Breakfast with Muhammad Yunus

Recently a number of On Purpose Associates attended a breakfast talk by Muhammad Yunus, popularly known as the father of microcredit. It was an inspiring talk (available here), and he offered a wealth of insightful perspectives. Yunus spoke of his moral indignation at the unnecessary plight of the Bangladeshi poor, whom he saw as a lecturer in the 1970s, and how an entire family of Grameen (or village) organisations has emerged to give poor people the tools and opportunity to tackle their own situation. Beyond Grameen Bank, the Grameen approach has been applied to a number of situations with partnerships, including organisations as diverse as Intel and Danone.

Show me the money?

Yunus implored all of those attending to “revolutionise the system,” to find more and more new ways to apply the social business principle to all manner of the world’s problems, from youth unemployment in Glasgow to malnutrition in Bangladesh. But he added a warning that I found peculiar: social business should not make a profit. Why? Because that would be to profit from the poor. Yunus does think it’s ok for companies to make a surplus, as long as it’s reinvested into the business, or distributed exclusively to the poor. Whilst I agree with Yunus’ broad sentiment, I’m convinced that social businesses should actually make a profit. Taking Yunus’ acceptable distribution of surplus one step further, if surpluses can be made whilst doing business socially, then extending the possibility for some return to investors and shareholders could attract new investment and encourage more businesses to tackle similar social problems.

Profit you can believe in…

Today, many social businesses are actually registered as charities. It’s hard for these social businesses to get loans because of their charitable status, and many charities don’t even want loans because it’s ‘risky,’ and any loans would mean profit for the lenders. Such businesses can struggle to get the strategic input from investors who demand at least some level of financial return. This can impact social businesses' ability to scale and deter others from launching social businesses. So perhaps Yunus might accept a bit of profit for people who aren’t poor, provided it’s just one part of revolutionising the system, helping to motivate people to tackle social problems over the long term?

Cut the fluff and climb

Seeing a well established, NASDAQ-quoted carpet manufacturer on the list of On Purpose placements, one might be forgiven for asking if On Purpose has any clue what social enterprise is about. Yet after taking a closer look, the person could be shocked again to find out that there really are examples of corporations that are serious about placing “doing good” at the centre of their core business.

Since the early 1990's Interface, the carpet manufacturer, has been climbing Mount Sustainability. Long before green wash tide flooded billboards and annual reports, Interface launched its expedition to reach zero negative impact on the environment by 2020. And as the slopes became steeper closer to the summit, they started realising that there was a social element, too, and it would have an important part to play in getting to the sustainable top.

Working for InterfaceFLOR on innovations around social sustainability has been a great learning experience. It is refreshing to see a profit maximising corporation of a decent size and age being dead serious about its mission to become fully sustainable; to experience the culture of the mission, starting with visionary leadership and cascading down to the very bottom; to hear the chairman always focusing his speech on the long-term mission and to find out that almost every single employee has a clear opinion of what it is about and is proud to be part of it. Sounds nice, but still a bit old school, top-down way of steering things? Sure, that's the legacy. But Interface is slowly finding its way towards greater participation by employees and the general public as well. It understands its culture must become open and inclusive if its mission is not to be a joke.

The credibility of the culture is only reinforced by the company's strong push towards transparency and measuring impact, or, as their marketing department would say, “Cut the fluff” and show the product life cycle data. But it is not just the product impact data that they try to make transparent. Their reporting on their progress towards the 2020 mission might make some charities feel ashamed. So, has Interface found the holy grail of social enterprise: earning healthy profits by focusing on “mission first”? Well, no.

Interface comes from the profit making side of the line, and profit needs to be sustained. They are working hard to find the points of synergy where mission and profit reinforce each other, but it is tough and no one really knows how it actually works. In practice it means that whenever a new project proposal is assessed, there is a question about how it delivers on each of the two dimensions. And often it costs extra time and investment. Yet somehow, the money and effort spent on the mission seems to be coming back - in the good will of people and stakeholders, in employees' loyalty, and in the end in sales.

Interface has no doubt a long and tough climb ahead of them, and there might be only few in the expedition with a clear vision of the summit and beyond. Yet there is one achievement none can take away from them. However half blind, clumsy, and exhausted they might appear on the slope of Mount Sustainability, they have pulled up with them whole industries quite some way up from the lowlands of indiscriminate destruction. No, Interface is not a poster child of a social enterprise, but it is an example inspiring confidence that some corporations might actually become one day genuinely restorative to their human societies and more-than-human ecosystems. And that is what social enterprise should be about, isn't it?

