When I first heard about KaBOOM!’s partnership with Kool-Aid, I thought unequivocally that the nonprofit had swallowed the sugary, Red No. 40-punch. Kool-Aid’s pledged to help KaBOOM! build 24 playgrounds and provide funding for 20 more. In a campaign aimed at promoting “healthy, active lifestyles for kids,” why is KaBOOM! partnering with an historic obesity […]
What Does the Empathy Differentiator Mean For Social Business?
How does a physician with sufficient medical knowledge and analytic ability distinguish himself? He measures high on the empathy scale. Once a physician gets past a certain threshold of analytic ability, he’s proven himself to be an okay doctor on the functional front, so the point of differentiation becomes his empathic abilities. When the Jefferson […]
My Stand Against False Communities: I Want Real Change, Not a Marketing Assist
Don’t call it a community and don’t plan to build one unless it will offer real value to the people who participate. Not just to you or your brand or the top-dogs within the community. That’s called marketing or complicit back-scratching, but not community in a sense of deep give and take and shared value, […]
Will B Corp’s New Campaign Be The Death Knell For Cause-Washing?
Rather than doing the industry in, cause-washing might just save corporate sustainability. Although consumer trust is worse than we thought, the anecdote has the potential to alter the way companies do business and consumers shop. Less than one percent of people (surveyed recently by BBMG in partnership with B Lab) trust company advertisements or statements […]
To Define Social Enterprise (not saying we need to), Focus On The Results
What exactly is a social enterprise? Can Levi’s be counted as one because it practices sustainability? Can KABOOM! because its operations are entrepreneurial? The term (which encompasses both profitable and non-profit initiatives) has had critics and confused bystanders shaking their heads and voicing alternatives for a while. The criticism seems mostly to rest on the […]
I Like Companies That Make Me a Better Person (the smart companies know this)
In the last four days that I’ve been back in the states I’ve had to pay for bags three times (at CVS, Ikea and Trader Joe’s). It’s a surprising and welcome development, particularly as I’m not in California or Boulder, but in Washington, D.C. My reaction to the pay-for-bag-system has also evolved in step with […]
Cause Capitalism Goes to Washington
I came to the whole idea of social impact and business after several frustrating experiences–working for a business lobbying organization that (not shockingly) ran against my values, becoming privy to the status quo inefficiencies of traditional international economic development and suffering alongside my nonprofit clients as they focused more on fundraising and philanthropic realpolitik than constituent […]
Creating High Impact Through BoP Business–with Unmesh Brahme
There’s a market at the bottom of the economic pyramid valued at $5 trillion dollars. But the real allure of this market, at least for me, is the opportunity to help its 4 billion people access healthcare, educational and basic living services. How can businesses access this market and how can they do it without […]
Vote4GoodBusiness: Creating More Companies That Get The Value of Sustainability
There are some myths about social responsibility and business that I need to dispel. There’s too much potential innovation, human fulfillment, environmental and social degradation and dollars at stake to let them linger. You–reader of this blog and likely social entrepreneur–can spot their untruths. But what about the millions of business in the United States that […]
A Zinger: CSR Now Seen As ‘Potentially Dangerous’
I’m stymied by another article from The Wall Street Journal challenging the plausibility and benefit of corporate social responsibility. In “The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility” Aneel Karnani takes the Friedmanite view that companies are primarily responsible for maximizing shareholder profits. To make his point that profit trumps social good, he focuses on the relationship between company […]
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. Email me.
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