Building a better society
Taking action is just as important as social criticism
Nick Ternette
As socialists we are constantly being told that all we do is criticize
— that we never provide positive solutions to anything.
Today, I want to write about something positive, a new breed of
small-business owners who have sacrificed lucrative careers in
order to launch socially conscious ventures.
Meet Ivan Mulder, a Toronto resident who for more than seven years
lived on the streets or in shelters. Today, the 25-year-old has
a job as a bike courier and his own one-bedroom apartment. He
doesn’t drink or do drugs anymore.
“I’ve
learned responsibility and how to manage my money. I now put it
towards things that really matter,” he said in a recent
Globe and Mail article.
So, how did this come about? According to David Bornstein, author
of How to Change the Word: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power
of New Ideas, there is a growing breed of socially responsible
entrepreneurs.
Richard Durham is one. He gave up a well-paying job in order to
start the social enterprise Turnaround Couriers, which maintains
the typical elements of a business but focuses on social change
rather than profits. In 2002 Durham started his company by hiring
street kids. Since then, 70 kids have been employed to service
a variety of businesses, including the Royal Bank.
Nicole Rycroft became a social entrepreneur in 1999 with the establishment
of Markets Initiative. This business preserves ancient and endangered
forests by helping Canadian companies switch from traditional
paper products to environmentally sound alternatives. Since 1999
she has had a positive effect on 72 magazines and 88 book publishers,
including the ones who publish the Harry Potter series.
“It
was just incredible to me that magazines and newspapers were the
destiny of an 800-year-old tree. I felt compelled to spend more
of my life energy working to create change,” she said in
the Globe.
In order to be successful, both Mulder and Rycroft depend on strong
business skills and a good understanding of the marketplace, as
well as additional resources such as Social Capital Partners,
a Toronto-based company that provides investment capital and supervisory
support to social entrepreneurs. Without such elements these entrepreneurs
will fail, because an idea itself is not good enough.
By the way: Durham’s business income has doubled since he
began, and he gives 50 per cent of it to charity.
Meet James Kennedy, an executive chef in trendy restaurants in
Vancouver. He started Cooks Studio in 1990, targeting Vancouver’s
downtown East Side. His program provides street kids with culinary
training and a new lease on life. As Kennedy said, he wanted to
start his business because he saw lining up at soup kitchens as
demeaning.
“If you can give them tools they are way
better off,” Kennedy said in the Globe.
Kennedy has other divisions within Cooks Studio that make more
of a profit and help subsidize the culinary-training side of his
business.
That reminds me of the work we did starting in 1997 in Winnipeg
to address the issue of squeegee kids. A group of us developed
a plan called Powerhouse, which would have trained street kids
to work in the restaurant business with the help of subsidies
from regular businesses. The plan never came to fruition because
funding from all three levels of government could not be arranged.
As all these entrepreneurs say, they want to maximize the meaning
of their work.
Nick Ternette is a community and political activist, freelance
writer and broadcaster. |
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