I started Cause Capitalism to convince you that having a social mission will help grow your business and to show you how. I want you (and me) to be able to create a sector-changing business like Jeffrey Hollender did with Seventh Generation. Long before it was fashionable, Jeffrey took toilet paper and dish detergent and […]
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Start With You: The Easiest Way to Build a Social Mission–with Renee Spears
“Why build a business with a social mission?” For Renee Spears, the reason was because she wanted a great place to go to work everyday. She didn’t conduct extensive market research and she didn’t wait until she had an MBA. She just built what she liked. It worked and now she’s helping other companies do […]
7 Steps to Building Partnerships From the People Who Are Ending Hunger
If you truly want your company to have a great impact, you can’t go it alone. You need to have partners. But what type and how? Scott Henderson and his colleagues Anne Bertelsen and Brian Reich seem to be wizards at creating partnerships and drawing out the best from each party. Together, they launched WeCanEndThis.com, a year-long campaign […]
We Can Do More Good With a For-Profit Model: The Lesson of Speed
I used to consult with nonprofits as part of a firm. What I’m about to write comes from my observations doing this work. We can do more good and do it more quickly with a for-profit model. Nonprofits aren’t bad, their model just has some flaws. (more…)
The Mission is Greater than the Business: How to Tap the Power of the Gort Cloud–with Richard Seireeni
If your company doesn’t have the money (or inclination) for traditional marketing you can join the ranks of companies like Seventh Generation, Tesla Motors and Stonyfield Farm in the Gort Cloud. ‘The Gort Cloud’ is Richard Seireeni’s term for the invisible force powering today’s most visible green brands, as well as the title of his book, […]
How Trust Can Boost Profits, Particularly For Social Enterprises
We know that transparency is a strong indicator of a company’s social mission. Turns out, it’s also good for business. Recently, transparency has been shown to be a significant driver of ultimate financial performance. The thread between transparency and profit is trust. By opening up internal operations, successes and failures to the public and to employees, we demonstrate transparency […]
Good Business Events
I added a calendar of events in social enterprise, sustainability and microfinance that can help your social mission. If you know of an event that should be listed, email it to me. So far, the listings are physical events because I generally think they hold themselves to a higher standard than online events. Want to prove […]
Does Doing Good and Getting Paid For It Leave You Feeling Unethical?
I was reminded tonight of how new the idea of social enterprise really is. Maybe not for you, but take a step back. Not only do some investors or consumers question it, but so do some of us. I just got off the phone with a change agent who is trying to put the pieces […]
Be Unreasonable, Change the World, Enroll Now–with The Unreasonable Institute’s Teju Ravilochan
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable persists in adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. –George Bernard Shaw . After talking with social entrepreneurs about the challenges they faced in building their businesses, I invited Teju Ravilochan to Cause Capitalism to share his vision for […]
Start with $10K, Grow the Pie, Sell to eBay–with Siddharth Sanghvi
The last part of this post’s title should be Provide Women with Access to Capital. This is the success story of a social enterprise created from a market opportunity, which proved its mettle by serving artisans in developing countries and attracting American companies like Disney, Hallmark, Whole Foods, and ultimately eBay. Last week World of […]
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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