Hey Marc, thanks for kicking this off on socialedge. Am a big supporter of your push in the area of the entrepreneur commons.

My first crack at your questions: - Social Business... I prefer using Social Venture as it seems to have broader applicaction where as business relates strongly to for-profit business models. A venture to me is any risky or daring undertaking - could be a project or an organization. A social venture then is one that ventures with a social aim (environment included. - I believe in any venture adopting social aims as part of their business. I don't believe it is practical for an existing organization to make social aims their primary goal - generally too difficult to shift momenutm/culture - but social aims can be integrated into any business and that is a good thing. Noticing however the social part of social business relates to social capital. I think all businesses/ventures/collaboration is social in that sense. Focusing optimizing the social capital should bring people closer together which I believe will translate in greater interest in and adoption of social impact aims. - greater use of social capital (and human capital) is essential in reducing the need for financing and for attracting appropriate financing. Recognizing the power of social contracts as we do legal contracts also opens opportunities for doing finance deals that are less adversarial and more cost-effective.

Hope those are some helpful thoughts for this discussion.

Cheers!

Michael,

Thank you for the input. I like the concept of Social Venture as way to integrate into existing business projects with Social aims. It looks very much like what Muhammad Yunus is doing actually when he challenges large corporations to manufacture products for the poor. He did so with Danone, challenging them to produce yogurts that are affordable and adapted to the living conditions of poor people in Bangladesh, with nutritional characteristics that fit the needs of these people. He mentioned recently that he challenged another large corporation to produce shoes for the poor at $1 for a pair.

Thank you also for pointing out that all business/venture/collaboration is "Social" by definition. Maybe the real answer to the question is that we should not bother to qualify "social businesses" because a business is a social venture in essence. This actually goes in the direction I would like to see materialize, getting out of the "social business" label to just look at every single business as a possible agent of change.

The one risk I see with the way things are communicated today is that we seem to get used to the idea that some small percentage of the businesses and some small percentage of the entrepreneurs are "social" and it is their job, along with the philanthropists and the government, to fix the world issues, and then the rest of us can comfortably keep doing what we have been doing until they show us better. But the reality is that we know it is not going to work. We cannot rely on having 20% (at best) of the businesses being social while 80% of them will keep doing business as usual without caring about the environment or other issues. What we need is the reverse: 80% of businesses should be driving change while 20% try to resist and stick to the old ways.

I am trying to push this through the Vindex (http://www.venyo.org) as an eye opener or mind shifting gimmick for everybody to start focusing on the impact of what they do beyond the financial bottom line. Social Ventures are another go way to introduce change. I hope from this discussion today that we can identify several actionable options...

Businesses are, by defintion, entities to serve people. No business can survive if it doesnt fullfil its customer's requirements, however I beleive its the processes the business follow to acheive these is what diferentiates and cateogarizes them as social business. The willingness and capability of the business to adapt its processes to meet its social-goals while making profits in every market-condition is the most important characteristic I would look for. Social-goals are not straight-forward to distinctly define and hence creating equity based, profit-oriented comapnies with a "strict" social-goal using profits "just as the means" is , mostly, not easy. Perhaps thats why, a bit cynical thought though, CSR (Company Social Responsbility) centers exists in almost all companies now. Why a CSR when your business is actually "social"?

And since 2004 when broadband overtook slower connections between people, humans are reestablishing their positions of being the primary source of value creation & defence, rather than being relegated as mere "factors of production" which evolved at the onset of the industrial revolution.

See my further comment below.

Cheers, mc

Marc, This is an important and timely discussion thread. Thanks for putting it on. I tend to agree with the direction Michael Lewkwitz is taking. Since nearly every business has a social aspect to its operation, I believe a neat division between “social” and “non-social” businesses is not possible or productive.

Establishing a definable set of terms and guiding principles is important. The criterion put forth by Mr. Yunus is restrictive in view of raising venture capital. Additionally, the term “social” has its own baggage as it relates to state sponsored socialism. Recently, for-profit social media businesses have appropriated the term, “social” to describe their operations. They, too, are Social Business and Social Brands, conflating their use of the term with the Yunus description.

Further conflation exists now that non profits and foundations are beginning to behave like businesses, with aggressing branding, marketing campaigns and product licensing schemes (think Red Cross, Boy Scouts) to generate revenue.

Can existing businesses integrate social objectives and become “Social Businesses.” To me, it is a question of degree and purpose. Are social objectives core to their operations? Are they paying a small percentage or the majority of profits to a cause?

