I kick off the show getting personal about getting stuck. Then we get to the good stuff!
Alando Simpson, Vice President of City of Roses Disposal & Recycling Inc where they assist businesses with reducing their carbon footprint. He told me their purpose is to do our best to exemplify what it looks like to be a 21st century triple bottom line business. Another gem: “In order to rectify issues we’ve inherited, private sector needs to step up to the place with innovative business models, beyond just bottom line to the whole ecosystem (people, planet, profit).
Ericka Dickey-Nelson is the Founder and Principal at Social Enterprises, Inc., a full-service event planning firm specializing in conferences and summits with a sustainability or social impact focus.
In 2008 Ericka co-founded the GoGreen Conference series in Portland. The series has since expanded to Seattle, Phoenix and New York City.
GoGreen Seattle is coming up April 30, 2015.
Social Enterprise’s purpose is making a difference through events.
In today’s episode I get a bee in my bonnet about execution and then get to a great conversation with Jon Blumenauer, CEO at The Joinery where they design and build beautiful, high-quality hardwood furniture from sustainably harvested wood. Their purpose is to drive positive change by handcrafting furniture that people absolutely love.
Before I introduce my interview with Maria Rodriguez on this episode, I share my thoughts on the concept of Massive Transformative Purpose from the book Exponential Organizations.
BYOEARTH is vermicomposting startup in Guatemala, founded by Maria Rodriguez.
social venture empowering women to create income, increase crop yields and build quality of life. Their purpose: to promote vermicomposting as a sustainable livelihood in vulnerable populations.
Maria also shared with us a concept that I love: “trabajo bien hecho” or “well done work”
Plans are worthless. Planning is priceless! That’s how this episode of the Purpose Podcast begins.
Then we have an interview with Justin Yuen, Preside of Portland, Oregon-based FMYI, which uses social collaboration to get work done. They Empower Teams To Make a Difference.
We conclude the episode with a little baseball talk (My Detroit Tigers were swept by the Baltimore Orioles in the 1st round of the playoffs last night.) which actually does relate to business.
Buy the Change uses Trade for Better Lives for Women in the Developing World. Co-founder Kari Hughes invited me into the world headquarters (her home) for this interview about why they are, how they got started and why they do what they do. Buy The Change is a Certified Benefit Company (B Corp) (as is TedSarvata.com) committed to being part of the solution to the issues faced by women and girls around the world.
She mentioned a couple of books that were instrumental in her development: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn and Global Girlfriends: How One Mom Made It Her Business to Help Women in Poverty Worldwide by Stacey Edgar.
They measure impact by how many dollars are we able to put into the hands of women in the developing world. We talked about the potential conflict between purpose and impact, the pendulum, as it were, that swings between focusing on short term benefits to their suppliers, women in the developing world, and more focus on the long term impacts, or more short-term focus on developing markets for these products. After the interview I reflected on the Duncan Berry (Fishpeople) interview on episode 30: https://purposepodcast.com/030. Perhaps that episode will be helpful for Buy the Change. What do you think?
Metropolitan Group’s purpose is “to build a just and sustainable world”. Laura Dellinger, President and Principal tells us about this Portland-based Strategic Communications agency that recently celebrated its 25th anniversary as a social-change agency.
Laura has deep expertise in the use of community engagement to mobilize stakeholders in community-based solutions to social and civic issues, is board chair at Trillium Family Services among many other current and past nonprofit board positions and recently was honored by the Portland Business Journal as Executive of the Year at their Women of Influence Executive awards.
The Power of Voice
Voice is a critical catalyst for social change.
Who has the power of voice and who does not often determines:
Who has access to decent housing, fair wages, safe food, clean water, and quality health care
Who is safe, and who feels safe and able to express their views
Who has the resources to advocate for their beliefs and rights
Who has their perspective accurately portrayed in mainstream media
Who votes, who influences and makes policy
Who has the ability to make change within organizations and communities
If you want to change the world, what should you do? On one level it’s simple, really. Get clear on your purpose and then take action. That action, driven by purpose, is what creates impact: Purpose Drives Impact. This is simple cause and effect, really. Clear purpose leads to impact. Purpose without action is simply dreaming (You can prove this to yourself by pulling out an atlas – remember those? – or Google Earth and look up a place you’ve always wanted to visit. See? You’re dreaming), while action without purpose is running in circles (To prove this, turn on your GPS without a destination and go for a bike ride. See where it takes you. No helpful voice in your earbuds.). read more
My guest on this episode is Deena Pierott whose purpose is Diversity, Inclusion and Equity. She tells us about how she tapped into her purpose even as a little girl, and all the places it’s taken her since, and the impact it’s had on the world.
We’re in the business of helping businesses maximize impact (your bottom line is one kind of impact, but we’re talking about more than that; impact on your customers, your employees, your suppliers, your community at large and the environment). We became a B Corp both to be recognized for the work we’re already doing and to continually hold ourselves to a higher standard.
I kick off the show getting personal about getting stuck. Then we get to the good stuff!
Purpose Podcast | Impact Entrepreneurs | Strategy | Execution | Management | System | Ted Sarvata | Rockefeller Habits | Scaling Up 