The Giving Keys is hitting the road.

The company, headquartered out of the downtown Los Angeles
Arts District, will begin dabbling in its own retail with a pop-up — of sorts —
at The Grove.

The company bought a 1973 Airstream, painted the exterior
with chalkboard paint, gutted the interior, white-washed the walls and built
out a display case to create a store. The company debuts the concept today and
will keep it open through the weekend in a move that kicks off a yearlong road
tour for the trailer in 2017. The traveling store will make stops at music
festivals among other spots to test market response to its necklaces and
bracelets adorned with old keys engraved with inspirational words, such as
fearless, strength and love. The company is in talks to potentially bring a
virtual reality component to the Airstream for next year that would let
customers experience the brand through the eyes of employees transitioning out
of homelessness.

“Really, for us internally, this is a test to see how it
performs in different markets and help us identify what markets respond the
strongest to our mission,” said president Brit Moore.

Permanent stores could likely come online as early as 2018,
with Los Angeles and Nashville at the top of its list of locations, along with
the Southeast, where the company also does well, according to Moore.

“With The Giving Keys mission and the pay-it-forward
activation with each product, we found that it’s really important for customers
to understand those two components,” she said. “Sometimes it’s hard to
communicate [that] with other wholesale partners so we’re excited about having
an opportunity to tell our brand story in a more comprehensive experience.”

The Giving Keys, started in 2008, bills itself as a
“pay-it-forward company,” employing those transitioning out of homelessness.
The actual necklaces and bracelets are meant to inspire the wearer, who can
later choose to gift the piece of jewelry to another person they feel could
benefit more from whichever word is stamped on their key. People who visit the
pop-up are encouraged to write on the Airstream’s chalkboard exterior their
pay-it-forward stories.

The company projects this year of between $9 million and
$10 million, consistent with the doubling of revenue it’s seen over the past
few years, Moore said. The Giving Keys employs a team of about 60, which
ballooned from three workers four years ago.

The brand is in about 1,300 stores, including Nordstrom and
Fred Segal.

It’s also eyeing international distribution in countries
such as France, Germany, Austria and Belgium.

Candles, which will be rolled out for holiday on the
company’s web site, are among the new product categories the company will begin
dabbling with via its online channel, which is seen as “a lower risk and higher
margin way” of testing new items, Moore said.