SEA closing keynote. Tamra Ryan

Transcription

1 SEA closing keynote Tamra Ryan

2 [start with Summit logo] Whenever I attend the Summit, I m always excited and inspired by the work that is being done in our social enterprise community. I d like to take a moment to celebrate some of the efforts of the creative social entrepreneurs in this room: Heaven Dropt employs veterans and disabled adults. It recycles used military parachutes and their sales revenue is reinvested to support the disabled and veterans. Chrysalis employs people with employment barriers to clean the streets of LA and partners with cities and businesses to provide services that make the world more beautiful. Benetech bridges the gap between what technology is capable of and the good it can do for people. By creating reading systems for the blind, for instance, they ve used technology to transform lives. CEO, which started in New York City and is now located in 4 states and multiple cities, is helping people with criminal convictions learn the life and job skills needed to move back into our communities and into mainstream employment. AND they have pioneered the use of Social Impact Bonds to scale operations. Blue Star Recyclers employs autistic adults a population with 80% unemployment and prevents millions of pounds of electronics from going to landfills. [Future slide] Each of these organizations not only represents our present, but also the future of our field. And there are many more great models I didn t mention. As a group we are Nurturing intellectual capital with consulting and education Creating wearable medical devices that save lives Reusing instead of discarding We are reconfiguring food systems Connecting causes with capital Feeding communities in sustainable ways 1

3 Because of the efforts of the social entrepreneurs in this room The homeless are finding shelter The chronically unemployed are supporting their families The planet has a chance We are changing lives We are funding these efforts We are making a difference Because of our collective vision and concern, we have begun changing the world. For the next 25 minutes or so, I want to talk with you about how the world is changing and what all of us in this room can do to make sure the positive change continues. [status quo slide] Today, we are in the midst of a fundamental shift from business as usual, where profit is the primary, sometimes only, motive to an acceptance of the idea that you can do well by doing good. This is not a minor change. This represents a sea change in the way people think about profit and purpose, and everyone here has the opportunity to be part of this movement. Here is some evidence of the changes that are underway: Consumers are demanding more accountability and good work from traditionally forprofit companies More people with entrepreneurial spirit are building businesses to address social problems, not merely to make a profit Social enterprises, which have long proven their worth through their actions are also starting to prove their value through their ability to measure and communicate their impact on society. We are developing more win-win relationships across sectors because those sectors are more receptive to what we have to offer. Partnerships between public, private and nonprofit entities we could never before have imagined are emerging. 2

4 [Business as Unusual slide] Because of these shifts in social consciousness, companies no longer have the luxury of operating in a vacuum with little thought for the greater good. It s no longer business as usual, it s time for Business as Unusual. Business as unusual is about creating revolutionary, not incremental change. It s about getting past the Good Enough syndrome and going for the Better-than-our-Wildest-Dreams ideal. It s about creating meaningful impact and contributing to the good of society while also selling products and providing services that our communities want and need. Many traditionally profit-oriented businesses are making this change, which is paving the way for the social enterprises in the room to make this same change. Here is what we ll be seeing more of: According to the Conscious Consumer Spending Index, increasing numbers of people feel it s important and plan to buy goods and services from socially responsible companies. Social enterprises need to call attention to themselves to capture these opportunities. If we don t, mainstream companies, who are also seeing this trend, will reposition and take business from us. But we have to make it easy for customers to do business with us. We have to do a better job of marketing ourselves, making our products and services available and then executing well on the delivery of them. [millennial slide] The shift in demographics in our country, with more millennials moving into the workforce and gaining buying power, is creating opportunity for us as well. Socially responsible consumerism is growing fastest with millennials. These consumers have an increased desire and demand for transparency and our collective ability to measure and demonstrate our positive impact will allow us to stand out. That s why I so appreciate the Mathematica Jobs Study which was commissioned by REDF. It is extremely powerful to tell our customers that for every $1 spent by a workforce development social enterprise, there is a return on investment of $2.23 in benefits to society. 3

