Every company — big, small, good, bad, domestic, international — has a mission statement. And chances are, there is at least a grain of goodness in each of them. It’s hard to imagine that any corporation started from a place of wanting to be dishonest, hurt people or the environment, exploit workers or fuel social injustices.
Maybe it’s just Friday afternoon optimism kicking in, but let’s just assume that all corporations were at least born of a good intention. Let’s believe that if we asked 100 CEO’s to dig up their organization’s original mission statement — their manifesto and reason for being — they would find a deep sense of reconnection and validation in what they read. And the public would probably find a great sense relief — “Ok, at least they didn’t plan to cause so much damage.”
Now, just because we can find emotional value and some social goodness in the mission statements of even the most villain-ized corporations, doesn’t mean they’re excused from some of the carelessness they’ve exercised in recent years (I won’t name names). But we can choose to see this as an opportunity to return to the values that started it all. What if these CEO’s, in a moment of transformation, vowed to adjust their business models so that their operations were, actually, strategically aligned with what they set out to do? What if they realized that by shifting their business model to work in tandem with their mission, they could actually be more successful?
We believe that doing good and making a profit don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The ideologies that have traditionally segregated the nonprofit and commercial sectors don’t have to continue existing as concrete walls. “’Nonprofit’ shouldn’t be something that people do in their spare time” said a wise and witty man named Mike Hemmingway. And he couldn’t be more on point. What if the world’s richest people — and corporations — were also the best? Why can’t we aim for that?
We think that we can. We know that by helping corporations see the benefit in doing good while also doing well, they can shift behavior and be responsible for transforming society for the better. Large companies, who reach masses of people and offer mainstream products, have the potential to make good things accessible — to raise the standards of public consumption and to reap the benefits (financial and social) at the same time.
Let’s help one another find a way back to the well-intentioned — even if dreamy — place where so many of America’s best companies found their beginnings. Let’s reconnect consumers with the ideas that actually stand for something. Let’s empower the public to be engaged in finding solutions. And let’s all be part of a social progress revolution.
This post is inspired by recent conversations with Mike Hemmingway (Brand Hunger), Morra Aarons Mele (Women Online), Holly Lynch (and the whole Empax team).
Image Credit: Alejandrooo !