From SOCAP20: Helping Social Enterprises Build Partnerships with the Corporate Sector
As more corporations set goals to create more sustainable and equitable supply chains, they also open the door for revenue-based partnerships with social entrepreneurs. These nimble and innovative enterprises often are addressing social and environmental issues through their businesses, presenting a two-pronged opportunity for revenue growth and positive impact.
During this interactive SOCAP20 workshop, Mark Horoszowski, CEO of MovingWorlds, discusses how social enterprises can identify new opportunities for partnerships and launch processes to build partnerships and optimize sales.
MovingWorlds has helped to support the social enterprise movement for about a decade by building skills and capacity, Horoszowski said. The firm also partners with corporations to scale and achieve sustainability, equity, and social impact targets through employee engagement and other empowerment initiatives. “We’re obsessed with ideas,” he said. “We ask: What are the biggest levers we have in which we can make change?”
One immense opportunity he points to is the $12 trillion spent annually on business-to-business transactions: the sourcing, processing, manufacturing, distributing, and selling. Large and small businesses are involved along these supply chains, Horoszowski said: “Some are world-positive, some are not.”
Shifting some of that $12 trillion away from practices that deplete the environment and propagate inequalities, he said, can help businesses around the globe improve their long-term prospects and make progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for social and environmental good.
“In order for us to achieve these targets, we have to figure out a way to move that $12 trillon spent every year B2B into a way that is more effective,” Horoszowski said. “It’s hard, but it’s why there are social enterprises.”
Helping social enterprises plug into that $12 trillion opportunity also creates more opportunities for growth as well as environmental benefit, he said. “Companies are spending more to achieve the SDGs, partnering with social enterprises. They can’t do it alone.” These partnerships involve capital in the form of revenue rather than investment — a funding method that is more sustainable and market-driven.
To help attendees envision the possibilities for corporate and social enterprise partnerships along the supply chain, Horoszowski guided them through an interactive virtual whiteboard exercise.
Watch Helping Social Enterprise Build Partnerships with the Corporate Sector
Speakers:
Mark Horoszowski, Co-Founder, MovingWorlds
