If you're thinking of starting a business and you want to make a social impact at the same time,
what are your various options for integrating making a difference
into your business model? That's what we'll talk about in this video. [Music]
Welcome or welcome back to my channel! My name is Amber Melanie Smith and I'm actually a non-profit
founder and executive director but I make these videos here on YouTube all about helping people
find their way to make a difference whether that is through socially conscious business
or starting a non-profit or social Enterprise or being a leader in their Community, volunteering,
and more. I hope that you find this video useful and helpful to you and get your
wheels turning! Don't forget to give it a like And subscribe to my channel for more content
like this. Oh and if you are thinking going the non-profit route instead of the business route,
I do have some online trainings at my website FounderToFulltime.com that might help you get
started. Okay so if you've watched my videos for a while you know that I largely focus on
the non-profit side of things but I've mentioned in several videos that starting a non-profit is
not always the best fit for everyone and it's not the exclusive way or sometimes even the best
way to make an impact in the world around you really depends on what you're trying to do so
um I want to talk about today how sometimes starting a business can create just as much of a
social impact as long as you are integrating those systems and ways to create impact in your business
model and especially if you're getting started you can do that from the ground up so for those of you
starting a business in this video I'm going to talk about ways you might integrate creating that
social impact into your business model from the ground up I'm going to talk about the reasons why
it's a good idea to have a social responsibility element in your business structure and I'll talk
about some of the real life examples of how it is done so that you can think about what the
best structure might be for you let's get right into that y component if you're watching this
video I would wager that you already believe that creating a social impact through your business or
having a socially responsible business is a good idea but let's recap some of the reasons why the
well-researched reasons wise that you have that ammo in your back pocket for anyone who might be
giving you some doubt I'm gonna get this one out of the way first because it's obvious but
it's just the right thing to do for one businesses who have a social impact goal are measuring their
success by more than just profits they're also measuring their success by how well they impact
the community and the world around them but if you're planning on having people on your team
or hiring employees it's also a great idea because the current and up and coming Workforce made up of
Millennials and gen z uh are looking to businesses to create a positive impact and are preferring in
significant amounts to work for companies that are socially conscious and are making an impact
it's almost half of Millennials and gen Z who have reported that they are going to make choices about
where they shop and where they work based on how socially conscious and socially responsible a
business is so if you want to attract some talent to your business you're going to want to make sure
that it's making an impact Beyond just profits but speaking of profits Studies have shown that
businesses that incorporate social responsibility into their model can expect higher Financial
returns as well that's because they can increase their sales and reduce employee turnover people
who work for a company that's basically what I was just saying a minute ago people who work for
a company where they feel like they're making a difference and have purpose and it has meaning
are going to be less likely to leave they're going to be happier in their work and sales increase for
the same reason people who align with the values of a company are going to make purchase decisions
based on those things too and anecdotally speaking from the non-profit side of things I can tell you
that I've personally made choices to shop in different places based on my knowledge of their
social responsibility and I can also say that these businesses and if you're talking about small
businesses in your local community especially those businesses that are a more entrenched part
of the local community are going to have more connect actions and a larger social network and
that means a bigger customer base too so doing good can help you do well and they don't have to
be mutually exclusive okay let's talk about some potential business models for integrating social
impact into your business I'm going to talk about three in particular the first is B corporations
the second is social Enterprise organizations and the third is a traditional business structure that
has built-in social responsibility programming let's talk about B corporations first or benefit
corporations so these are businesses they're private or for-profit businesses that have to
take an assessment that measures their ethical operations and the positive impact they make on
the world especially in areas of the environment and employee well-being and businesses have to
take this assessment uh regularly in order to maintain their B Corporation status but once
they have it that b Corporation badge on their website and on their branding materials can be
a good signifier to the public that they're a company that really cares about their employees
and the world around them so how exactly do B corporations make an impact through this model
well the assessment that they take requires them to meet high standards in order to pass and in
order to pass this assessment they have to meet these standards in several different areas this
assessment requires them to prove their positive impact on the environment and non-profits and
causes around them it requires them to demonstrate their commitment to employee welfare and
well-being through things like Fair compensation and benefits to the employees that will make sure
that they're taken care of Etc but also requires a good deal of transparency so the companies have
to be legally structured in a way that makes sure they're accountable to all stakeholders
not just shareholders or people who are going to be making profits but other stakeholders and that
can include the people that they serve their customers other employees Etc and finally they
have to be sharing their impact and performance on all these measures publicly so that they're
very transparent and accountable to the whole B Corporation Network and the the whole public in
general if you're thinking that you might want to pursue B Corporation status for your business and
by the way you can get the status even if you already have an established business you don't
have to just be a startup in order to get it the first thing I would recommend that you do do is
just go to bcorporation.net they have all sorts of information about the assessment that they require
companies to take and what other businesses are part of the B Corporation Network around the world
Etc let's bring this model to life with a real life example so the example I'll share is Uncommon
Goods this is a business that you might think of it as like Etsy with a social good angle so
they allow you know artists and creatives and craft craft types to offer their goods on their
website and they have various commitments and pledges that they've made to the environment
and their Workforce etc for example they opt for environmentally packaging material and all their
shipping they invite customers to choose Charities that Uncommon Goods will donate their money to
um they donate funds to scholarship funds and they ensure that their lowest paid
worker is making at least double the federal minimum wage in the United States so
these are some of the tangible examples of how they are upholding their B Corporation status and
their social impact goals if you haven't heard of them a couple other real life examples you
can look up include Ben and Jerry's ice cream of course Athleta and Coursera and there are so many
more if you just search for B Corporation examples on the internet you'll you'll find a bunch of them
and of course there's a list of them on that b corporation.net website I mentioned earlier
