The offer: As part of a publicity push for its carbon-neutral ENVIRONMENT Papers line, Neenah Paper launched a sweepstakes to win an eco-trip for two to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica and a chance to “go hard core and experience conservation in the heart of some of nature’s most fragile environments.” The lucky winner is […]
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Lessons In Social Enterprise From Dr. Condom
Mechai Viravaidya didn’t start out as a social entrepreneur. He began as a businessman with a freshly granted MBA who realized his country’s situation–Thailand–would never grow economically if its population explosion couldn’t be tamed. Mechai’s understanding that economic development was ultimately tied to population control led him to create the Population Community Development Association (ironically, […]
If Businesses Can’t BOGO and NGOs Are Crushing Entrepreneurship, Where Does That Leave Us?
If you caught my poll earlier this week asking what areas you find meaningful in the cosmos of business and social responsibility, you know that I’ve been thinking hard about how to make the biggest impact. On one hand, there’s the CSR approach, which I’ll generalize as reaching more people but having less direct impact […]
How What I Learned On a Pacific Atoll Should Influence Your CSR Programs
The Context I made my home on a 3.4 square-mile atoll for a year while I volunteered as a teacher and newspaper editor. On many parts of Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, a 120-degree swivel of my head would provide a view of the lagoon and the ocean. The beginning of this story […]
Choose Your Own Cause-Marketing Ending
To build brand awareness and identity, the Close But No Cigar company is interested in creating several cause-based community events. Close But No Cigar (CBNC) brings in an expert to ask what cause it should support. Based on the company’s response to several questions, the idea man returns with several areas that the company might […]
Coke’s Sticky Situation Is a Warning Not To Market Sustainability You Don’t Have
On a wall in Honest Tea’s office is a Chinese proverb that cautions Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. It’s a prescient warning given the story I’m about to tell, but the lesson I want to highlight is that when you invest in sustainability as an image […]
Want to Change the World? Read This First
I’ve read a string of great books lately, parts of which occasionally flash into my consciousness, but none has made the same impression as Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. It’s the self-told story of John Wood’s departure from Microsoft to create libraries at first, then classrooms, then schools and finally scholarships in Southeast Asia and […]
The Private Side of Sustainability Is Sexy Too: Engaging CEOs in More Than Just Sustainable Window Dressing
There seems to be a problem. An influential group of global CEOs list brand, trust and reputation as their “primary considerations for acting on sustainability.” Motivators like revenue growth and cost reduction, consumer demand, employee engagement and retention and personal motivation lagged significantly behind. Many CEOs seem to have reversed cause and effect. Brand trust […]
Why Mission Should Be Your Primary Product
How to let your mission guide you: Your mission should guide your decisions, but sometimes you’ll have to prioritize long-term mission over short-term consequences as Organic Valley did when it shipped milk from Ohio to North Carolina to help farmers there start a local business. The short-term compromise was the environmental impact of shipping milk so […]
I'm Olivia Khalili. I created Cause Capitalism to show you how to grow your business by incorporating a social mission. I've worked extensively with both nonprofits and for-profits. I found that when you combine the two, you grow your profits, impassion all your stakeholders and do good in the world. Read more.
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