Making It Real: Quantifying and Measuring Social Impact

In past posts (i.e. Value = Profit + Public Good), MOTG has talked about the need to measure an organization performance in terms of its financial and social and/or environmental aspects.

For guidance on how you can actually do that check out this great article from RISE (Research Initiative on Social Entrepreneurship), entitled "Assessing Social Impact In Double Bottom Line Ventures"

The articles highlights the strengths and weaknesses of several models for measuring impact and includes examples of how each of the models could be implemented.

Free vs. Fair Trade - Are They Mutually Exclusive Strategies?

The way the debate is framed about free and fair trade one would think that they are mutually exclusive strategies. I believe that they are not – that they can actually be supportive strategies.

The end goal of both fair and free trade is increased economic activity. Free trade focuses on macro systems – on things like tariffs, trade barriers and exchange rates. Fair trade organizations typically focus their efforts on those who are left behind or excluded from the benefits of free trade.

I worked in South Africa with a group of men and women who were in the unfortunate position of being low-skilled labor in a middle income country. In an international marketplace these men and women could neither undercut the low wage labor from low wage countries nor compete with skilled workers from high wage countries. These men and women were unemployed – in fact 60-70% of the people who lived in their communities were also unemployed. They and their families survived at a subsistence level only because there were able to barter and trade in an informal economy. These were men and women, who although low-skilled, had some skills, and although unemployed, desired employment.

South Africa is currently experiencing tremendous growth as a direct result of of its re-entrance into the international economy. The government has paid down its debt and South African companies like SAB, Investec, Old Mutual, and Anglo-American are now doing extremely well on a global scale. Yet these gains are not trickling down to the people that I worked with – because they live in a community that operates outside of the formal economy.

So I say we need both – both free and fair trade - both a focus on universal systems and a focus on creating opportunities for people who are currently marginalized and excluded from those systems.

Locally, a group of individuals, non-profits, and businesses have recently banded together to form an organization called NC fair trade. NC fair trade will focus on increasing awareness about fair trade activities in North Carolina and opportunities for people to get involved in and grow the fair trade community locally. Please visit us at our recently launched website at www.ncfairtrade.com to learn more.

Durham Love

Hi all you Durham, NC fans,

Have I got some exciting news for you - this weekend there is a festival celebrating Durham revitalization. Check out the festival website at Durham Rising. There will be music, a parade, and the unveiling of a new bull. Good stuff.

If you can make it to the festival but really are looking for new ways to express your Durham love you may want to consider:

• Buying a Durham t-shirt or bumper sticker. (Check out Za Za Zsu, the Anti-Mall, or Dolly's for some good choices)
• Visiting Downtown Durham Inc and asking for a free Durham CD featuring Durham artists singing songs about ... Durham. The CD features soon to be classics like "I live in a converted tobacco warehouse."
  
• If you live in Chapel Hill, but still LOVE Durham and you have a facebook profile - join the facebook group (I live in Chapel Hill, but I LOVE Durham) to meet other closeted Durham fans

And never forget ... Durham Love Yourself

Reform of American Holidays & Monuments

I lived in South Africa a couple of years ago. South African holidays always seemed more inspiring to me than U.S. holidays, when I lived there. Their holidays were named things like "Youth Day" or "Women's Day." After thinking about it for a while, I realized that I liked the South African holidays because they were named for abstract ideas rather than for particular people. You could get behind the spirit of the day and not just behind a person who was fading into history.

When I got back to the States, I started fixating on Columbus Day. Not everyone is in agreement that Columbus was the hero that he is celebrated as, yet we still have a holiday for him. I decided that it would be a lot more meaningful for me if the holiday was named Adventurer's Day instead of Columbus Day. That way we could still honor Columbus , but also honor other explorer's like Lewis and Clark or the first team that went to the moon. I also really liked that Columbus Day weekend could be transformed into Adventure weekend.

So once I started down this path, I got a little carried away and decided to rename all American holidays. On my calendar:

• President's Day -> Leadership Day
• MLK Day -> Civil Right's Day (so that we can honor all the civil's rights heroes to come)
  
• Veteran's Day and Memorial -> War & Peace Day
• Independence Day -> Freedom Day (that way we could celebrate not only when the US got its independence, but also when black people and women were granted the right to vote)
• I also added Earth Day to the mix

If you want to view a presentation about the reformation movement, click here.
Stay tuned for more information about the reformation of American Monuments ....

Value = Profit + Public Good

When people talk about how well a company is doing or try to value a company, it is common practice to refer to its stock price or its most recent quarterly earning statements. I would contend that profit is a narrow way to value a company. Profit tells us very little about intangibles like what the a company's impact on the environment is or whether a company is treating its workforce fairly. I would argue that a much better way to value an organization, whether it be for-profit or not-for-profit, would be to look at both the income it is generating and the public good that it is creating. Jed Emerson, a senior Fellow at the Generation Foundation, has made a very similar argument in his essays about blended value. To learn more about his theory of blended values visit: www.blendedvalue.org

In a utopian world, public good be quantified and measured, so that the true value of both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations could be known. Conceivably, in this world, companies that produce negative public good, could fund the work of social sector organizations that generate little economic profit, but create a lot of public good, through a system that is much like the one we see for carbon trading today.

Accountability for Foundations

This broadcast on the State of Things on WUNC with Joel Fleischman, a professor at Duke, was music to MOTG's ears.

Joel covers a wide range of topics that are covered in his new book, The Foundation, including accountability for foundations, the need for information disclosure in the sector, the investing practices of foundations, and the trend of convergence between the business sector and the social sector.