too the second business model I want to talk about that would allow a for-profit business
to incorporate social impact into its work is called a social Enterprise a social Enterprise
is an organization that uses traditional business strategies like sales marketing Etc but to address
a social issue you might think of it as a crossover or a combination of a for-profit
business and a non-profit organization in the sense that you've got your money making Avenue
use and then you have your social impact Avenues you're bringing them together in this case to
form a social Enterprise it's also important to note that the social Enterprise refers to the
model but not the legal structure you could be a social Enterprise and be a non-profit
organization or you could be a social Enterprise and be a for-profit organization but in this case
because we're talking about business I'm going to focus on the for-profit side of social Enterprise
now how does social Enterprise make an impact well it does because it's very services or offerings or
products are things that tackle a social issue so it's not like they're you know over here selling
T-shirts randomly and then giving the money to something over here it's the actual service itself
is tackling an issue for example offering Vision treatments to people with visual impairments
um and charging a very affordable fee to get your costs covered so you're still a business and all
that um or maybe having it on a pay which you can scale so people can afford more are subsidizing
those who can afford less Etc so the services or products themselves are moving the needle
on the social issue if you're thinking of getting started in Social Enterprise then the first thing
you're going to want to think of is what social issue do you want to tackle because just like
you would for a business you're trying to solve a problem for a customer and in this case the
customer is a population that is in need or the world itself so what problem do you want to solve
for that population then of course once you know the problem you want to solve really understanding
your customer what challenges they're facing in their lives what gaps and services and products
exist that are not meeting their needs currently that's where your sweet spot of business ideas are
going to lie let's once again talk about a real life example to really paint a picture for you
one real life example is Bitty and Beau's coffee. This is a coffee shop franchise
so it's a company that has locations all over the United States and I love how they describe
themselves they describe themselves as a human rights movement disguised as a coffee shop
and what they do is they employ people uh with intellectual and developmental disabilities in
the coffee shops to provide meaningful work of course and fair compensation but also create an
environment of inclusion and kindness so you can see through this very model they're tackling the
social issue that they identified which is a lack of meaningful work and inclusion for this
population by actually employing this Workforce they are tackling that issue and they happen to
also be bringing in Revenue through the coffee sales too the third model I want to talk about
is of course a traditional for-profit private business that just has social responsibility
programming built into its structure this can be a business of any size it can be a large
corporation it can be a small business it can be a startup Etc but the idea is that they are
making time for and investing resources in socially responsible and social impact programming
like giving programs employee volunteer programs Etc so going further with some of those ways that
these companies could integrate social impact into their existing operations we talked about
giving your employees paid time off to volunteer so that's one way of demonstrating that you value
volunteering is by letting employees do it for some number of hours on the clock
um donating a percent of your profits to charities in your community creating
Partnerships with Charities to provide free services like free
truck deliveries or free space rentals free food donations free marketing on your website
Etc if you want to get started with this model uh you've got to find your match first so
what I mean by that is consider what issue area is going to be the most logical fit for your business
you can of course pick any cause that you're interested in but you might find that there's
some logical fit with causes that align with your business for example if you are in the food
industry a restaurant or grocery store maybe your cause is food insecurity you want people to eat
you know that's part of your business Mission too so you might partner with food insecurity hunger
organizations maybe you're a pet supply store a logical fit then might be non-profit animal
rescue groups so just thinking about what your fit could be and what issues you want to uplift as a
business second you want to really assess what you can offer as a business that will make an
impact is it time is it visibility is it money is it goods and services what is your business
able to offer the charitable Community or people in your community that makes sense for you and is
feasible for your your company NeXT you want to research local organizations that are tackling
the issues that you've identified to see who might be a good logical fit for your business
as a charitable partner social impact partner or a handful of Partners if you're not sure where to
start to find non-profits in your community you can check out your local volunteer Center they
usually have a database of hundreds of causes in your community you might also check out your local
Center for non-profits which will also have a list of non-profits in your area Chambers of
Commerce might also be a good resource because I know non-profits often join those alongside
their business counterparts too finally you want to make sure that you're building an authentic
relationship with a non-profit partner they're running an organization too and so it has to be
a good fit for both of you not just one or the other of you so really take some time to talk
to them identify their true needs think through with them what challenges they have that your
business might be able to help address and that's how true partnership is formed let's talk about a
real life example now um I recently found this one and I think it's super cool makes a lot of
sense Court Furniture which sells a home and some office furniture teamed up with an organization
called move for hunger and the whole model of this move for Hunger non-profit is that they
partner with businesses that own trucks and have Delivery Systems in place to move food
to food pantries and food banks so making getting food to where it needs to go way more efficient
so Cort Furniture of course has trucks in its inventory and has delivery drivers and systems
all worked out so it seems like a really great fit between these two um entities this this for-profit
business Cort furniture and the non-profit move for Hunger so that's just one example of
how a business might use its existing assets and skills to meaningfully make a difference in the
cause that it cares about alright what did you think I hope that this got your wheels turning
um if you're starting a business has this helped you come up with some ideas on how you might
integrate social responsibility or philanthropy into your model and operations share what you're
working on in the comments below as I mentioned before if you're going instead in the non-profit
Direction check out my website founder to fulltime.com where I have some trainings
for people starting a non-profit or developing a fundraising plan so I hope that those help you out
I also have a newsletter for change makers and non-profit and community and Business Leaders
that you can subscribe to leave the link below the video and you can opt out anytime but I send out
resources relevant to social impact and non-profit Trends and opportunities and resources as well
finally I have a group on Facebook called Change the World or Bust we've got 4,000 people from all
over the world and they're sharing what good they are creating in the world and we'd love
to have you there, so come on and join us. Once again I'm Amber Melanie Smith and I hope that you
found this helpful and thanks for wanting to do some good in the world. See you next time, bye!