5 As we develop more metrics like this for the entire social enterprise sector, we will become more competitive. As we increasingly demonstrate our collective value to society, we will gain customers. We will move out of a defensive posture where we are proving ourselves and into a position of strength from which we can affect social change at a wholesale level and all manner of things we could never before have imagined will occur. [Globe image slide] In today s world, our increased access to information having the ability to know what is happening everywhere all the time is changing our social mindset. Now that we know about o widespread abject poverty o Unfair aspects of our legal system o And lack of access to life-sustaining resources We have a responsibility to act. Actions can be small and local or big and game changing, but I believe we will all feel an increasing responsibility to help, as well as an increasing opportunity to expand our reach. Just as businesses identify needs that can be filled with products and services, social enterprise can and should begin to identify social needs that can be filled by capitalizing on buying behaviors that already exist or are developing. [Maker Movement slide] Economic creativity, such as the Maker Movement, Buy Local and Farm to Table initiatives will help us address social issues on the ground, in our communities. It s time for us to think more broadly about creative solutions for social problems and find more ways to use the resources that are at our fingertips, in our back yards and down the street. And when these local efforts take hold, we must share the best practices with other communities. Why? Because it will take all of us, speaking in a unified voice, to make socially responsible products and services easier for consumers to support. 4 Collaboration across sectors will continue to grow as a way to address society s most intractable problems. We will create partnerships that would have been hard to imagine ten or even five year ago. We have the opportunity to show others the way to creatively address society s issues through mission-driven businesses.

6 [Capitol Dome slide] I m looking forward to participating in the work that SEA will be leading to unify the field by aggregating information about all of us through the Social Enterprise Census and the collection of Impact Data. The benefits we bring to our communities and the role we play in addressing social issues that government cannot is a story we must tell. In order for each of us to have a voice, we must position SEA as the connector and provide this organization with the tools to advance our collective interest. It could hardly be a more exciting time for all of us in this room. The world clearly wants and is ready for what we have to offer. But WE have to be ready to provide it. I, for one, believe we are ready to solve even more social problems while also responding to consumer demands. I ll get more specific about what this change will entail in a minute. But first, I d like to tell you a bit about the history of Women s Bean Project and how we ve grown and changed over the years. [WBP image slide] 26 years ago, Women s Bean Project was founded with a simple idea: that teaching women to work while actually working was the cure for poverty. The reaction from our community when we first started was interest in the novelty of what we were doing, but little belief we could make much of it. We had no difficulty getting small local stores to agree to carry our products, but no one really thought the business would amount to much. As a business we were always at risk Of not being able to fulfill orders Of losing money Of making big and costly mistakes In the beginning, we were a mission that happened to have a business. We created for ourselves an atmosphere in which we weren t always taken seriously. Even I haven t always been taken seriously I ve been asked if I m paid to do my job and whether it is full-time or merely a hobby. 5

7 But being a mission with a business wasn t sustainable. Eventually, to survive, we had to become much more business-minded. We had to document processes, understand our true costs, get safety certifications, and communicate clearly the benefits of our work. Perhaps most importantly, we have to defend our company as sustainable. In short, we had to become a real business, with an infrastructure, documentation and protocols. We ve had to learn to take the business just as seriously as the mission. Along the way we ve shifted our mantra from Support our Mission to Sales create Jobs. This transformation has taught me that the more we treat ourselves like a business the more we require the systems that it takes to operate a multi-million dollar consumer packaged goods company The more the phone rings with prospective partners interested in carrying our products. The more there is acceptance and momentum for what we do We are no longer trying to prove we have worth. Rather than merely a few local stores, our products can now be found in a thousand stores across the country and can be purchased through a number of online retailers. No one is asking me now if I get paid to be the CEO of a manufacturing operation. Today people applaud our efforts to train chronically unemployed women, rather than thinking our mission is sweet. Our increased focus on running a better business has also allowed our mission to grow. By being clear that sales create jobs, we can translate for our partners the number of additional women their orders have helped to employ. We ve also found that these retail partners have wanted to be involved with us in other ways by volunteering, providing pro bono support and even hiring our graduates ways that would have never been possible without our business relationship. I believe Women s Bean Project is emblematic of the paradigm shift that is occurring across all of business. Today, companies like Walmart and Starbucks are calling companies like Women s Bean Project to work together. Companies like Women s Bean Project have a seat at the table 6

