Phil Harvey

Phil Harvey is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist and libertarian who over the past 30 years has set up large scale programs that deliver subsidized contraceptives in poor countries. Harvey is the president of DKT International, the Washington DC based charity that implements 12 programs in 11 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, and is the chief sponsor of the Liberty Project which raises awareness about freedom of speech issues in the US. Harvey is also the president of Adam & Eve, the North Carolina–based company that sells sex toys, videos, condoms and other sex products.

Over these years, Harvey has used profits from Adam & Eve to supplement support from international donors to protect millions of poor couples from unwanted pregnancies and HIV infections. During 2007 Harvey’s programs protected, according to figures released by DKT International, 15 million couples. [http://www.dktinternational.org]

Brief Biography

Harvey was born in Evaston, Illinois to William Dow Harvey and Lucy Smith Harvey as the youngest of five siblings on April 25, 1938. He attended Harvard College from 1957 and received his bachelor’s degree in 1961 in Slavic languages and literature. Between 1960 and 1962, he did his military service based in Ft. Meade, MD before joining the international charity CARE in 1963 to work in India. His five years’ work with CARE on large-scale feeding programs for rapidly growing numbers of Indian children convinced Harvey of the importance of family planning and planted the first seeds in his mind of starting an initiative that could address the issue on a global scale.

Harvey returned to the US in 1969 and enrolled in the University of North Carolina’s masters degree program in family planning administration. One of his classmates was Tim Black, a British physician (who went on to found Marie Stopes International, a large British charity also focused on family planning services). Harvey and Black founded Population Services International in 1970 which today works in over 70 countries with an annual budget of $250 million. Harvey remained the executive director of PSI from 1970 to 1977 and remained on the PSI Board until 2003.

He co-founded Adam & Eve in 1972 and continues to remain its president. He founded DKT International in 1988 and has been its president / chief executive since.

Business and non-profit enterprises

Harvey’s operational philosophy is unique: it combines altruism with strong business models. Adam & Eve is one of the largest sex product companies in the world. Harvey’s share of profits from it support DKT International which sells low priced contraceptives by using business channels that are found in every corner of the world, including in low resource settings. Special projects, such as those with the military in Ethiopia (which obliges all soldiers to carry condoms when they leave the base) or with local medical practitioners in India who make a small profit selling condoms, extend and supplement this approach and ensure the products are widely available.

History

Harvey realized the potential of mail order when, at the University of North Carolina, he joined forces with Tim Black to begin selling condoms through the mail(in violation of the Comstock Act). Their efforts to expand the range of products led to the evolution of the sex products business: in Harvey's own words, "(w)e tried to get our customers to buy leisure wear, shipbuilding kits, belt buckles, model airplanes, but they just yawned at that stuff. Every time we put something with erotic appeal in the catalog, the bells would ring." [http://www.alternet.org/story/13650]

Profit from their mail-order business provided the funds to launch Population Services International and DKT International, the latter named for the late D.K. Tyagi, an early pioneer of family planning in India. [http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/notebook/2002/11/ma_158_01.html]

Awards

* AVN Hall of Fame -- Founder's Branch [http://www.avnawards.com/index.php?content=halloffame]

External links

* [http://www.economist.com/people/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3262292 Feature on Phil Harvey at "The Economist"]
* [http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/notebook/2002/11/ma_158_01.html Feature on Phil Harvey at "Mother Jones"]
* [http://www.alternet.org/story/13650/ Feature on Phil Harvey at "AlterNet"]
* [http://www.authorviews.com/authors/harvey/author.php Phil Harvey at "AuthorViews"]
* [http://www.reason.com/links/links081605.shtml Feature on Phil Harvey at "Reason.com"]
* [http://www.adameve.com Adam&Eve] (note: adult content)
* [http://www.dktinternational.org DKT International]