Open for Business, Open for Social Change
Where does doing good start? For purpose-propelled businesses, their passion is to make profit and drive positive social change.
Where does the good start? Does it start at the beginning of the road, as a business or an organization is just getting started, built intuitively into how an organization or a team works? Or does it come as a strategic thought after a business or an organization has realized scale and has the money, manpower, and resources to commit to it?
In today’s world, we’ve experienced two main schools of thought when it comes to how businesses do good. The first is the Gates/ Zuckerberg Model; the idea that an organization becomes successful in its core business, and starts a non-profit foundation to do good. A prime example: The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), spearheaded by Facebook’s Founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, was founded in 2015, 11 years after Facebook’s founding. The Gates Foundation is another example of an organization doing tremendous good globally - again, after the success of Microsoft Corporation.
A different model for change is the Yunus Social Business approach. Named after Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank, pioneer of microcredit and microfinance, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, this approach advocates for starting a business with the intention of doing social good from the get-go.
Though these have been the traditional approaches, there are now new-age companies that aim to serve dual purposes of profit and social purpose. For example, in many parts of the world, founders can now choose a legal structure while forming a company, that conveys that the business does not solely exist for profit, and aims to create social impact.
In the United States, companies can choose how they organize to do good depending on which state they are formed in: a Benefit Corporation or Social Purpose Corporation (SPC). A benefit corporation is a traditional corporation committed to higher standards of purpose, accountability, and transparency. An SPC is a for-profit business with a stated social purpose.
From philanthro-capitalism to social businesses, SPCs to B-Corps to non-profits, there are different ways to organize the intent. But what truly matters is the intent - and the people driving it forward. Without human voices and perspectives to advocate for causes, there is no doing good.
Meet Purism: A Social Purpose Corporation that Honors and Protects Digital Rights
Founded in 2014 by Todd Weaver, Purism launched with a crowdsourced security-first Librem 5 phone - and a drive to do good by honoring and protecting digital rights and privacy. Today, Purism is a powerful example of a founder-led Social Purpose Corporation that continues to keep digital rights and privacy at the core of how they design. Their portfolio of tech products offer a market-based solution to provide alternatives to big tech.
Purism is not vague about how their business commits to doing good. You see this immediately with their Digital Bill of Rights which defines what ‘good’ is for them and how they purposefully went about creating both software and hardware that was ethically-built, safe, and secure. They’re a good and important example of collaborative capitalism in action.
Read more about Purism’s impact here.
If there’s anything we know about business and doing good, it’s this - there are many ways to do it. Where does doing good start? It starts with people. It starts with you and me.
We love impact stories. If you are a purpose-propelled business making an impact or know a business like this, please share with us!
ABOUT US: IMPACTIKA CONSULTING
We at Impactika Consulting help do-gooders do better through purpose-propelled® consulting. We are a digital marketing, strategy, and social change consulting firm. We help for-purpose organizations take on the world’s toughest challenges in digital rights, social and economic justice, education, and more.
As an advocate for both business and doing good, Impactika is a women-led team committed to helping organizations around the world find impactful and meaningful ways to market their purposes and connect with others. We don’t do memes. We will never buy followers. We will not create spam. We believe in creating and spreading the word about purpose-propelled people and businesses.
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www.impactikaconsulting.com