It seems to me that existing business may become Socially Responsible Businesses (SRB’s) but not Social Businesses as Yunus and others seek to define this emerging business space. Some standard practices and qualification criteria could help to formalize this space, making it more investor friendly. Investing in Social Business Enterprises could form an alternative to two primary options available with money outside of immediate consumption: 1) invest with an eye on security and return on investment 2) donate.

I think many investors would be satisfied with lower rates of return (or just a return of initial investment as Yunus suggests) when funding Social Businesses (assuming they meet specific criteria that they chartered and bound to) than other forms of investment. Already, there are large investment funds whose criteria are to invest only in Socially Responsible Businesses. Yunus idea of a Social Business stock exchange has merit. I see investing in Social Business Enterprises as a middle way between traditional investing and philanthropic giving.

Some alternatives to Social Business that I prefer:

I like the term Cause Based Business (CBB). To me, Cause Based Businesses have either one or more social causes as their Primary objective and reason for being. They can be profit or non-profit, but the goal for a business is to be self sustaining. To me, self sustainability separates business from Charitable Trusts and Foundations that survive from donations. Yunus has a cause based objective in addressing poverty while running a self sustaining enterprise. Cause Based Brands is another term that fits neatly with Cause Based Businesses.

Philanthropic Business is another term that I prefer to Social Business. I first saw the term used by Dan Jacobs at Everwun (a for-profit, venture funded business that functions as a conduit for raising money for charities via awareness badges distributed over the internet).

Whatever the confusion exists in defining Social Business Enterprises, the good news is that the long held notion that businesses exist only for profit without a concern to larger social purposes is falling away.

James Pruett

Hi Marc, and thanks for raising this interesting topic.

To answer the first, I should say that we started by defining something different called a people-centered business. In a paper presented to the Clinton re-election committee in 1996, this defined a business operating in the free market system of economics which modified its aim to one which served people - for community and social benefit. It made the point that shareholders which wished to do this need only consent by modifying the articles to declare the social purpose, on which at least 50% of profit would be re-invested, to make it so. It also described a trust fund mechanism for setting aside seed funding for further businesses of this type.

http://www.p-ced.com/about/history/

The model was first applied, by its founder in Russia, to source a development initiative which created a microfinance bank and 10,000 new businesses with full cost recovery for the investor, US government.

I believe existing businesses can become this kind of social business, because that's what I did with my software development business when P-CED launched in the UK in 2004. All our profit and much more of our social capital over the last 4 years has gone toward advocacy for microeconomic development and social enterprise in Eastrrn Europe. Our strategy papers, delivered to the Senate Foreign Relations have been responded to in the launch of the East Europe Foundation and the Government of Ukraine has adopted 3 recommendations relating to childcare as policy.

Finance would be a great help in spreading a viral social business paradigm, where those with congruent aims might "pay forward" into seeding new like enterprises, as suggested earlier.

We see the scope of this kind of endeavour perhaps even wider, as a force for international peace investment. The following interview between our founder and a diaspora leader of a community under pressure, reveals his thoughts on the "swords to ploughshares" effort.

http://www.iccrimea.org/scholarly/economicdev.html

Jeff

I agree Marc, the definition is too narrow and needs expanding. I like the way Jeff and Terry's P-CED challenges conventional economics as an insufficient paradigm that doesn't cover everybody. To change the practice of businesses into becoming social, or people-centered, there needs to be a shift away from the industrial age logic of maximizing profits for "me" and "myself" which is where a lot of people get their self esteem from. To transcend that reactive one dimensional thinking, we just need to wake up to what it really means to be social, then it will be easy for every business to become a social business.

Thank you for the feedback. Waking people up is the key, and I believe it starts with definitions that would help us communicate better. As I mentioned earlier, my worry is that the current status quo with Social Business being something for a few successful entrepreneurs getting into philanthropy and a few companies sharing a small chunk of their wealth is not going to make a real difference. Every business should be social one way or another.

One thing that was interesting for me listening to Muhammad Yunus speak about the history of Grameen bank was how he explained that the biggest impact of the loans that were made to the women in the villages was not so much the money, it was the mindshift that it created in them first and with their surrounding second. All of a sudden, a woman who was traditionally considered a liability for her family or her husband as an extra mouth to feed that could not produce anything was trusted with money. That trust that was given to her was a transformation, and then the ability to repay the loan started balance the power with her husband, and was giving her the confidence that they could make things happen. So the size of the loan was not so important, what was important really was the transformation that it brought in the woman's mind.

