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 […]
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Make Sustainability Personal–and 12 Other Tactics To Engage Employees
How do you engage employees in your company’s sustainability efforts, particularly when you’re just starting out? It can be trickier thank you’d think. In Strategy for Sustainability Adam Werbach reminds us that, Just as sustainability does not work for businesses unless it serves business needs first, sustainability does not engage individuals unless it first and foremost […]
Trouble Brewing For Green Mountain Coffee: Do 3 Billion Plastic Cups Negate 30 Years of Sustainability?
Does a history of progressive social and environmental responsibility compensate for recent environmental abuse? Green Mountain Coffee is staring into the face of this question now with criticism of its environmentally noxious single-use coffee pods that work with its Keurig brewing system. Last year, more than 80% of Green Mountain’s $803 million in sales came […]
Building Microsoft’s ‘Stealth’ CSR Program–with Dan Bross
Microsoft has something up its sleeve. A roiling, innovative and effective CSR strategy, which, even among CSR wonks, has gone largely unnoticed. Over the past weeks I’ve had the opportunity to speak with several executives in Redmond, Washington, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, helping to shape Microsoft’s corporate citizenship strategy. Admittedly, I went into these conversations […]
8 Fallacies About CSR That I’ve Heard This Week
This past week I’ve run into a lot of misconceptions about social responsibility and business. Taken from conversations with professionals “outside the sector” to those influencing it, from articles, blog posts and comments, here are this week’s top-eight fallacies about corporate social responsibility (CSR). .. It’s a new movement, so there’s time before my company […]
Who Are Today’s Social Entrepreneurs? Echoing Green’s Lara Galinksy Talks Trends
Within the world of social enterprise, there’s a subsect of organizations that help incubate and scale social ventures. 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 […]
Is This A Viable Alternative To Crowdsourced Social Good Campaigns?
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 […]
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, […]
4 Funding Options for Your Social Business Venture
I’m wrapping up Social Business Venture week with a look at funding options for the breed of businesses that generate profits but exist primarily to fulfill a social need. The legal structure of your business should take into account how you plan to operate and earn revenue. Neither of these decisions can be taken lightly […]
How Better World Books Built A Multimillion-Dollar, Venture Backed Social Enterprise–with David Murphy
In this 7-minute clip, Better World Books President and CEO David Murphy talks about the company’s fiduciary commitment to its nonprofit literacy partners and how it received funding, initially with an SBA loan and later through Good Capital, a social investment firm. Right-click and download for the MP3. [Audio clip: view full post to listen] […]
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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