Two glasses companies have a revolutionary idea: Spectacles should be cheap, and anyone who needs them should be able to have a pair.
Warby Parker pitches its product to customers as stylish specs. But underneath the chic is a business model set to change the way glasses are distributed. For each pair sold, the company donates another to VisionSpring, a non-profit dedicated to selling those donated glasses in poorer communities worldwide. 
See also: Smart Glasses Will Re-Envision Travel as We Know It
The companies strive to empower those associated with Warby Parker glasses, and aim to make a huge dent in the 700 million people worldwide in need of glasses.
"We built this company in the hopes that we could radically transform the optical industry and hopefully bring down prices for everybody," Neil Blumenthal, co-founder of Warby Parker, said on stage at the Social Good Summit on Tuesday. For every pair of Warby Parker glasses purchased, the company donates a pair of specs to the non-profit VisionSpring.
Warby Parker sells its glasses for $95 a pair; it earns money by attracting customers with a good sense of value.
VisionSpring's model is much less traditional. The non-profit company sells glasses through 9,000 vendors — entrepreneurs in their own right — to communities in which the average person lives on a salary between $1 and $4 per day. VisionSpring and Warby Parker provide gunmetal gray glasses in parts of Bangladesh, more Americanized pairs throughout communities in El Salvador and other styles in other locations.
"The size of the problem is too big for charity to attack ," Jordan Kassalow, founder of VisionSpring, said on stage alongside Blumenthal.
By providing glasses for vendors to sell, VisionSpring's model creates jobs, and the companies' joint product can work wonders on productivity itself.
"We've done some studies with the University of Michigan that show that once someone gets access to a pair of glasses, their productivity increases 35%," Kassalow told Mashable. "That translates to about a 20% increase in income."
That income, Kassalow said, has a ripple effect across a person's family. They can spend more money on clothes, healthcare, housing and education — another field where Kassalow said glasses have a direct positive impact.
"If you can't see, it's kind of hard to learn," Kassalow said. "Huge numbers of kids fall out of school because they just can't see the blackboard."
Perhaps most important, according to Blumenthal, is that those who sell affordable glasses have a renewed sense of purpose.
"We're also finding that [vendors] are becoming pillars in their community, because someone who's able to distribute a health product like glasses is looked at very differently from somebody hocking Coca-Cola or something," Blumenthal said. "It changes people's mindset of what they can accomplish, and that is really hard to measure, but it has a profound impact on that community."

The Social Good Summit is where big ideas meet new media to create innovative solutions and is brought to you by Mashable, The 92nd Street Y, The United Nations Foundation, The United Nations Development Programme, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Ericsson. Held during U.N. Week, the Social Good Summit unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges.
Date: Sept. 22 through Sept. 24 Time: 12 to 6 p.m. each day Location: 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., New York, N.Y. Tickets are sold-out, but tune into the Livestream.
 
BONUS: 10 Moving Quotes From Day 2 of Social Good Summit
"It's absolutely absurd to treat the sky as if it were an open sewer."
"The future of 2030 depends on our decision to invest in adolescent girls."
"Science shouldn't be a luxury, knowledge should not be a commodity."
"One man with courage is a majority, each one of you can be a majority of one."
"The only thing that happened when I got shot was that weakness, fear and hopelessness died."
"You move things forward just by talking about them."
"It's not renewable energy, it's rational energy."
"Education isn't simply about literacy, it's about giving girls back their power."
"Change comes from the inside out."
"In most parts of the world, when a girl is born, her wings are clipped. She is not able to fly."
Image: Mashable, Casey Kelbaugh