Social Organizations Need to Tap into This
September 12, 2002 9:56
Corporations that stand to benefit financially (e.g., banks via loans or manufacturers who gain new sales markets) will participate, so long as the value from their "investment" in social issues comes to them, not competitors. Like patent protection on R&D, they will want the benefit of their "labor." However, corporations also recognize the need to be part of contributing to society (sometimes selflessly, sometimes for personal need – i.e., qualified labor pool). Social organizations need to tap into this more than ever before. A business or businessperson with a heart is a powerful tool. We want to empower those in need to transform their lives, not be a "charitable" cure-all that they must continually return to. This can be threatening to an organization that longs to help others, but is also caught by a need to keep the organization going. Few of us are ready to work ourselves out of a job, but that is the very work of a social entrepreneur: to make ourselves and our organizations unnecessary. By combining the heart and mission of social organizations, and the mindset of outcomes evaluation prevalent in the business community, we have a powerful tool indeed.
- Ervin Starr, Assistant Professor of Business & Management, Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, NY

In India there isn't Much Partnering or Working Together
September 13, 2002 00:57
[In] the USA and European countries . . . the private sector [is] more effectively working with the social sector vis-?-vis India, where there are few known and big companies doing charity or some development work . . . there is not much partnering or working together with the NGOs and government in order to reach out to more beneficiaries. . . . the corporate sector in India isn't vocal on major social issues affecting the society – like during and after the Gujarat carnage . . . Only with co-operation and similar understanding between the state, private sector and social sector, will there be a win-win situation in the area of social and economical development.
- Keshmira, India

The Social Sector will Thrive in a Global Economy if . . .
September 14, 2002 9:02
The social sector will thrive in a global economy that enables it to respond to the major social & environmental trends reshaping world markets. The CEMEX story reflects the rising interest in using markets' solutions to address some of the world's most pressing problems such as population, health, and education, urbanization, communication, and nutrition and democracy accountability. Systemic and sustainable work would mitigate social problems if initial funding focuses for some lengthy period on industry maximizing its contribution. It is not necessary for government to be a partner for such social change, but involvement along the entire value chain would be desirable. Social change needs broad interaction with stakeholders at every level to increase understanding generally.
- Dr. Safdar Kalifa, managing director, Sustainable Agriculture Resource Management & Modernization Program (SARMAMP) for rural Ghana, drsafdark@yahoo.com

Political Interests can be Devastating to a Business and to Development
September 14, 2002 14:03
The economics of for-profit development make sense. On the other side, there are all the political interests that get engaged the minute for-profit businesses try to do development work. These political interests can be devastating to a business and to development.
    So, in short, I believe that more traditional social entrepreneurs can help for-profit development businesses create a new politico-economic space between actions that only governmental or multi-lateral action can take care of – building new dams, bridges, highways, public education – and those that traditional business is better able to handle – providing new, useful, exciting cars, computers, clothing, soaps.
    There are a number of thinkers beginning to talk about this new intermediate space where both development and enterprise take place. They tend – in my estimation – to be a little too doctrinaire and academic. (I say that as a former academic.) Business needs to team up with people who come more from the social side, but who care about entrepreneurship to develop this new social space, develop the rules of the game and the expectations, and so forth. Otherwise, it could easily be attacked by entrenched political and journalistic interests.
- Charles Spinosa, consultant, VISION Consulting, USA

Erase the Stigma, Convince the Private Sector
September 16, 2002 16:35
Private companies can and should engage in social development that also creates profit, and vice versa. This is contrary to thousands of years of business thinking but need not be. We need to do two things: erase the stigma that businesses will always do harm, and 2) compile the necessary mathematical argument to convince the private sector that there is money to be made. Developed country businesses are busy fighting each other for less than one fifth of the world's population as a market. When they can see, because we show them, that the other four fifths are profitable (must be in context of scale) and that they won't be accused of taking advantage by exploring this population, their natural instincts will take over and lead us all in a much more constructive direction. It's not about blame, it's about engagement.
- Paul Swider, Greenstar, director of special projects, USA

