Non-profit ? Or Beyond Profit !
I had the good fortune to meet Harold Rosen , the CEO of Grass Roots Business Fund in Mumbai, at a meeting they held for the Mumbai Angels, of which I am a member. GRBF has have been doing some great work with helping social entrepreneurs create businesses which are sustainable, scalable and have a social impact . He talks about converting Social enterprise ( with a capital S ) to a social Enterprise with a capital E. The logical extension would be to create a Social Enterprise with both a capital S and a capital E !
Is it possible to achieve that balance between doing both social good and being profitable ? This is very similar to the question of achieving work-life balance which all of us face in our daily lives - how do we manage to balance both personal satisfaction with professional achievement ? We manage to learn over time as we mature - and I think companies can learn this as well, as they mature - they need to learn to balance profitability with impact !
The problem is that because it‘s so easy to measure profitability , this is what economists have spent most of our time and energy doing. It’s easy to work with numbers ! However, it’s much harder to measure impact, because it’s often intangible . However, businesses do this all the time – for example, when they put a value on their brand name or goodwill. The Grass Roots Business Fund is now creating social metrics , to allow us to do this for impact as well.
I do not think these compa...
Source: The Patient's Doctor - Category: Obstetricians and Gynecologists Tags: Venture capital Harold Rosen Business Healthwise Mumbai Nonprofit organization Financial Services Social enterprise Source Type: blogs
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