Business for Profit and Social Change

Innovative business opportunities exist which can benefit corporations while serving the poor and middle-class in countries around the world.



One of the topics I have been most interested in over the past few years is innovation and entrepreneurship designed for non-traditional or under-served markets.  Mohammed Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, popularized the use of microfinance as a means of sustainably helping people lift themselves out of poverty.  Today, microfinance has become one of the hottest areas in the NGO/development world.

The late C.K. Prahalad published a book in 2004 called The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid in which he talked about the potential business opportunities that existed to serve the world's poor (the "bottom" of the "financial pyramid").  Bill Gates described this as a way to "fight poverty with profitability".  To me, this represents a far more effective method than simply handing out money, which is unsustainable and of dubious effectiveness.  Involving the "bottom of the pyramid" in the modern economy, on the other hand, is win-win, with companies incented to provide goods and services to new markets, and those customers receiving access to what they need.

Serious About Spending Cuts?

Talk of slashing government makes for great populist campaign rhetoric, but meaningful cuts have to address defense and entitlement spending, not insignificant pork or agency budgets.

The election results are in, and this time there are no surprises.  As predicted, Republicans have made huge gains, capturing the House of Representatives and significantly narrowing the gap in the Senate.  They have ridden the dominant nationwide political trend of dissatisfaction with the performance of government and the Democrats who have been in charge of it.  Soon to be House Speaker John Boehner declared tonight that the election was "a repudiation of big government" after earlier vowing to small-government-championing Tea Party acolytes "I'll never let you down".

Several of Rep. Boehner's party colleagues attained their victory tonight promising spending cuts.  Yet the fact remains that while talk of slashing government makes for great populist campaign rhetoric, if politicians from either side of the asisle want to actually make real steps toward reducing deficits and reigning in spending, some difficult choices will have to be made.  After all, the types of proposed spending cuts we have been hearing are nothing more than symbolic measures with little impact.