Tamara Schweitzer

Profits with a Purpose

 

So definitely there are misconceptions of the idea, one of them being that the whole form of what a social enterprise looks like is something which exists primarily to do good. It's not. It's there to do good, but it's also there to be profitable as well so that it can compete alongside profit-making ventures for capital, for the right customers, for the right partners, and to be sustainable.

I think there's a second part to the misconception, which is that a social entrepreneur is someone who runs an enterprise that is not as competitive or as profitable as someone who is just out for the money. I think what we're seeing more and more nowadays is that really is a myth.

So what would you say to entrepreneurs who are hesitant about contributing to a social cause because they feel that it would involve too much time?

I think that true wealth flows from information, and the more information that you have about your market, or the more information you have about your competitors and what they're doing, then the more effective you can be at being able to respond to challenges.

I think in exactly the same way, if there's anyone who's hesitant as to whether or not they should be connecting themselves with a greater cause within their business, then the way to empower themselves is really through information -- and it is by connecting with the right networks and the right people already out there who are proving that the things that they're doing work. From that information, entrepreneurs can now navigate through the challenge because they are much clearer as to what it is.

There are certainly a lot of causes in America and there's a lot of American companies who are focusing their efforts in America. But there are more and more companies that are also seeing they can make a huge difference overseas in some of the markets where they would like to do business, which includes especially China and India. There is nothing better than for an American company that is doing business with India, for example, to discover that they are not simply there to make a profit and do business but they're actually putting something back into that community as well.

When you started the XL Group in 2001, what did you hope it would accomplish, and do you think it has done so?

We had this mission of World Wide Wealth, which was really the idea of creating wealth and contributing wealth. So it wasn't simply a matter of donating to charities, but seeing the world more as a plumbing system. If you think of the more traditional ways of giving through charities or through donations, that's almost the bucket mentality where you're taking a bucket of charitable giving and you're passing it on to a person who needs it until they need more, and then you give them another bucket.

What we saw -- just from the way that entrepreneurs are connecting around the world -- we had the opportunity to turn those buckets into a plumbing system that was permanent. The late Anita Roddick, who was the founder of The Body Shop, was one of the first to say that if you have a cause-based business, you have the opportunity to find profitable ways for consumers to be able to give directly through their consumption to the causes they believe in. And I think we're going to see more and more of that. 

So our goal when we started was to really grow this vision of World Wide Wealth around the world, and one part of that was we set up something called the Billion Dollar Challenge. The idea of that was we would be able to measure the different entrepreneurs around the world who wanted to be part of a social enterprise network and we'd be able to get them to donate at least 10 percent of their profits to charity. We're up to $53 million in pledges that have come through that program.

How are you getting the word out about social entrepreneurship to business owners in the United States?

The way that we have grown all around the world is through connecting regularly with entrepreneurs in all different countries. We basically start up in a city and we have events that take place every single month and we bring in the top entrepreneurs and top speakers who are there to pass information on and share ideas with entrepreneurs in every city. We just started that in Los Angeles earlier this year and in the coming year, we'll have a presence in 20 different cities in the U.S., and all sorts of American entrepreneurs will be able to connect with our entrepreneurs in India, in China, in Australia, and all over the Asia Pacific.

And what we hope will happen is two things. First of all, the entrepreneurs in America -- just like they have all around the world -- would find the right connections to be able to increase and grow their own business, and the second thing is they would be much more in touch with the different causes that are currently taking place around the world as well as ones that our social entrepreneurs are getting involved in.

We have over 1,500 events throughout the year, so there are at least five to six events happening every night of the week, and these happen all around the world at a local level with entrepreneurs sharing their ideas and initiatives with each other.

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