The Corporate Vision of "Development" is Harmful to Local Society
September 17, 2002 12:54
Prof. Starr says "A business or businessperson with a heart is a powerful tool." Let's be clear that a small or one-owner business can have a heart, but that a corporation has a legal duty to maximize profits to shareholders, and a technical tendency to attract management that also – or indeed in lieu of that goal – will maximize profits to himself. The other actual stakeholders, including labor, the surrounding community, the environment, and even the consumer, are all potential and actual fodder for this strict bottom-line accounting.
    Attempts, such as in Mexico, to put other stakeholders into the equation legally have not succeeded very well through lack of enforcement and are being undermined by trade agreements at the international level. At base (as Genevieve Vaughan has theorized in her book "For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange") there can be seen to be two mutually incompatible economic systems at work.
    While nonprofits often succumb to something like profit motive, with staff trying to enrich themselves and discounting the value and motives of volunteers, the ideal of nonprofit organizing is gift-giving: seeing a need and filling it. The beneficiary of the gifts should be the community – once it becomes the corporations that are seen as the ultimate beneficiary of the social gifts, then for example it is impossible to recognize that organic small-holder farms are more productive and more socially valuable than large-scale chemical agriculture. We are already seeing, in Bangladesh, for example, this kind of cooptation of donor work, and that it leads to a corporate vision of "development" that is harmful to the local society.
    I think nonprofits quite rightly view the cooperation of business with suspicion, and that before getting too rosy-visioned about those gifts they should analyze them in terms of long-term results.
- Frieda Werden, radio producer, Women's International News Gathering Service, USA

Breaking Down the Old Divisions between the Business and Citizen Sectors
September 19, 2002 12:48
What I found most interesting about the Cemex Patrimonio Hoy business arrangement was how it draws on some of the most important insights that have come up in recent years, initially through the micro-credit revolution. There is a sense of 'social archaeology' here, with one social innovation laying a foundation for the next level of innovation. For example, we see the use of borrowing groups collateralized with 'social capital,' organizations working directly with women, a focus on asset-based, as opposed to income-based, development and home ownership, a system that breaks down a large payment into many small installments and simplifies processes, and a high degree of transparency in financial dealings. All of this builds community trust and economic capacity, and so forth.
    Now that it has become abundantly clear that it is possible to establish reliable, on-going institutional relationships with low income people around the world, the opportunities for businesses working in partnership with citizen organizations to provide vital services and products, while earning fair returns, are only limited by imagination and the old divisions between the business and citizen sectors that limit trust and make communication difficult. Breaking down these old divisions may be the most important challenge we face today.
- David Bornstein, author of "The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank," dbornstein@attglobal.net, USA

The Social and the Business Sector Could Learn from Each Other
September 20, 2002 15:57
If a private company can contribute to build thousands of new homes in the poorest shantytowns and make a profit in the process, what does that say to subsidized housing programs, or even citizen sector organizations, that see the impact of their work limited to the amount of resources they can tap? As the social sector grows, massive distribution networks – reaching out to hundreds of thousands of microcredit or health network clients – are emerging.
    Provided that private businesses have the commitment to serve the poor profitably, these distribution networks could become the basis for a win-win partnership that accelerates the process of private businesses developing these new markets. Within this new framework, the social and the business sector could learn from each other, while working together with one central common concern: millions of satisfied new customers in low-income market segments equals social impact.
- Valeria Budinich, Ashoka, vbudinich@ashoka.org, USA

Forging Relationships between Local Residents, NGOs, Businesses and Government
September 29, 2002 20:10
The private sector cannot be asked to lower the price of building materials that are bought by low-income people. But still, you can observe how social interactions occur in a neighborhood. Though we may never see it, there can be a special relationship between building supply stores, government employees, NGOs and neighborhood residents. Low-income people build their houses by themselves and they may be able to pay for the building materials on credit.
    In my city in Indonesia, Semarang, the local government has set a special price for low-income people who want to get a land certificate, building construction permit, etc. in order to address the problem of housing and settlements. Of course, this is only a local activity. But perhaps in the future it can be implemented in the entire country of Indonesia.
- Enny Soekoer, Ashoka Fellow, enns@indosat.net.id, Indonesia

Working with For-Profits has been Very Productive
October 2, 2002 9:32
As someone who runs a social enterprise in a nonprofit, we've found that working with for-profits has been very productive. For example, our efforts to make affordable reading machines were successful mainly because we ended up using for-profit businesses run by motivated people with disabilities to distribute and support our product. High technology companies were also big supporters because they could see the direct application of their product to helping a blind person read. For example, Intel donated almost two million dollars of chips to our charity to use in making better systems. If the nonprofit has some appreciation for how a for-profit works, a partnership can go far. I find most for-profit executives would love to do something socially beneficial, but the for-profit structure doesn't make it easy. We try to make it easy for them to be heroes.
- Jim Fruchterman, CEO, Benetech, jim@benetech.org, USA

