The online golf apparel retailer is in a tough position, facing competitors who offer deep discounts off the bat and manufacturers increasingly less willing to offer accounts online.

It’s in this environment that Golf Pro Wears has entered the marketplace buoyed by a unique concept: the Give Back 9, which sends nine percent of every sale to a charity associated with a golfer.

For example, if you purchase a pair of Adidas AdiPower Boost shoes, Golf Pro Wears will send nine percent of the sale to Jason Day’s Brighter Days Foundation.

Hence the company slogan: Look great and donate.

“We obviously want to sell tons of golf apparel,” said Co-Founder Robert Huck. “But we also want to generate tons of revenue for our charities. If we can do both, then it’s going to be very exciting for all of us at GolfProWears.”

I had a chance to speak with company CMO Jeff Johnson about how the company arrived at its current business model and how the partnerships work.

Tell me about the initial concept and how you came up with the Give Back 9.

J.J.: The initial concept was sort of a ShoeDazzle platform. The idea was to do a male-orientated golf spinoff on that: every month a golf shirt would arrive or something. It transitioned from just golf apparel—there was always going to be a charity spin on it, thinking about a percent of sales going to charity.

We looked more to scripting and selling the scripted collections. We probably spent six months trying to know ahead of time what the scripts would be, so you could buy the hole collections or just a piece. We had even looked into giving the caddie a few bucks and he could send us a text every day. What we found out was, a lot of times manufacturers send players a kit—five pair of pants, 12 shirts—and a player grabs what he feels like wearing.

The pain-in-the-a** factor was huge with the concept. We had a consultant. We met with him, and he thought it was confusing. But he said, “This charity thing, I think that’s the point of difference you have in the industry.” We had come to a decision internally that if we could get some awareness from some of the charities and players, we could leave with 10 percent going to charity, and I thought what about nine and what if we called it the Give Back 9?

How do the partnerships develop?

J.J.: We start with the brands we want to work with. We look at who are the next brands. Once we have a brand, we’ll start conversations with the brand to see if it’s an easy deal. Do they give an account to anybody? What hoops are there to jump through? Next, we’ll look at the players on their roster. And then, we’ll sort of prioritize those players based on popularity.

Then, we’ll focus in on one and see who their charity is. Do they have their own foundation? Are they partnering with somebody like St. Jude? After we have a preliminary discussion, we jump right over to the charity.

Editor’s Note: Presently, the company has lined up golfer-charity-brand combinations such as Jason Day; the Brighter Days Foundation; Adidas, Ernie Els; Els for Autism; the Ernie Els Collection, Bubba Watson; Oakley; the Bubba Watson Foundation. Further partnerships are forthcoming.