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How Turning His Non-profit Into a Profitable Company Helped His Social Mission–with Aseem Das

If you want the real story from a successful for-profit social entrepreneur, click the player to listen to Aseem Das talk about founding and transforming World Centric. Prefer MP3? Right-click and download. [Audio clip: view full post to listen] World Centric evolved from a nonprofit to a nonprofit with a revenue-earning component to a for-profit […]

How Timberland Engages Diversified Stakeholders–with Beth Holzman

Click the player to listen to our conversation. Prefer MP3? [Audio clip: view full post to listen] With a deep background in sustainability and corporate accountability, Beth Holzman brings an appreciation for impact evaluation and stakeholder involvement to Timberland as the company’s CSR Strategy and Reporting Manager.  I invited Beth to Cause Capitalism to talk about […]

method Soap Markets Goodwill and Detergent With Mobile Laundromat

1. Collaboration 2. Innovation 3. Care 4. What would MacGyver do? (ingenuity & industry to impact the outcome) 5. Keep method weird Cleaning-products brand method applied its five values to launch its new laundry detergent last month. Partnering with Goodwill Industries (collaboration), method toured the streets of New York City in a glass-walled truck that […]

Creating a Business-In-a-Box That Delivers Wages and Opportunity to Iraqi Women–with Ted Barber

A $22 candle from Prosperity Candle brings you more than light and a gentle rose coriander scent (if you choose).  It comes with the first name of the woman who made it and an identifying number that allows you to send her comments and feedback.  The woman who made your candle lives in Baghdad and […]

Why It’s Good Business For Levi’s To Care About What You Do With Your Jeans at Home

Your next pair of Levi’s might come with a clothesline or shoebox-sized dryer.  After a recent lifecycle assessment, Levi’s realized that 60% of the climate impact of a pair of jeans comes after the jeans are made and sold; nearly 80% of this is from drying the jeans in a dryer.  The presumed and easy […]

A Zen Buddhist Builds a Bakery to Hire the Hard-Up (and Makes it Work)–with Jonathan Greengrass

Get the Google Audio Widget widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info) Click the player to listen to the interview or right-click and save to download the MP3. What do world-class brownies and hard-to-hire employees have in common? A bakery called Greyston. Greyston Bakery founder and Zen […]

Have a Heart: Valentine’s Day Gifts that Give Back

The day of commercially induced amorous passion is nearly upon us. In addition to living a day of randiness and long-gazes, I’d like to suggest that we live a day of compassion. I happen to love Valentine’s Day, but I get an internal twitch from writing a post that encourages more consumption. He loves me, […]

Katrina Survivor Indonique Tea Reinvents Itself with a New Type of Capitalism–With George Constance

His first customer was a slim-legged exotic dancer from Bourbon Street. His second, a Catholic priest in clerics. Both came to George Cosntances’s Indonique Cafe to drink high-end teas. George and his wife Daya ran the Magazine Street cafe for 16 months until Katrina hit, emptying the city of people and molding stocked tea leaves. […]

How Soap Hope is Giving Away All Profits for a Year and Growing 25% Monthly–With Salah Boukadoum

Even the best cause marketing campaigns and employee volunteer programs don’t give your company the social mission necessary to distinguish it in the eyes of competitors, potential employees and investors. Still, these initiatives are terrific tools that I fully encourage you to use, which is why I invite experts here to teach them. However, if […]

You’re Shopping Anyway–How to Make Your Purchase Count 3 Times

What a difference 10% makes when it’s extracted from $460 billion.  The latter figure is what Americans spent on holiday shopping last year despite a rapidly eroding economy and forewarned doldrums ahead.  It’s been said before, but it’s worth another step to the soapbox:  What if we choose to buy only merchandise that has a social […]