Partnership Efforts Can Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Prejudice
October 7, 2002 7:09
Global initiatives aimed at alleviating social and environmental problems fail at all levels when the various governments involved do not heed existing mandates of United Nations protocols that bear on sustainable developments, and particularly now that ?sustainable development? figures more prominently in corporate thinking. Collaborative and partnership efforts can eliminate racial and ethnic prejudice, especially when development occurs within otherwise marginalized areas. By restoring confidence in business, such enterprise would help in taking the critical first steps to invigorating economic growth. Some able institutional bodies have to put in place a comprehensive trade adjustment assistance program to assist workers who have been displaced. An adequate program would include health, insurance, and wage insurance for older workers. NGO networks around the world could usefully develop relationships with each other with a view to enhancing international solidarity about issues of common interest.
- Dr. Safdar Kalifa, managing director, Sustainable Agriculture Resource Management & Modernization Program (SARMAMP) for rural Ghana, drsafdark@yahoo.com, Ghana

Collaborations Work: in Indonesia
October 8, 2002 3:11
As far as I know, Aqua Mineral Water Company is one of the first companies to be sensitive to social problems in Indonesia. Some of the profits gained by this company have been allocated to improving the quality of living, the environment and family economic conditions. In Lombok [an Indonesian island], an earthenware business is attempting to employees' living conditions, although this is being done on a small-scale level.
    At YKPR, we also have developed a similar concept and implemented it through a collaboration with other private companies and the government, again at a small-scale level. This collaboration includes agribusiness and human resources development for Indonesian migrant workers. Since 1997, YKPR has gained a good deal of experience in collaborating with the local government of the West Lombok District. The collaboration is done in the field of rural-based area development in the settlement, forest, and information sectors (communication radio and community radio), including human development (i.e., health, education, and economy).
    Theoretically, a private company can make use of the profits they make in systemic and sustainable ways that attempt to resolve social problems in-situ. However, this often is difficult to implement because the goals of private companies are usually profit-oriented. Thus, a mutual relationship can be implemented when the following conditions are fulfilled:
• The socio-political climate is conducive.
• The background and idealism of private companies are established from the beginning.
• The participants have people who are capable and willing to implement a program.
It is quite possible to implement this type of collaboration in certain areas directly related to the community, such as mass media, agribusiness, and tourism.
(More comments from Ratna Rafida)
- Ratna Refida, founder Yayasan Kerja Pemukiman Rakyat (YKPR - Foundation for People's Settlement), ykpr@indo.net.id, Indonesia

Private Enterprise Cannot Solve the Problem of Militarism
October 9, 2002 12:46
Poverty is the most expensive, least profitable social experiment anyone could ever devise. Any project that reduces poverty should increase profits. It should be in private enterprise?s interest to eliminate poverty altogether, so as to increase its consumer base, overall productivity and profit margins. Why has this not happened automatically, through the Unseen Hand?
    Mencius said that an Emperor who seeks mere profit is doomed, whereas one who seeks Humanity and Duty will be truly great. We can use poverty and profit here, however, as clumsy yardsticks of policies that promote much more significant Humanity and Duty.
    Unfortunately, poverty is also the best incubator of soldiers. An unlimited supply of willing soldiers is a much higher priority, worldwide, than mere profit. Considerations of profitability are irrelevant as long as 180 nation-states demand unlimited supplies of soldiers and military hardware. Private enterprise is incapable of resolving this problem. Guns or butter, but not both.
    For the first time in history, we have the means, motive and opportunity to make warfare illegal across the planet and eliminate the demand for unlimited numbers of soldiers. . . . Most social contradictions will resolve themselves automatically once the need for unlimited numbers of soldiers and war tax wastage is gone.
- Mark Mulligan, author, LEARNERS: On the Move from WeaponWorld to PeaceWorld, markmulligan@worldnet.att.net, USA

We Need a New Common Ground
October 9, 2002 5:40
There must be a newer common ground established between the for-profit sector and non-profit sector. In retrospect corporations and nonprofits must recognize that what best serves the social, humane and environmental issues serves the viability of all.
    The stigma that must also be removed is the label of "charity giving." Expenditures toward social, humane or environmental causes are investments, not hand outs. Many times the numerous good that many nonprofits contribute are lost because of the view that their efforts are charity based.
    It must be considered that when one human cause is advanced, the private sector wins another customer – be it in India, Canada or Germany. When one more environmental cause succeeds, everyone is safer, not a few.
    Last, there must be a new focus on the part of the for-profit sector toward nonprofits. The for-profit sector must also sincerely ask itself whether it wants the nonprofits to become viable and profitable entities toward resolving these problems or not.
- Abraham Davis, Jr., managing director, IDE, ideglobe@aol.com, USA

  September '02 Journal