Awakening the Mission

The Role of a Social Enterprise (Cont.)

In my previous post "Books for Africa, Literacy in Africa, and the Role of a Social Enterprise" I asked a few questions about what more we at Better World Books can do to extend our social impact and bring more life to it within our organization. I got some great comments on the post in response to these questions.

A friend and former colleague suggests that the answer lies in us harnessing the passion of our followers and customers to come up with the next "big idea". I definitely agree that there is something to be found through collaboration. I think there is a need for more collaboration in this space, and I think social enterprises can be good catalysts for creating more. It is definitely important to engage with others, and especially to listen to those who are passionate about what you're trying to do.

Daniela Papi also added some great thoughts about how to address these questions. She points out that we are doing a lot already by baking "good" into the business model and being sure to do things before "the bottom line" even at the cost of profits. But how do we go above and beyond even this? She points out our donation volume and the power that comes with that (and I would add responsibility). We're no longer giving a few books or a few dollars or even a few thousand dollars. We're dealing with hundreds of thousands and millions of books and dollars. There is a lot of power there. Daniela suggests we do our homework:

By doing a lot of homework on where your largest donations are going, seeing if they are providing the best format for supporting literacy education, and only supporting the groups you think are doing the best work, you can have the biggest impact with your funds while also inspiring others to improve their work to meet your standards. I don't want this to be misinterpreted as a disguise for donor-driven program development, as that is not what I am trying to promote, but instead a really thorough understanding of the metrics you are trying to change: literacy, learning, book use, love of reading/learning. When metrics are presented as number of books delivered, number of libraries built, etc it is hard to get at the more qualitative impacts you are looking to see.

If BWB identifies partners who have the skills to analyze your partners impacts and finds or comes up with a list of best practices with relation to increasing literacy and learning, these can perhaps be shared across the board and will help your team determine the best places to invest your future funding. In other words - you asked "What else can we as a business, a for-profit business, but one with a social mission do?". You can identify which areas you are investing in short term results and redirect some of that money into helping the entire sector learn, improve, and better benefit from the support you are giving them.

The same day Daniela wrote these comments I came across this post By Sean Stannard-Stockton on the Tactical Philanthropy Advisors blog: "Fixing the Power Imbalance in Philanthropy". Here Sean too points out the value add when social investors and donors see the responsibility they have and use it to invest wisely in high performance organizations over low performance ones. As Daniela points out, the point isn't to tell non-profits how to do development, it is to influence the field by promoting those who do development well.

Realizing Our Influence


I agree with my friend that we need to engage and collaborate more with our network of peers, customers, and followers to come up with new and innovative ways to create change. However, I also agree with Daniela and Sean that as an organization who is making significant contributions to organizations working towards social change we must recognize the responsibility that comes with that. We need to do our homework to learn how these organizations are performing, what is working in the field, and make decisions to point our influence towards the highest impact possible. So now the question that springs to mind is "What do we need to do to get to this in practice?"

Part of the answer lies in simply reflecting on and recognizing the size of our current impact. As an individual donor you think about a $1,000 donation differently than a $10 donation. You think more carefully about what you do with it. In a sense we've already done this by ensuring our funds are going to reputable organizations. But, from my perspective it takes a little more effort to do what Daniela and Sean are suggesting, to really be a leader that is influencing the whole field through smart high impact investments.

Finding Our Passion


I think to get here, you have to start with the mission. I believe it takes true passion for the cause in order to create momentum within an organization to think beyond the transaction from donor to recipient. If you're passionate about the cause itself, you will focus more on impact.

A lot of social enterprises are started by an individual who is dedicated to addressing some social problem and sees capitalism as a powerful tool that can be used to work towards alleviating the problem. In this case the enterprise started with passion and the business was built around that passion. So as long as the organization remembers why it started and what it set out to do, the passion for the mission should remain central.

There are other social enterprises that start from a great idea for a business that has a nice tie-in to social and environmental change. In the case of Better World Books the tie-in to literacy and the environmental fit perfectly and we've baked it into the business model itself. This is a great thing. But, what is our passion? Are we as passionate about our cause as the entrepreneur who builds an enterprise around directly addressing a social ill they care about? By default, I don't think we necessarily are, but I think we can be. I think it takes a more concerted effort. We have to "awaken the passion" within our organization and remind ourselves why we do what we do. In our case I think we need to ask ourselves: Why literacy? And we need to think beyond that it fits nicely with books. What does literacy mean to us? Why do we care about it?

I believe that once we're able to complete the exercise of self-assessment as to what our passion is, then it will be easier for us to see the potential we have to really lead change. Then we'll understand the importance of thinking beyond transactions towards actual human impact. We'll understand we're part of a larger community and in a position to take a leadership role in that community. And we'll see the value in engaging with others in the community to answer the question of how to best direct our influence.

So to start I think I'll write something about why I care about literacy...