Sam Lanfranco makes some nice points about profitability as an indicator and driving force, even for "non-profit" or socially-motivated projects. I'd like to turn the point around and argue that being profitable, or the profit motive, is not a good basis for judging the social motivation or social potential of an activity. In effect, I'd like to challenge the more-or-less automatic assumption, which I see expressed in many parts of the NGO and development communities, that a for-profit activity cannot also have a socially beneficial goal. Of course, many businesses have no social motivation. However, in our research, we have found that many of the successful companies in BOP markets have an explicit social metric or goal as well as a business goal. This is true in large companies as well as in entrepreneurial start-ups.
I agree that profitability is, in several senses, an important indicator for many activities--and I think that the profit motive does not disqualify an entity from also having a social motive. Allen L. Hammond Vice President for Innovation & Special Projects World Resources Institute 10 G Street NE Washington, DC 20002 USA V (202) 729-7777 F (202) 729-7775 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.wri.org www.digitaldividend.org ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
