We are a group of industry professionals working in the floral industry — tired of watching flower shops close. We build assistance, marketing focused on the florist, programs, and future endowments to increase the population of flower shops all over the world.

Not to compete with any endowment programs whose current focus is on growing the industry. Our endowments would be more in touch with the florist — where the industry is losing to sugar and jewelry, or failing due to a lack of floral business sense.

The first thing we are building is a standard — I Speak Flowers — and a worldwide list of the shops that meet it, so that a person looking for flowers finds a real flower shop first.

“Got Milk?” sold milk. Every grocery store in the country sold more of it, and it did nothing for the dairy on the corner. We are not marketing the flower. We are marketing the flower shop.

This is not a hunch. When the American industry ran a national generic flower campaign in the 1990s, economists at the University of Florida measured what it did to the shops. Total spending on flowers went up. The florist's share of it did not move at all. Marketing the flower grows the category. Only marketing the florist moves business through a flower shop door.