Welcome to St. Francis Brands
Based on a social enterprise business model similar to Newman’s Own.
St. Francis Brands will be offering a broad range of products with all profits going to charity!
Nonprofits are also given the opportunity to sell our products to benefit their own mission.
“Free market capitalism at it’s best”
Why was the Saint Francis Brands LLC created?
St. Francis Brands (“SFB”)was founded in 2016 by Charlie Zeiler as a stand-alone company. It is a single-member LLC with Charlie as the sole member. Our St., Francis Brands logo has been trademarked. “Bombay Buddy” is our “spokescat” for our current cat products ((trademark current in the que for a trademark “Cat Litters” (Clumping and Non-clumping) as well as “Baltimore Bill” (our spokesdog) trademark also pending)
It was started to expand the universe of non-profits that the Zeiler Family Foundation (“ZFF”) supports. ZFF was funded by the Zeiler Family in 2006 with a gift of slightly over $1,000,000.00. ZFF is a “Donor Advised Fund” managed by Fidelity Investments
The ZFF received its funding entirely from the profits from Charlie’s company CF Zeiler, LLC. (CFZ) This company was founded in 1985 as CF Zeiler & Co., Inc. as a “Manufacturer’s Representative and commodity Trading company”. . CFZ has continued funding the Foundation for the past 16 years. ZFF has donated over $2.000,000. since 2006 to nonprofits. Only a small percentage of CFZ’s net profit was ` donated to the ZFF.
Knowing that he was aging Charlie decided to start SFB to establish its own product line with 100% of it’s net profits after all expenses, going to non-profits. The markets where CFZ has successfully operated. CF Zeiler, LLC would be representing SFB as it now does for a major aggregate company and several other smaller manufacturers.
SFB’s business model is like Newman’s Own(“NO”) model (“All Profits to Charity”) except that our goal is to work directly with non-profits. NO donates its net profits to the Newman Foundation which owns the NO company. Since its founding in the 1980s NO has donated over $500,000,000.00 to charities around the world through its own committees.
Why was the company named Saint Francis Brands (“SFB”)
The major reasons Charlie named the new company SFB because:
He is Catholic.
His middle name is Francis, named after the Saint,
He attended the Shrine of the Little Flower School located in Baltimore Maryland 1956-1964, grades 1-8 and he was taught by the School Sisters of Philadelphia Order of St. Francis. (“OSF”)
Despite having an average class size of 70-80 students he attributes his basic education at Little Flower to setting the foundation for his advanced studies, (B.S.-1972-Towson State College, M.B.A, 1976, Morgan State University. My teachers “talked the talk” and walked the walk”. They instilled in me the love of God and help me understand the following words of St. Francis “Remember, when you leave this earth, you can take nothing you have received, but only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.” God requires that we assist the animals when they need our help.
Served 10 years as a trustee of the School Sister of Philadelphia Foundation.