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Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#31

Post by tommaitland »

benrmatthews wrote: post #19

I’ve been working for, running and volunteering for social enterprises for 12 years now. I find that “social enterprise” as a term isn’t really known by anyone outside of the social enterprise bubble, e.g. those running, funding or volunteering for a social enterprise. The funding structures available to social enterprises seems to be an issue - you can be anything from a private limited company through to a register…

+1 on B Corp certification being better than a “social enterprise”. I’ve seen so many companies call themselves social enterprises with little evidence of impact, which really amounts to a new form of greenwashing. B Corp helps solve that

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#32

Post by Dumblydorr »

AlexMuir wrote: post #10

I run a company that collects and delivers used furniture for charities in the UK ( https://boxmove.com ) It’s a social enterprise in the sense that we save charities a fortune on the way they currently operate, and we employ our staff on better salaries than they receive working in-house. The flip side is we expect a decent day’s work from our teams. We are profitable, sustainable and no reliant on grants, funding,…

Can you explain how charities could be more efficient? Curious to hear more on that subject

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#33

Post by greenfinance »

mattharney wrote: post #27

I’m one. Through SEAL, we fund academic research and take on impact campaigns on specific environmental initiatives. We just called on financial institutions to create an environmental charity rewards card (a portion of your credit card rewards go to charity, not airline miles): https://sealawards.com/eco-rewards/ The potential here is huge - could raise even more funding than Jeff Bezos $10 billion climate fund. And…

Hi Matt, any chance we could talk? I run a business which helps developing country communities set up and manage green community “banks”. This is in communities which are conventionally unbankable but can manage simple community funds. We build ecosystem restoration requirements into loan terms and it’s looking like a successful approach to environmental management. We need to provide seed capital to community banks in order to get them going, and had been thinking about using the mechanism you are developing. Maybe we could partner? Here’s a case study showing how it works. http://greenfi.org/?page_id=627

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#34

Post by benrmatthews »

tommaitland wrote: post #31
benrmatthews wrote: post #19

I’ve been working for, running and volunteering for social enterprises for 12 years now. I find that “social enterprise” as a term isn’t really known by anyone outside of the social enterprise bubble, e.g. those running, funding or volunteering for a social enterprise. The funding structures available to social enterprises seems to be an issue - you can be anything from a private limited company through to a register…

+1 on B Corp certification being better than a “social enterprise”. I’ve seen so many companies call themselves social enterprises with little evidence of impact, which really amounts to a new form of greenwashing. B Corp helps solve that

We’re currently going through the B Corp process and even taking the initial questionnaire is improving the social impact side of our business and helping us plan for how we can improve here.

I’m sure B Corp as term suffers from the same issues as social enterprise does, namely who knows or cares what a B Corp is outside of those that have achieved B Corp status?

Sometimes it seems much simpler to just be a business and outline your social impact on your website and marketing materials, or register as a straight charity so there’s no questions asked.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#35

Post by patja »

daniel-s wrote: post #13

The way that you know that you're making a social impact or benefiting society then you're making money. Social benefit and making profits are the same thing. There are exceptions of course, like if you made money by cheating via violence or because you got the government to grant you special privileges. Otherwise, if you're playing by the rules then your profit is the only objective, rational way to reason about you…

What do you think about tobacco companies? Or payday lenders?

I understand some would do something highly profitable but morally questionable and then donate the profits to a more socially productive firm. Is that what you are thinking? The end justifies the means?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#36

Post by milaresearcher »

daniel-s wrote: post #13

The way that you know that you're making a social impact or benefiting society then you're making money. Social benefit and making profits are the same thing. There are exceptions of course, like if you made money by cheating via violence or because you got the government to grant you special privileges. Otherwise, if you're playing by the rules then your profit is the only objective, rational way to reason about you…

I strongly disagree with your statement that profit is the only objectective, rational measure of social impact.

It would be great if the balance of human and environmental well-being produced by an organization could be captured as such, but I feel it is often much more complicated.

It is clear that a poor child has a lower ability to pay for goods and services than a rich child. Does this mean that goods and services sold to the rich one with a hefty profit margin are more "beneficial to society" than when sold to the poor one at cost?

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#38

Post by [deleted] »

peridotoak wrote: post #12
AlexMuir wrote: post #10

I run a company that collects and delivers used furniture for charities in the UK ( https://boxmove.com ) It’s a social enterprise in the sense that we save charities a fortune on the way they currently operate, and we employ our staff on better salaries than they receive working in-house. The flip side is we expect a decent day’s work from our teams. We are profitable, sustainable and no reliant on grants, funding,…

Thank you for the share, Alex! I found your frustration to be quite curious: why would calling out the bullshit and incompetence be damaging to your business? I'd imagine that a huge part of your pitch is that you're MUCH more efficient and therefore you can save on costs if they outsource to your business.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#39

Post by greenfinance »

ericvanular wrote: post #16

I built the community at https://collective.energy to help environmental entrepreneurs have a platform to find an audience, get feedback, and collaborate!

Immensely cool Eric and very valuable. I’ll be checking in.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#40

Post by kgonza »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #30

I co-founded Akvo Foundation [1] in 2007. Akvo is a not-for-profit/not-for-loss [2] organisation that put together a combination of tools, services, local expertise and sector knowledge. We work mainly in management of water, sanitation and agriculture, even though organisations use our platform for all sorts of data. WWF are tracking turtles in Indonesia, SNV manages their massive biogas programmes, Sierra Leone qua…

Why Netherlands for your HQ?
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