Social Innovations

 Self-Sufficiency We hear about self-sufficiency often. When we are students, our education is meant to be a door to future self-sufficiency. When we are adults, paying our own bills and managing our finances is an assumed benchmark of our demonstration of self-sufficiency. We become independent as we leave home, and are responsible for maintaining our spiritual, social, and economic self-sufficiency. Sometimes we do better than others. Most of us rely on friends, family, organizations, or even governments when we are weak or experience a period of lack. Does that mean that we are not self-sufficient? By definition, yes. Dependence on someone or something else for something we cannot supply for ourselves is a lack of self-sufficiency. But, is that something that is a goal that we should be working toward, and helps along the way lead to that accomplishment in the end? If that is the case, should we be investing in one another to help develop mutual self-sufficiency as we progress throu

 IMPACT INVESTING Does how we invest our money really matter? Is it enough to know that our investments are making us money or is there more to consider? Enter-Impact Investing. The world's population of investors seems to be more aware of the needs of others and more interested that they use their money for good, especially if they are able to still make a profit on their investments. Impact investing does both. It allows financial resources to be used in ways that bring a social benefit while still having a return on the investment. This area of investing is a growing market as more and more individuals and companies recognize the importance of using their resources to positively impact the lives of their fellow man. This Ted Talk stood out to me. This is more than a trend and is impacting areas from environment to adequate childcare. What we do with our money matters, and we can become involved in social impact fairly easily by changing the way we invest to included Impact Inves

  Hybrids and Social Businesses There seems to be a growing social consciousness in what consumers want from corporations. We want environmentally friendly practices. We are concerned about poverty and social issues. We want community support and decent wages with benefit packages. We want products that are responsible. Is this a lot to expect from businesses, or is it the wave of the future business model? For hybrid businesses, this is all part of their make-up. More than philanthropy, these social businesses integrate social impact into their models. They employ marginalized individuals,  invest in the communities they work in, create sustainable products and operating processes, and integrate social goals with their business practices. Every part of a hybrid's business model has social welfare combined with revenue generation. Hot Bread Kitchen impressed me this week. They make more than bread, they make breadwinners. Their business model partners workforce development, small b

  Non-Profits and NGO's How are they organized? Why do we expect different things from them than businesses? How can they stay viable financially? These are important questions for socially conscious organizations to consider. Without a strong organization, the nonprofits tend to burnout and not have the impact they had hoped for. I have been involved with many non-profit organizations and have sat on the board of a couple. Without a strong organization, volunteer hours and well-wishes for a societal good will not deliver the results that you hope for. Photo credit: https://www.timberland.com/responsibility.html I am so impressed by Timberland's business model and the impact that Jeffrey Schwartz has had on this company. Business growth has been tied to values and has focused on community service, environmental responsibility and excellent products. This focus has allowed Timberland to grow to a global company with product sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars annuals, w

  Corporate Social Responsibility Does this matter to you? Do you base decisions to do business with companies based on the way they are socially responsible? This is an area that seems to be growing in the business world. Consumers, employees and shareholders are increasingly demanding greater social responsibility. Businesses have greater responsibility to the triple bottom line. This is not just profit, although that is obviously important to businesses. The triple bottom line includes economic, social and environmental considerations, Taking care of the planet by having environmentally responsible practices, take care of people by meeting social needs that relate to the business and find sustainable ways to have a profit while maintaining the other two areas is the goal of many modern businesses. One way that you can know if the companies you do business with are socially responsible is to check for a B Corp certification. This organizations certifies businesses who ascribe to the

 Business and Social Issues How do we address social issues? Is business important in addressing social issues? What business models are best in addressing social issues? These questions lead to more questions, but the reality is that a business model is developed to build a customer base and improve profit. Impact can be delivered in similar ways and business models like the lean start-up is extremely applicable to social issues. Lean start-ups get customer feedback from the start of their process and develops products based off customer input rather than starting with a business plan and product and then finding customers for the product. With social innovations, the customers are known, but the way to meet their needs are not always clear. Using the lean start-up model customer input can be used to help develop products that have true impact. This video shows how Bio Lite is innovating and how they have used lean start-up business modeling to impact lives across the world. https://y