My personal mission is for every company and organization to prioritize maximizing well-being over maximizing profit and shareholder value. In our culture of pigeonholing, we develop a different and often English name for every phenomenon, including organizations that do business with impact. Think of terms such as ‘social enterprise’ and ‘social venture’. Because of the different names, a virtual separation continues to arise between all types of organizations that are entrepreneurial or socially oriented. While many hybrid forms have long existed. I therefore advocate introducing a new term: entrepreneurship with social impact or impact entrepreneurship. With a wink, it is called real profit: profit for people, the environment and society.
NGOs can help
NGOs can help companies a great deal and have often developed good ideas that companies can learn from. A few examples. If you start thinking about the areas in which you can make an impact, I advise you to start with your business operations, such as public transport, housing and procurement. How can you operate as climate-friendly and socially as possible? The SKAO Foundation aims to limit global warming and climate change as much as possible and therefore helps companies make climate-friendly choices.
Secondly, you can think about your products and services: do they have (undesirable) side effects that are harmful to society? Or do they actually have a positive effect? And how are the products and services created, and how were the suppliers and workers paid? In the cultural sector, after lengthy discussion, the principle of fair pay was introduced in order to achieve fair remuneration for professionals who were often underpaid in the past. And another question…. is your service accessible to everyone? The Rijksmuseum, for example, makes a strong effort to be accessible to everyone. See their inspiring video here.
HR
The third aspect is HRM: only when your employees experience happiness at work will your organization truly run well. Also involve them in your social choices and let them choose for themselves, for example, a staff outing or Christmas gift. The Jarige Job Foundation cleverly responded to this by having employees pack birthday boxes during staff outings for children whose families cannot afford presents.
The fourth element is the impact a company can make in society. For many NGOs, that is their core business. Companies can take inspiration from this if they also want to make an impact in society. What change do you want to bring about? This can be in any social area, such as poverty, climate, well-being, health, employment, development or education. Choose a goal that is closely connected to your identity. This week I facilitated a conversation in which the key question was: where does your social heart lie? Many ideas emerged from that. There are numerous ways to do good. NGOs, for example, use the following interventions:
- Raising awareness and providing information about certain problems
- Lobbying by putting political issues on the agenda
- Funding scientific research
- Distribution and promotion of expressions of social initiatives
Not a must
The most important thing is not to do it as an obligation (‘Come on, let’s just donate to or sponsor some charities for a moment) but to see it as a strategy and mindset: only with a social heart will customers and others believe that you truly want to do good as a company, for your employees, customers, local environment and other people alike.