8 because we have found a way to operate a business with solid business principles and do good at the same time. Now when I say that every $1 social enterprises like the Bean Project spend saves taxpayers $1.31 in reduced government supports and increased revenue, people listen. (thanks again, REDF) When I talk about our 77% graduation rate and our 100% job retention rate which I can do because we measure them people listen When I say that our products have no preservatives in them, people listen But more importantly, they buy. And the more they buy, the more good we do. We change more lives. I say this as we ve just hired our largest group of program participants in our history, due, in large part to having received our largest single order ever. [shifting sands slide] At Women s Bean Project, what we ve discovered is that our mission succeeds when the business is strong. And the sands are shifting in the same direction for everyone involved in social enterprise. In other words, the smarter we become about business, the wider our impact can be. The shift that the Bean Project has made from a mission with a business to a business with a mission will be the norm. Nonprofits will move along the spectrum toward a stronger business focus while mainstream businesses will develop strategies to move from profit toward greater purpose. There are many ways we, as a sector, can be more business-minded: Similar to Greyston Bakery, we can partner with larger companies and then leverage their marketing muscle by telling the story about how buying ice cream and frozen yogurt (with brownies in them, of course) can help an underserved community. We can run cost-conscious, efficient businesses by having a strong handle on our costs of goods and services and be competitively priced while still delivering on our missions. 7

9 We can discipline ourselves to measure our impact AND create compelling stories for consumers about the lives being changed and how we are changing the world. We can better meet the needs of big businesses by working together to make our services, like electronics recycling, easier to access nationally, just as Impact Recyclers has done by creating a network of electronics recyclers to handle national contracts. The market is ready for us. Are we ready? [unified voice slide] We will be when we speak with a unified voice, when we are rowing the boat in the same direction. That s the opportunity we have when we leave here today. We can each go back to our communities, hunker down and continue the good work we ve been doing, building social businesses, supporting knowledge development, training future leaders on our own. OR we can leave here working in concert, comparing notes, sharing our best business practices and our wins--and more importantly, our losses. When we do both, do good at home and work together nationally to solve society s problems, the field will be better for it. The world will be better for it. There will be a time when social enterprise is just enterprise. When fair trade is just trade. When social capital is just the money we need to grow our businesses. We will become so mainstream that we won t need modifiers, minimizers of our work. Until then, we have work to do, a journey ahead of us. We will know we are successful when people we don t know are using our words, like doing well by doing good when they are demanding social impact from their consumerism when they expect companies to have a double or even triple bottom line We will know when large institutions are putting massive resources into replicating the work we have bootstrapped for so long. Changing the world is a process. It s accomplished bit by bit, day by day, win by win. New social enterprises will be born, established ones will grow, some will shrink and go away. 8

10 New leaders will come into the space with passion and ideas and new ways to change the world. Let s welcome them. We ll be better for it. PAUSE [park bench slide] Through the years I ve developed what I call my park bench questions. When I m 80, sitting on a park bench looking back at my life, what will I regret not having done? It s become my gauge for deciding what to pursue, where I will place my efforts. What will you regret not having done? Changing lives by equipping people with the tools to earn a living? Taking millions of pounds of electronics out of landfills? Giving people the opportunity to feel self-worth? Whatever your park bench issue, don t wait to look back. Begin it now! PAUSE At some point in the future, we will look back on our accomplishments and say, that s enough. We will see that the world is a different better place than when we started. But not yet. Not today. Today we have work to do. While we are looking at the business world to emulate what they do well, they are watching us to see how to do good. How will we change the world? I believe the way to change the world is to always work on something that is uncomfortably exciting. The skills and the passion we need are right here in this room. PAUSE Working in social enterprise is an occupation, a fascination, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those of us who do it MUST do it, and once we ve started, there s no going back. 9

11 [visionary image slide] We are the creators, the visionaries. We have the strength and the foresight to affect the future. When we combine our efforts, we can be better versions of our current selves our current organizations our current missions Let s go pursue Business as Unusual! Rather than conscious capitalism, let s have our own term: Capitalistic Consciousness! Now, let s go and change the world. If not us, then who? Thank you 10