New Website Helps Women Build Businesses While Benefiting Good Causes

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A new website is helping women build their businesses while benefiting a variety of good causes.

CBS2's Stephanie Simmons reports Marta Ferro and Ann Lawrence are leveraging female purchasing power with their new site Pink51.com.

"Pink51 is a shopping portal. It's also a community and a movement to support women-owned and led businesses," Ferro said.

The site links to places that qualify as "pink," meaning the business is at least 50 percent owned by a woman, has 20 percent or more female board membership or has at least two female senior level executives.

Businesses don't pay anything to be a part of it and customers aren't charged anything extra.

"There's no catch. That's the easy part of it. The whole idea behind this is to bring information to the consumer," Lawrence said.

The co-founders say their idea was to bring small brands and big brands under one roof. Ten percent of profits are donated to charities that "promote girls' and women's economic development and leadership success," according to the website.

"We've got over 300 businesses in just over four weeks on the site, and we want to be the largest directory of women-owned and led businesses," Lawrence said.

Participating businesses include Nordstrom, Best Buy and DKNY.

"When you stop at Pink51 and then you go and shop at your favorite store, you've now told them you care," Lawrence added.

For more information, visit Pink51.com.