scarlett had discussed in Berlin. She told the group she was already working with a friend to launch the shop. A shop owner there immediately offered them space, asking when they wanted to use it. Having someone else invest in the idea made it harder to leave as a possibility. The founders wanted to test whether the shop model could work without spending heavily. A single product for a single week seemed too limited to offer customers enough value, so, drawing on user research, they chose five essential options: an umbrella, a jacket, a backpack, a fleece, or a set of a hat, socks, and gloves.

They kept the first version practical by connecting to things that already existed. Shelters and soup kitchens could distribute the goods where supplies were short. Shopify templates provided the online shop, wholesalers supplied and delivered stock, and the founders made simple photos and materials themselves. The project became an online and pop-up shop rather than a new system for manufacturing products, running kitchens, or hiring a large staff. Cramer worked on it around freelance work, while the founders shared deadlines and daily tasks.

They also set a modest sales target, even though naming a goal meant risking a visible failure. Having spent 614 pounds, they aimed for 1,000 pounds in sales. On November fourth, 2015, more than 200 people came to the small shop and launch event. Within three weeks, hundreds of customers had bought more than 5,000 pounds of stock. By the sixth week, sales had reached 36,000 pounds, enough to provide items to guests at all thirteen partner shelters. The early results showed demand for the offer; they did not mean the project had solved homelessness.

The work also challenged how people encountered one another. People experiencing homelessness told the founders that being ignored or looked through could be especially painful. At talks, the founders gave attendees gloves to pass to someone on their way home, as a simple opening for contact. One friend later said she had given gloves to a man she saw every day, and only then realized she was seeing him as a person for the first time. She recognized that stereotypes and fears had shaped how she had treated him. The exchange could not fix the larger problem, but it made an ordinary interaction harder to overlook.

The name CRACK + CIDER was meant to provoke questions about the stereotypes attached to homelessness and addiction. The founders hoped that making those assumptions visible could help people examine how they formed and how they affected others. But the same provocation drew serious criticism. Before the launch, a caller told Cramer the project was wrong and should stop. At the event, he took the microphone and denounced the founders as poverty pimps. Other critics argued that the project repeated harmful stereotypes and profited from them.

The founders said they took no money from purchases, wanted to expose prejudice, and were open to learning. They even offered to let critics distribute the products. Those explanations did not settle the dispute. The criticism grew to include online threats and the posting of personal information about the founders. They considered quitting, but continued because useful items were reaching people as cold weather approached. The backlash showed that a good intention did not ensure that others would experience the project as helpful, or agree with its way of making a point.

Cramer also cautions anyone starting a project alongside paid work to check their employment contract and local law first. Some agreements may restrict outside work or claim rights to any intellectual property created while a person is employed, regardless of whether it was created during working hours or using company equipment. CRACK + CIDER began with one uncomfortable refusal and became a bounded effort to meet concrete needs. Its first results offered evidence that a small project could help, while its public response forced its creators to face the assumptions and risks built into their approach.