This year attracted a record number of proposals (3,283) for sessions at SxSW Interactive. Listed below are some of the topics I hope to see brought to life, hashed out, revered and questioned at the festival next March. As they primarily (although not all, black market innovations and digital nomadism made the list) relate to [...]
The first step in making nonprofits profitable is to take a more comprehensive look at what is profitable. (The second step may be to ignore the verbal contradiction!) As a nonprofit, what are all of the ways that your work produces financial returns, directly and indirectly? And who benefits financially from what you do–your beneficiaries? Other [...]
What exactly is a social enterprise? Can Levi’s be counted as one because it practices sustainability? Can KABOOM! because its operations are entrepreneurial? Â 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 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 [...]
Can Microsoft count social good among its top products? It’s a hard question to answer (for starters, defining and measuring social good is tough) but a fair question to ask in the context of Microsoft’s employee culture of social involvement. Last year, employee giving and company matched funds totaled nearly $90 million. Volunteer time is [...]
Within the world of social enterprise, there’s a subsect of organizations that help incubate and scale social ventures. Â These entities, from veterans Ashoka and Echoing Green to young buck Unreasonable Institute, play varying roles of investor, connector, teacher and trend-chronicler of a rising-star sector. To look beyond the magazine gloss and speculation and get a [...]
I’m not the first to make the case that crowdsourced social good contests should retreat quickly into the night. They’re inefficient at creating change; Their current popularity has diminished the value they bring to companies and brands; Consumers are fed up with them (how many vote-for-me solicitations do you get a week that make you feel [...]
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. Â Mechai’s understanding that economic development was ultimately tied to population control led him to create the Population Community Development Association (ironically, [...]
I'm Olivia Khalili. I created Cause Capitalism to show you how to grow your business by incorporating a social mission. 
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