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Why Your Company Should Have A Social Mission

Why integrate a social mission into your business? You’re an entrepreneur with an idea and maybe a business plan, a small-business owner or the head of mid-sized company.  To expect you to add social purpose to your business just because it’s a good thing to do, is foolish.  You have a bottom-line and other obligations […]

For Gap Adventures, Sustainability Is The Source of Profit

How did a travel company grow its revenue by 42 percent during the recent economic stall? It attracted more customers (around $150 million worth) because it aligned its business model with sustainability. “Sustainability is at the forefront of our business model because of customer demand,” says Gap Adventures CEO, Bruce Poon Tip. A demand that Bruce […]

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 […]

Find Your Super-consumers and Build For Them

We’re in an era of the super-consumer. Consumers are attuned to the companies and supply chains behind the items they buy. While today’s consumers stil boycott, they buycott more. I love Amazon but spend my dollars with Better World Books when I have the option. I’m not boycotting Amazon, I’m buycotting Better World Books. As […]

Radical Pricing Scheme Earns $ for Companies & Nonprofits

Letting people pay what they want, with the promise that 50% will go to charity, produces a higher profit than selling the product at a fixed, market price. It also earns more money for the nonprofit Leif Nelson, an associate professor of marketing at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, ran an experiment […]

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 […]

To Tap Cause Marketing’s Huge Potential, Do Less Of It

This piece was originally written for and published on Reach Students. If 94% of Millennials condone cause marketing why do only 53% report buying a product that benefits a cause in the past year?  The first finding is compelling, the second certainly is not, particularly given that in many stores you’d have to struggle not to buy […]

Want To Open a Nonprofit Store? 10 Guidelines You–and Nordstrom’s–Should Follow

Scandal in-the-making, customer-pleaser, tax write-off, nonprofit cash cow or game-changer?  Which hyphenated phrase will best describe Nordstrom’s new concept store, which will donate all net profits to charity? I was interviewed recently by American Public Media’s Marketplace on the Nordstrom concept store, set to open in Soho next fall, and on the growing appeal of […]

Mobile Giving Meets Mobile Marketing, But Are Americans Ready?

Sure, Americans love their mobile phones and use them handily, but there’s still stunted confidence for mobile financial transactions, whether it’s a payment or a donation. Part of the reticence comes from the clumsiness of many mobile commerce and mobile giving sites and part of it’s a lack of incentives. Benevity Social Ventures and Obopay […]

Can Coke Teach Nonprofits How to Deliver More Social Impact?

Coke, it’s everywhere. It’s in communities without electricity, running water or proper nutrition. Why? Because it’s an innovator in distribution, consumer analysis and marketing. What can the social impact sector (nonprofits, social enterprises, the public sector) learn from Coke that will allow us to save more lives?  Melinda French Gates asked this question during a TEDxChange […]