This week I had the pleasure of sharing a long conversation with the executive director of the Social Venture Network, Deb Nelson.
We were focused on the building excitement as a busy autumn fast approaches when the organization marks its 25th year with a sold-out Hall of Fame Celebration and fundraiser in New York city, and its annual fall conference immediately afterwards.
Naturally, we spoke of the greater themes around the socially-responsible business movement as well, and one statement sticks out in my mind, not only because it was a blunt and accurate assessment of our current economic reality, but because it was almost a word-for-word repeat of part of a conversation I had with a new friend I met while at a wedding north of Montreal on Labour Day weekend.
“My belief is business is the most powerful institution in the world and we have to be thinking in very, very big, bold ways, because unless we’re able to transform the way the world does business we will be marching straight over a cliff,” Deb said.
“You don’t have to stretch too far to see that poverty is unbelievably daunting, climate change is getting worse and worse and is definitely something that is upon us, and we need everyone to be reinventing the way the world does business.”
At the wedding I met a consultant who works mainly in the manufacturing sector in the heart of Ontario’s automotive sector. As we discussed our work and the state of the world in which our children are growing up, he spoke of the need for people to rethink the way business is done.
Effectively, I believe the context he placed the conversation was something like the “old economy” we’ve relied upon for so long has already marched so many people over the cliff.
In our current economic situation it can be hard for many of us to find hope, but hope was sparked in that conversation as I described for him the work I’ve been doing with SVN, helping draw out stories from within the socially-responsible business movement.
The concept of business as a tool for world benefit is gaining steam, I told him, and the visionaries who began the movement have earned respect in the world of business because they’re successful on several fronts: they earn lots of money; they enhance their natural world, not degrade it; they tackle poverty, create jobs, and define what economic justice can and should look like; and it sure seems like they’re having a lot of fun in the process.
The SVN members I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with over the past few months are at the heart of this movement.
“There’s extraordinary potential in attracting the most innovative, high-impact entrepreneurs and investors in the world, all people that are committed to using business to solve social and environmental problems, and getting them to connect in a real way,” Deb says, describing the network she helps lead.
With each new connection and each new success, the transformation of business goes one step further in the right direction and we step a little further back from that proverbial cliff.
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Axiom News provides a stakeholder news service for SVN, where this article originally appeared.
