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Understanding Conscious Business–with Richi Gil

Perhaps you’ve noticed a slight twist in topic, unfamiliar terms and different companies referenced in recent posts. I’ve become  enthralled by the concept of conscious business, which I view as an extension of cause capitalism to include organizational culture and structure, leadership, and communication. I’ve always explained cause capitalism as the merger of business and […]

Do We Need to Change What We Call Ourselves?

If you’re helping to build a business with a social mission, maybe you can identify with this excerpt from an article I co-wrote in The Guardian. Suggesting you are a social entrepreneur or work for a social enterprise often sounds a bit silly to first-time listeners. “Is that a fancy way of saying you’re a party […]

Are Sustainable Businesses Roadblocks To Change?

Slovenian philosopher and theorist Slavoj Žižek swings a sledge hammer at the knees of ‘cultural capitalism’ in this 10-minute video. And I admit, my knees buckled for some moments as I listened to his critique of Starbucks for its fair trade coffee, of philanthropist George Soros and of ‘charity businesses’ like TOMS Shoes. Žižek argues that […]

Have a Sustainable Start-up? Ready to Accelerate? Take Note.

Exposure. Credibility. Funding. New ventures need some combination of these to move from burning passionate idea to market success. Sustainable Brands Innovation Open, a business plan competition for sustainable enterprise, will offer up all three to one winning start-up. I don’t often plug competitions, but Sustainable Life Media, Sustainable Brands Innovation Open’s parent organization, has […]

It’s Time for an Evolution: Creating the Superior Nonprofit*

Like business, I believe nonprofits should be rewarded when they demonstrate financial success and laid to rest when they don’t. (I can feel jaws dropping and arrows hurtling toward me). Businesses are held financially accountable by the market. Increasingly, we’re holding them accountable for their social impact as well. We reward humanistic companies with our […]

An Instinct For Better

I’m gratified– …that the conversation is turning from Why? implement a social mission to How? …that increasingly more entrepreneurs, veteran business owners and employees are testing ways to connect their passion to product and profit; and …that I’m able to support you, the entrepreneur, business owner or employee (four times as many people contact me […]

Good-Business Topics I Care About

Here are some of the areas that compel me (in some cases because my understanding is terribly weak–I’m talking to you, Measurement) that I will focus on this year: Measurement Impact (the object of measurement) is the reason I write this blog. Although I grasp the framework of measurement and evaluation, I want to better understand […]

The 15 Top Posts on Good Business of 2010

In order of popularity (ranked by page views), here are the 15 most-read pieces on Cause Capitalism from the last year. Below are some observations on the list. 1. 15 Social Venture Capital Firms That You Should Know About 2. 10 More Social Venture Capital Firms That You Told Me About 3. Will B Corp’s New […]

In 3 Words: How to Build a Purpose-Driven Business

To polish up a year’s worth of learnings from working with and writing about purpose-driven companies, I’ve summed up 42 principles in exactly three words each. Three words–easy to understand, easy to share. This list partially represents the 155 blogs I’ve written this year, but it’s nowhere near complete. Add your triplets in the comments […]

Corporate Social…Inauthenticity

The opening remarks at the recent Global Conference for Social Change, joint venture of the Foundation for Social Change and the United Nations Office for Partnerships, went something like this: “Let’s take a look at this phrase corporate social responsibility. Let’s take away social. Now let’s take away corporate. What we’re left with responsibility, which is defined […]