Similarly we need to find something that will generate a mind shift for small business owners. It could be as simple as a label, similar to the "organic" label which is giving people the power to decide with their wallet. My Entrepreur Commons and my Vindex projects are an attempt at establishing such a concept of a label, people-centered businesses could be another one. The lower the barrier to entry the better. If any business with a Vindex can be a "social business" then the barrier to entry is low enough that we can easily include many businesses, but the impact on behavior (knowing that what you do will impact your social capital rating) could be huge. Would you have suggestions of other possible requirements could be defined for a business to be "social" that would offer a low barrier to entry and big impact?

You've hit on something there Marc, I believe. We want to participate as a business or community venture to yield better social outcomes, but don't want a barrier that deters people from participating. We risk putting more energy and funding into creating definitions of how others might adapt to our paradigm, than actually doing good by doing business.

Echoing Michael above, there's a social dimension to most business and most enterprise can be considered social to some extent. The point you make about Yunus and self-worth developing out of personal transformation from liability to asset, is an illustration. Another is at the other end of the scale:

http://www.p-ced.com/info/se/

It's what we aspire to that really matters, and perhaps the "Vindex" could endorse the purpose and achievement to make it just as meaningful as large donations, or fixed definitions of what percentage should be contributed. Many small businesses after all, don't earn much more than what it costs to run them. They also exist for a social purpose and need to be recognised as such.

Jeff

There is certainly a social dimension to most businesses, most enterprises and most human undertakings, we are human and live in a socially glued world. The problem is though with the ends and means of those activities, especially, businesses. The key to it, I cannot agree here more with mdagear, is in the mindshift of people involved.

There is nothing wrong with having a profit, in a sense it is a value free notion until it is coupled with means of its achievement and ends it is going to serve. Hence, it is entirely dependent on the mindset, especially, of those in charge of a business undertaking. Labelling of socially responsible businesses in the likeness of organic or fairtrade, overtime can provide a space for consumer vote with their wallets. However, I think we need a war of paradigms to comence first with worldwide information bombardment to illuminate differences between people-centred, philanthropic or socially responsible businesses or those set to profit few. The benefits of the latter are in our faces now, but the victory of the first we needed already yesterday to lead decent lives. I mentioned the worldwide approach simply because I do not believe that an association here or a foundation there would make a huge difference in my lifetime, unless it is very well funded and can handle global leadership. Wouldn't you say?

Wow! Wait this is really a whole new discussion, Marc

Marc said:

One thing that was interesting for me listening to Muhammad Yunus speak about the history of Grameen bank was how he explained that the biggest impact of the loans that were made to the women in the villages was not so much the money, it was the mindshift that it created in them first and with their surrounding second. All of a sudden, a woman who was traditionally considered a liability for her family or her husband as an extra mouth to feed that could not produce anything was trusted with money. That trust that was given to her was a transformation, and then the ability to repay the loan started balance the power with her husband, and was giving her the confidence that they could make things happen. So the size of the loan was not so important, what was important really was the transformation that it brought in the woman's mind.

Similarly we need to find something that will generate a mind shift for small business owners. It could be as simple as a label, similar to the "organic" label which is giving people the power to decide with their wallet. My Entrepreur Commons and my Vindex projects are an attempt at establishing such a concept of a label, people-centered businesses could be another one. The lower the barrier to entry the better. If any business with a Vindex can be a "social business" then the barrier to entry is low enough that we can easily include many businesses, but the impact on behavior (knowing that what you do will impact your social capital rating) could be huge.

Would you have suggestions of other possible requirements could be defined for a business to be "social" that would offer a low barrier to entry and big impact?

So, what Yunus is saying is that the lowest members of society were given explicit power for upgrading their own world by an outside benevelent source. (They weren't ostracized, and they weren't seduced into the outside world, they were lower-status insiders who were given control to effect change.)

That's interesting - it's almost what happened when the Internet took off: the geeks took over to some degree. I think we're still seeing the positive effects of that.

But is it really low barrier to enter? My understanding is that Grameen required certain health-behavior-oriented reforms as covenant, which would make it a high barrier, just one that everyone could reasonably be expected to be able to do, and should do once they understood its importance in the health of their families.

Let me think on this one....

Hmmm, as a farmer's son I wonder about shifting away from nature. Self interest is undeniable.

I do agree that the industrial revolution reduced people to mere factors of production. The problem was that other factors of production were more capital intensive. These other factors of production were the main source of competitive advantage.

