Businesses and charity have worked hand-in-hand for decades, or have they? The current state of charity is a broken model that requires change, and change is hard. Traditional business fails to address social needs truly, so we must have the hard conversations to disrupt the binary models and move forward.
Business does a great job of making money, and during a crisis, charity works its magic to gather funds and puts them on the ground quickly. But, after a crisis like Covid-19, how we build back matters. Shannon Keith, the BIPOC founder and CEO of Sudara, Inc., a social enterprise, and its nonprofit side, Sudara Freedom Fund, is a hybrid model that Shannon believes is the answer.
Shannon forged a path for a “social enterprise” before such businesses had a name. After 15 years, with many lessons learned, she is here to confront the limits of charity and forge a new path through social enterprise with industry leaders who want to disrupt the channel:
- Social Enterprise is easy to define. It solves the world’s problems through business! Can we move forward now?
- People don’t want a hand-out!
- Charity has its limits and cannot scale the way social enterprise can.
- It shouldn’t have to be this hard to help people.
- Social Enterprises get caught up in definitions when we need to redefine business while the nation rebuilds the economy.
- Traditional businesses fail to place people and the planet on par with profit in the new economy.
- A hybrid model is the future; it isn’t either/or; it’s both!
- Time for a reckoning; modern charity isn’t working.
- Corporations can support the growth of social enterprise through CSR and simple expenditure shifts to cleaner supply chains.
- Mainstreaming Social Enterprise in private and government investment.
- Discuss program-related investments as early-stage investment capital.
- Shift expectations on returns to scale social good.
- Educate donors to shift a portion of their portfolio to sustainable businesses that do good in the world
- Social enterprises and hybrid model enterprises are a more sustainable and equitable way to build our future economy.
Together with Benefit Governor of Sudara Freedom Fund and Founding Partner of RevHubOC, a social enterprise hub, Glenn Parish, and former CEO of Entertainment Cruises/Pritzker Group, Executive and D&I innovator during his time with Disney and Hilton, Kenneth Svendsen, will discuss the realities on the ground and the change needed to accelerate the learning curve for corporations and traditional capital in the social enterprise and nonprofit space. Post-pandemic, the new economy must include social enterprise to fill the gap between what nonprofit and traditional corporations can address.
