From the Living Room to the World: Social Business Unpacked (Part 2 of 8)

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Hi, this is Tony McWilliams, and I’m here with my daughter.

Hi, and I’m Lindey Duckworth, and I’m with my dad.

So anyway, we are going to be talking a lot about social business 3.0. If there’s a 3.0, then there must be a 1.0 and a 2.0.

Social business 1.0 would be a business that gives a percentage of their sales or profits to a social cause, or perhaps businesses that ask their patrons and their customers to donate to a particular cause, like at the checkout counter.

Oh, yeah. Okay, I was at a restaurant the other day. I’m sorry, the young cashier wasn’t talking very clearly. I wasn’t understanding exactly what she was saying, but I knew she was saying, “would you like to give to,” and I don’t even know what it was that I’d be giving to, because she didn’t really make that clear. But you know what I’m talking about. They’ll say, it’s a hospital, it’s a boys club, it’s a special ministry or mission or food drive, yeah, something. And so that would be in the social business 1.0 category.

Okay. But then also there’s social organizations that sell miscellaneous products to fund their mission.

• Girl Scouts.
• And that is where I would put the Girl Scout cookie concept.
• Yeah, thin mints.
• And then there’s also organizations who do not need a long-term support, but they just need a short-term type of thing.
• They might be athletic groups.
• Oh, like parent-teacher organizations.
• An athletic team, a school band, that sort of thing.

And so they’ll even go door to door selling what?

• Candy bars.
• It’s always sugar.
• Why?
• I know. Well, it’s something, you know.
• Oh, no, it could be.
• What’d you say?
• It could be a candle.
• Yeah, a candle or cookie dough or pizzas or magazine subscriptions.
• I mean, the list goes on and on.

But it’s the idea of going to the market.

What is the craziest thing you’ve ever bought from a kid at the door?

Oh, my. I don’t even know. It’s mostly candy. I remember candy. I remember pizzas. Candy bars are just always, they’re winners.

Yes. Everybody loves a good candy bar, especially if it’s for a good cause.

But anyway, that’s all social business 1.0. The profits go to the organization, you know, to buy the uniforms, to promote the nonprofit organization, to undergird the social cause, that sort of thing.

But the only people who make profits or make earnings would be the people who manufacture the products, who are the employees of the company or who are the corporate leaders. Those would be the only people who, quote, make money other than the money that’s raised for the social cause.

So to me, that’s the way I think it.

Yeah, all I’ve talked about there is social business 1.0 and now move on to what I think or how I would define social business 2.0.