About Olivia

Cause Capitalism shows companies how to grow their business by incorporating a social mission.

I’m Olivia Khalili. I built this site to give companies the resources, evidence and inspiration they need to use social responsibility to grow their business.

When I’m not interviewing social entrepreneurs or writing, I work with companies to implement cause capitalism. You can see some of my work here, here and here.

Why cause alone isn’t enough

I spent a year in the Marshall Islands and observed first-hand the successes and shortcomings of international development.  Volunteering as a teacher and newspaper editor, I had access to the local government and foreign NGOs. Repeatedly, I saw well-intentioned foreign aid pour into the country and run down the drain.  There was insufficient buy-in from the Marshallese (who viewed themselves as charity subjects, rather than co-creators) and the programs didn’t take.
Afterward, I consulted with nonprofits in Los Angeles and observed another kind of inefficiency. Most nonprofits have to spend an uncanny amount of time raising money, which takes away their constituent programs. Nonprofits are heavily regulated, preventing them from developing more creative fundraising approaches, which leads to a donation-dependent model of survival.

Why capitalism alone isn’t enough

I handled international trade advocacy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce before moving to the Marshall Islands.  There, I worked with both foreign ambassadors and U.S. small business owners to share their stories around free trade and open markets, created training programs and built coalitions. There are winners and non-winners in free trade—and the definition of capitalism is handily used to reason away mistreatment. But I see capitalism as tool to generate wealth, jobs and social progress. I saw this as a volunteer in Micronesia, as a nonprofit champion in Los Angeles and as a corporate suit in Washington, D.C.

What cause capitalism can do for your company

Increase–

•    Sales
•    Customer base
•    Brand recognition
•    Customer loyalty
•    Employee productivity, satisfaction and loyalty
•    Peer and press recognition

Why this blog?

This site is dedicated to moving the dial—company by company, profit line, by profit line and cause by cause. I started the site in January 2008 as a way to track my passion: companies and individuals using growing their business through social responsibility.

Contact

If you would like more information on leveraging social responsibility to you’re your business, you can contact me here.

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