Want to Really Change the World? Make a Profit Solving Social Problems: Jason Saul

A leading expert on strategy and performance measurement in the social sector is promoting a new organizational framework to solve social problems on a colossal scale.

As CEO of the consulting and strategy firm Mission Measurement, Jason Saul has worked with such major firms as McDonald’s, Kraft Foods and Levi Strauss & Co., measuring the business value of their philanthropic efforts.

Corporate social responsibility has become the hottest way for big business to do good, and last year American companies spent more than $32 billion on social responsibility efforts, according to one report.

The issue now is that these companies want to know whether their charitable efforts provide any business value. Mission Measurement’s research is revealing the stark reality — they don’t.

“We measured many of these programs and just giving money to the girl scouts or the opera has no impact on the business whatsoever,” Saul tells Axiom News. “You can argue in some convoluted way that it might help your reputation indirectly, but the bottom line is no one is going to get an American Express card because they saw you sponsor the opera.”

In light of these findings, Mission Measurement has been documenting social impact strategies that do drive business, and has identified that companies have been thinking about social responsibility in the wrong way, says Saul.

“We need to move from a social contract mentality to a social capital market way of thinking, (where) the market value is social change,” he says.

“If we look at how do we leverage the engine of the business — the core business itself — rather than the fumes of the business, to be able to make positive social change, you could really change the world and, oh, by the way, you can make a lot of money.”

Saul, who is calling this social innovation, has written a book on the subject, Social Innovation Inc., set for release this fall.

He sees social innovation as a variation on the existing social impact approaches, which include socially responsible businesses giving money to charity and being sustainable, as well as the non-dividend distributing, non-profit or low-profit making companies which exist to realize a social mission.

Saul suggests the social innovation approach has the potential to have the greatest impact because there’s no trade-off between profit and social change.

“If you figure out how to harness the platform, the power of the business itself, and aim it at a social problem, it’s much more sustainable because you’ll do it, because you’re making money and you can have a magnitude bigger impact than you could ever do through just your traditional tools of philanthropy and volunteering and reporting.”

Saul says social innovation strategies can be characterized by the following: they are designed specifically to make a profit; they are designed to solve a social problem, not just do good or give money away; they use the core business, not just some extra volunteering on the side; and they are sustainable because they are created to be profitable.

-- More to Come

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