Transcript for:
Exploring Philanthropy and Social Business

philanthropy traditionally is known as giving away for a good cause to help other people so if I make money I give a part of my money uh to do something for my neighbors for my community for my nation for my society and so on that's philanthropy business is where I want to make money philanthropy is giving away business is bringing it to me so there is a two different kind of thing uh but what I'm suggesting uh the business world the economics uh or the theory of Economics Miss some important aspect because when you define business in the strict theoretical way you describe it as a business to make money B the mission of business is to maximize profit that's why you do that's what everything has to be in a big way come to me that's why I'm in business and all businesses are like that according to the theory and also according to the practice but I'm saying that human beings are not machines we are not money-making machines we are human beings we are not single dimensional that all I do in my life is make money that's single dimensional uh activity human beings are multi-dimensional being we have if if we Define it in two SE sides just to to simplify the many dimensions there are two Dimensions one is a selfish Dimension I try to bring everything to me that's a selfish Dimension and there is a selfless Dimension I want to give away to things other things but business world the way it is theorized takes human being is only selfish being so all the businesses you created is to bring it to me in the process of maximizing profit we forget who we pushed away who we put under our feet because our mission is to make more money so we do that but that's where I say the theory went wrong if we want to bring real human being there should be at least two businesses one business to make money to sat satisfy our selfish part of it and there should be another part another business to express our selfless part I'm calling it social business so the second business is to make an impact in World make a difference in the life of the people so that's a social business it's a non-loss non-dividend company I do that I get into that business not for making any personal benefit out of it I want to make make a difference in people's life I want to solve the problems that I see around me that's why I did the social business so there could be two businesses profit making business and social business at the same time and me as a human being can use my money in two ways a profit making business also in Social businesses so that I can find expression in all my Dimensions that part is missing today only thing that we can do is give away money being a fin IST when I give away money goes and achieves its goal but it never comes back so the philanthropy money has one life it can be used only once you don't have a chance to use it again but if I can use this money to achieve the same goal in a social business way I design a business to exactly same objective that this social business money will recycle because it's a business it never disappears so it keeps on running keeps on running so I see it it has a lot more impact if I can design it as a social business so I'm saying between philanthropy and social business social business much more effective to do that between profit making business and social business profit making money can make me Rich social business can make a difference in the world so with has choice that I have to make I how much time and how much resources I distribute between the two things but to me profit making business is a means to make money and I take the money and do the social business that is the end so there's a means and there's an end today there is no means and end the same thing is the means same thing is the end making money is the means making money is the end it doesn't make sense why should I all my life make money make money make money to do what to achieve what so if if I if I'm in this world for the only short period that's what we are very short period we live in this world if I keep on making money and then at the end I take leave of this world nobody will remember me because I have not done anything for anybody so why should anybody bother to remember so if I want to be remembered I want if I want to leave a signature on this planet that I was here for this period I must do something so that people say hey he left but he did this for us so that's what the social business comes in then I use this money whatever money I have to do social business May small social business May big social businesses and so on and the fact that it makes business sense uh we have demonstrated many social business already and one of the social business with the gramin Danon uh we met with the chairman of uh Danon Franko and I proposed why don't we create a gramine donon in Bangladesh and it will be social business I explained what a social business and we designed later on a social business with gin Danon to produce yogurt Danon is known for yogurt very delicious yogurt all over the world so we said why don't you make this yogurt here for a social reason what we'll do this yogurt we want to sell to the poor children because they are malnourished millions of children in Bangladesh are malnourished they don't have nutrition they are very sick so they grow grow up sick and have lots of diseases so what we did we took the micronutrients which are missing in the children of Bangladesh into this yogurt and make it fortified yogurt and make it very cheap so that the poorest children can eat it experts tell us that if a child eats two cups of yogurt a week within 9 to 10 months he or she will regain all its micronutrients and become healthy so This Yogurt is to make children M Rich children healthy so this is our social business Theon doesn't want to take any money out of it as a as a as a profit or gramin doesn't want to do any profit out of it it is a social business all we can do we can take back our investment money if we have put whatever put money we put as investment over time we can take back the investment but the company keeps running with its own income because it recovers his cost and makes a small profit and expands his business so that's a social business why Danon has come because Danon also has the same idea uh not everything is for money we can do something for society also uh some people say ah Danon is using you for their publicity they're getting a big mileage out of it I said oh I didn't realize that I thought we are using Don to make uh big publicity for social business now because donon is involved in it so everybody knows there is something called social business everybody intrigued so I said that's what we thought if we have done on with us then it will be a big news all around the world and everybody all other company say maybe we should do something like that so more and more people will go into social business and at the end what I tell them I said look I'm here to be used please use me for social business so that we can create more and more social business and then people say ah this is a good idea young people will say ah when I grow up I will be in a social business I want to join a social business I want to be the chief executive of social business I have a brilliant idea because now we have created instances and some other young people in the University will say let's design a social business in our classroom so that when we get out of the class classroom we'll actually implement this so more and more ideas will come now violia another French company they came they said we want to do a social business so we are creating already created a social business company gramine bolia water company to bring drinking water in the Villages of Bangladesh Bangladesh's water in the Villages are arsenic contaminated poison so people cannot drink it and they when they drink it because they always they're drinking it because they have no other source of water so they drinking poison and their children are drinking poison what we did we create a small water treatment plant to serve 50,000 villagers and make it very cheap it's a beia quality water for the villages all this 50,000 and we made it cheap it's one penny but 10 lit so this is everybody can afford so this is a social business because we don't want to make any profit out of it or bring profit to us company will make profit but profit will not come to us profit will stay with the company because we want to reach out to more and more of the villages because there are millions and millions of people who have the same problem once this thing work then we can have number two plant number three plant because it's now work earning its own money you start an engine an engine runs by itself that's a fantastic idea so this is what we are doing so one after another we can continue with that way Danon has opened the path so I would say this is an very important step for Don to make that step if I want to leave a signature on this planet that I was here for this period I must do something so that people say hey he left but he did this for us so that's what the social business comes in