However, we are entering an era where these other factors of production (factories, materials, broadcast communications) are rapidly becoming commodities. At the same time, people are being empowered by broadband to be the dominant source of media shaping perception.

People are emerging once again as the main source of comparative advantage.

Please check out my comment below.

Hello all!

It's the process which needs to be understood, as the initial investment one has make for which we have to have enough patience.

As I see social capital naturally gets moulded into the system once we consistently deliver.

Delivery of goods naturally depends on competencies available and once own confidence that they have enough and more metal within to offer.

These deliverables can be for pay or for free and thus the buisiness and social capital come into picture.

Once we deliver we have the opportunity to put forth the purpose and we see the results.

These Iam saying with the experience of running Urban & Rural clinics and we followed and believed the above statements.

We never overmedicated and we belived to be sincere to the people who believed us and we used food as medicine wherever possible and initially none accepted us as we never unnessarily prescribed medicines or injected injectables and thus it took lots of time for them to understand and believe us.

BUT WE BELIEVED OURSELVES AND WE NEVER TRADED OUR KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEVED IN PROCESS AND WERE BLESSED WITH ENOUGH PATIENCE TO MEET THE PURPOSE

Today we are able to say with pride that we succeeded to convince and come out various innovative ideas, to promote our conviction of Sharng Food ,Sharing Knowledge and Sharing Responsibility.

Friends, what I want to impress upon you that while reading the introduction and reflecting that,when we are working for change selflessly as both the buisiness & capital generated are interoven and society is always a single dynamic unit.

Wife & Husband are single unit and we call them in Sanskrit as DAMPATHI, so Social Capital & Social Buisiness are one unit.

What I see is,we age because of experiences or situations or because of exposures and we tend to understand things better and so what I see is the need of the hour is to AGE.

Thus we deliver and see needed change.

Marc, great topic!

I define Social Business / Social Venture / Social Entrepreneurship as a term that's proxying for the idea of a profit-generating entity putting effort into generating capital that is not accounted for, currently, in our financial system.

So, I believe all businesses ARE social businesses: every business has people in it, and they have parents, and some have children, and roles in their community, and health issues, and need to find food and housing and clean water, etc. We can't abstract financial enterprise from the social system that nurtures it.

So the situation

in my worldview! -- is that, given that all businesses are social businesses, the new part is that now a few are realizing this. Those that realize they are de facto social businesses are using the knowledge (1) to make better internal decisions and (2) to pursue other mechanisms and opportunities for financial wealth creation and capital protection.

The current accounting system does not account for intangibles like brand and social capital.

But, when shares or corporations trade, a premium is paid for intangibles ... now typically as much as 70% of corporate value or more.

After a corporation changes hands, the intangibles finally make it on to the balance sheet as "goodwill".

In this era where individuals are becoming more powerful, it is so important highlight the value of social capital as a source of stable future earnings or in other words ... goodwill.

Pls see additonal comments below.

If the requirements for a low-level entry into becoming a social business were expanded, to include all forms of collective action and the use of social capital, then social media and other forms of new media would have enormous valve in bridging divisions and bonding communities together. Civic engagement is essential if we are "to get through the revolution that needs to happen". And of course the opportunity to belong is fundamental to human well-being.

Marc, thanks for kicking off this interesting discussion. I beleive that there are a couple of important points that have bubbled to the surface here.... - that its about lowering the barriers to create social impact - its about giving people the power to decide - people want to have CHOICE, and a social business is one that allows them that (no matter what its legal structure is). its not necessarily about creating perfectly new products, services or solutions, but creating new solutons for "us".

I therefore define a social business as one that provides for mutual growth. Not a selfish growth - but one where the beneficiaries (or end consumers) are also growing (either with access to clean water, better healthcare/ education, inclusion in the finanical system or economic growth)

Thank you for the input. One example of what I think as a social enterprise are the ones presented by Bo Burlingham in his book "Small Giants". He talks for example about a music company that has a rule of utilizing local resources as much as they can: local designers, etc... The impact of this policy is that the business is very deeply rooted in the community and brings in a lot of good energy in a city that otherwise would be just another city. I believe that this qualify as a social business. It would probably qualify under your definition if you add to it "growing the local economy", which may fall under what you call "economic growth". Maybe a way to generalize this definition would be: a company that focuses not on selfish growth but on the growth of the ecosystem it lives in.