ICT in the Social Sector

Since beginning my placement with Comic Relief's Future Media and Technology (FM&T) team in January, every day I discover more about the essential role that information and communications technology (ICT) now plays in the social sector. Whether it is charities adopting online fundraising tools to empower their supporters to raise money for them, or social enterprises directly engaging with customers and the general public through use of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, the message is clear: in the twenty-first century social sector organisations must get on the ICT bandwagon if they want to be sustainable. A plethora of research reports and case studies all point to the fact that strategic use of ICT tools can help organisations lower costs; raise brand awareness; attract, directly engage and retain supporters or customers, thereby raising or earning more money; and in some cases, reach more beneficiaries. For a couple of examples, check out CAF's report on new media fundraising and NCVO's ICT Foresights.

Comic Relief provides an excellent case study of an organisation (technically a charity but arguably also a social enterprise) that is seizing every opportunity to adopt, adapt, and develop new technology to continuously innovate their campaigns (their IT team is called Future Media and Technology, after all!). For Red Nose Day 2009 Comic Relief spearheaded a deal with mobile phone operators so that it could retain 100% of text donations. For this year's Red Nose Day, Comic Relief made a ground-breaking deal with Apple to be able to raise funds through its own iphone app. These and other examples of how Comic Relief is using technology strategically can be found Race Online 2012's Casebook for Charity Sustainability through Technology.

Information and communications technology is being used in the social sector to not only help organisations deliver their own solutions to whatever social problem they're targeting, but also to connect innovators, entrepreneurs and other creative thinkers to search for and develop new solutions to social problems. One example that I find incredibly exciting is Open IDEO, an online platform that enables people anywhere in the world to collaborate in order to inspire one another, develop concepts, evaluate these concepts, and design promising solutions to real social challenges. A challenge that I've recently been following is 'How might we better connect food production and consumption?' The aim is to better connect rural food production and urban food consumption to improve producer livelihoods, improve consumer health, enhance sustainability in food production, and even minimise waste and other environmental problems associated with the production, transportation and disposal of food. If you're interested click here to keep an eye on this challenge.

It's now obvious that strategic use of ICT tools can strengthen social sector organisations, potentially improving their impact in the communities in which they operate, and also better connect people who strive to find new ways to address existing social problems. The ongoing challenge for social sector organisations and individuals is to keep up with the continuous, rapid advances in technology that are occurring almost every day. It will be a difficult and time-consuming task but well worth the effort and investment.

The Barefoot Revolution

By Dominic Jones

Terra Plana uses innovative approaches to create “sustainable” shoes. Creating sustainability in manufacturing is often thought of as minimizing the “footprint” of production (if you have an aversion to cheap puns you should probably stop reading). The focus has increasingly shifted to include the function and use of products and a more holistic picture of the full life cycle of the shoe.

I was excited to work with Terra Plana when I heard that they produced “barefoot shoes” (I love an oxymoron). These are patented ultra thin and flexible shoes that allow the foot to feel and move as if it were bare. As a physiology student my snake oil senses were initially aroused, but the further I’ve delved into the concept the more I’m convinced that it is in fact an elegant solution to a genuine problem and has far reaching potential for positive change.

The development of the VIVOBAREFOOT concept is an interesting one. I won’t go into the history, but for those of you interested you can read the full story here. VIVOBAREFOOT has evolved from being a range of Terra Plana to a brand in it’s own right. In fact the company sells more of these shoes now than any other and is in the process of launching the first VIVOBAREFOOT concept store.

A number of events have helped to spread the popularity of barefoot shoes, but without a doubt the largest must be “Born to Run”, a book written by Chris McDougall. There’s a great TED talk by McDougall here that explains why humans were born to run, barefoot. This was followed by groundbreaking research on running in habitually barefoot populations from Havard University, published in the journal Nature.

Part of my remit at Terra Plana has been to help develop and spread a clearer understanding of the science behind VIVOBAREFOOT and barefoot running. The latest project has been the release of an eBook written by Lee Saxby, VIVOBAREFOOT’s resident biomechanical expert.


Lee’s message is simple: running is a skill, and all running injuries are due to a lack of skill. What this means is that due to the forces involved when running, around 2 times body weight on a single leg, you must make sure your form allows for the correct distribution of these forces. Running barefoot allows you to improve your running skill by connecting you to your proprioceptive sense (proprioception is the body’s awareness of the forces acting on it, felt, for example, primarily in the feet whilst running).

What is especially interesting is the size of the prize. Running in the UK is the third most popular sport with around 1.8m participants and some of the highest annual growth rates. Estimates vary but put the number of runners injured each year at up to 80%. I therefore encourage you to have a look and pass on to any runners you know. Engaged debate supported by robust and independent science is the testbed of all radical new ideas!

http://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/