2023 W. Curtis Strube Small Business Award: Jordan Essentials

Origins
Jordan Essentials founder Nancy Bogart started her business, then called Country Bunny Bath and Body, in her kitchen 23 years ago, noting a desire to help busy women earn an income while fulfilling other priorities in their lives. By 2007, the name changed to Jordan Essentials, and today the direct sales company’s skincare products are sold in all 50 states, officials say. Keeping ingredients for its products American made also has been a priority for Bogart, who said the only imported raw material is Dead Sea salt from the Middle East.

Advocacy
Some of the Jordan Essentials workforce are individuals with disabilities. It’s a personal connection for Bogart, who adopted a daughter who has a disability in 2002 and has since worked as an advocate by speaking locally and nationally, educating businesses about involving the underemployed class of citizens in their workplaces.

10%
Jordan Essentials donates 10% of its annual net revenue to community agencies, such as Convoy of Hope, CC Links, Abilities First and the Missouri State University Bear POWER program, which is geared toward students with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

5M
After running across a pioneer-era bath and body bar recipe in 2000, Bogart devised her own all-natural lotion bar and took inspiration from what her grandmother might have created in her kitchen. Officials say over 5 million of the lotion bars, which were featured over 20 years ago in American Way, the former in-flight magazine of American Airlines, have been produced.