Hey Marc,

Thanks for initiating a very interesting discussion.I think Prof. Yunus is very specific on the definition of a social business. Social business is a subset of all social enterprises or social ventures. Social ventures could be non-profits, for profits with a social mission(double bottom line, triple bottom line) or social businesses. Social businesses as per Prof. Yunus have one very distinct trait - they have equity. The equity could be put in by philanthropic investors or by the beneficiaries as in the case of Grameen Bank. If the equity is put in by philanthropic investors, they will get no dividend on the equity. If it is put in by beneficiaries, they could get a dividend.

So basically equity with the above caveat is the defining trait of social business.

In my view equity is very important for the following reasons: a. It brings in larger amounts of risk capital or social capital. e.g. If a person were to donate capital, that person would donate x. If there were a possibility of getting back the capital by investing that as equity , then perhaps the person may put in 5x. b. It offers reuse. Donated money is used only once. Sale of equity gives the opportunity of reuse. c. It gives leverage. With equity an organization can borrow debt from a bank. Thus $1 in social capital which is equity can raise $4 or $5. Leverage helps social businesses raise capital and build infrastructure which for-profit entities build quite easily and which non-profits struggle to do. d. Prof. Yunus also enunciates the possibility of selling the equity in a social stock market. That can potentially multiply the equity or the original social capital.

I don't there is anything which prevents social businesses from working in areas other than poverty. e.g. Going by Prof. Yunus's definition Kaiser Permanente would be a social business.

Coming to your second question, I think existing businesses can become social businesses if the shareholders agree to amending the bylaws to forbid the organization from giving dividends.

Coming to the third question, I think the definition of social business is unrelated to the ability to raise capital.

I would also like to share my experience trying to raise capital for my startup : http://unitedprosperity.org/blogs/team/2008/11/24/social-capital-and-social-business/

Cheers

Bhalchander

What if the impact from a social business was measured in the level, or to the degree, of community cohesion, like the music company that Marc mentioned bringing people together and putting good energy into the community. If the definition of a social business included the ability to grow the ecosystem, businesses would feed each other, creating sustainable scenarios for everyone. Either way, the idea of social business is to create inclusive capitalism, so I say, the broader the definition the better.

Marc,Jo,Jeff,Jessica and others

Continuing with earling posting ............,as we move on what matters is the work and that too WORK which matters a lot to us.

We move on irrespective of results and what motivates us is that we realize it is the work which keeps us alive.

I have seen many who are wedded to their work cannot continue with life once work stops, irrespective of whether it is due to retirement or cessation of the work which is close to their heart.

If we have work manythings build around it.

Then we have opportunity to define & refine.

My social enterprise definition is a business, business model or trade practice that encourages life or operating your business in a life-giving manner.

If businesses understood how closely linked their well-being is too their community’s health, then they would choose to operate in a responsible manner. So maybe a social business is one that is responsible to their community and the environment. Human’s are the only species that can irrevocably change the earth, permanently. Knowing that how would you operate your business?

Capital is always useful. However, I wonder if we do have a capital problem. Is it not possible using existing corporate structures and sources of capital to launch or operate a social enterprise? I don’t get the feeling that we have exhausted those options. Maybe we need to innovate in this area by understanding our markets and community culture better.

Marc,

I highly recommend the adoption of Nan Lin's definition of social capital which is rooted in network theory.

This connects the concept in a meaningful way to social networks and provides the basis upon which to highlight social capital's role in creating and defending corporate value in the networked era.

ALL businesses are social in an era where meaning & perception is derived from broadband empowered individuals rather than capital intensive broadcast communication networks.

This is a basis upon which social ventures that Michael describes below can take a compelling arguement to the broad investment community. An arbitrarily selected "social good" no matter how "good" will always be limited to attracting investors who share the opinion.

I invite you and your readers to read this blog post that I hope highlights how social media is an artifact of scaled up forms of social capital that are a critical corporate asset in the networked era. http://socialcapitalvalueadd.com/2008/11/20/iam-or-social-media-man/

Lin's definition is important because it distinguishes between intrinsic elements, which are individual assets and extrinsic elements (like trust) that are collective assets that help in the creation and use of social capital. This distinction is critical. Social capital as primarily an individual asset, allows us to tap it into economic & market theory that motivate investors.

Then the link between altruism and corporate motivation can be affirmed in the corporations self-interest, just as easily as an investment in brand. Follow this link for a couple of related blog posts: http://socialcapitalvalueadd.com/2008/07/28/signal-of-altruistic-type-and-corporate-motivations (follow the links) and, please join the SoCap&Brand discussion ... http://memeticbrand.com/2008/12/01/memetic-brand-social-capital-value-add-start-socializing

My definition of a social business is a for-profit enterprise that is driven a social mission. The social mission is central to the enterprise, and the entrepreneur's decision to use a for-profit rather than a non-profit vehicle is merely a strategic decision based on the most efficient method to realize the mission. --- Fred Schlomka

Thank you for these very interesting links, I like a lot the definition of Social Capital that you bring in and the discussion of Brand Value vs. Social Capital value that it leads to. I would be interested in expanding on the idea of "all business are social in an era where meaning and perception is derived from broadband empowered individuals". This is an excellent start, how can we accelerate the process of brands becoming altruistic? how can we measure this more specifically to make it more obvious?

Marc, As a way to accelerate brands becoming altruistic I propose the following:

• Create a system of signification that corresponds to social causes and make this system profuse and visible (this is already happening in the form of awareness ribbons and philanthropic brand symbols of causes by powerful foundations, i.e. Susan Komen, Live Strong, Product (RED)).

• Create an intellectual property scheme around social signs that correspond to causes and form a directory (many of these symbols are already recognizable and in circulation and may be modified for purposes of trademarking).

• Make this directory available for licensing and distribution to consumer product manufacturers, retailers, designers, as well as online advertisers.

• Utilize aftermarket services that are available to provide brand protection and a full range of on-demand licensing services – from logos, stitches, to hangtags and holograms.

• As second, complementary system, use iconic descriptors to provide a legible system of identifiers indicating product conformity to environmental, health, and labor standards.

Creating an intellectual property and licensing scheme around symbols of social causes and social awareness represents a vast potential source of recurring revenue, potentially much larger than the $12.7 billion sports licensing business that provides for us a model.

I presented this idea to Google for their Project 10 to the 100 contest. Google is of course in a privileged position to facilitate this idea. It is something they have already begun doing on a limited basis through the periodic display of social causes (like the natural disaster in Myanmar) on their home page and with “themes for causes” on iGoogle.

The same icons used in a web advertising platform or online at the point of purchase could also conform to consumer product licensing and product packaging and labels. Icons or logos, when compared to text based packaging content descriptions; require less space to reference a larger body of information. At the same time, they can be very effective influencers of consumer purchase decisions. Logo descriptors could indicate payment to a cause or conformity to specific environmental, labor, and health standards, laying the foundation for a consumer centric regulatory regime.

Consumers are the deciders of which brands they purchase. A brand affiliation with social causes provides a positive and measurable influence. Using an iconic system as a regulatory scheme could prove more difficult to implement (setting standards and establishing authority represent challenges outside consumer adoption). Nonetheless, it would be extremely useful, as both government and business recently proved to be tragically irresponsible regulators. On limited space, logo descriptors may refer to enough information to cover the myriad concerns consumers have about the products they buy, such as labor and environmental practices used in production.

I am aware of several submissions made to Google that suggest expanded use of social signs by using "Click for a Cause" campaigns that create revenue streams to online awareness campaigns. A new start-up company called Everywun was recently funded around this basic idea. Delivering a licensable directory of social signs to product manufacturers, retailers, and designers would enlarge distribution and provide for an accelerated adoption by consumers and businesses alike. The result is more funds for causes. Specialty retail stores (similar to stores that sell nothing but licensed sports apparel) could ultimately emerge that would exclusively carry cause related licensed products.

The same licensing platform used to present generic cause related icons or logos could be shared by charitable organizations, most of whom do not currently have licensing programs. Charitable organizations are relative latecomers to licensing. The American Red Cross, our most popular and recognizable charity, only recently established a program.

A seismic shift is occurring. Consumers are increasingly attuned to social conditions and the causes that address them. Consumption is a part of establishing human identity and communicating values to others. Product licensing forms a prominent and highly visible layer of this communication system. I believe that social causes represented as trademarked brand symbols constitute powerful incentives for consumers to take action and a more socially constructive alternative to licensing celebrities, Disney characters, and athletic teams and sports figures. Positive values are communicated at every level.

You may view some of the proposal ideas at the links provided below. Google had specific questions for their proposal requirements that are not included with these online articles.

http://knol.google.com/k/james-pruett/social-brands-cause-based-brands/806cui3nlxoq/5#

http://knol.google.com/k/james-pruett/licensing-social-causes-via-internet-ad/806cui3nlxoq/8#

The finalist will be chosen on January 27th. Regardless of their selections, I believe my proposal has merit. I am contacting persons and institutions that can further it along.

http://www.project10tothe100.com/how_it_works.html

James Pruett