A Holistic Business Value Proposition: society, the environment and money

Developing a business value proposition is key to being able to articulate what VALUE your business brings to its customers. I would like to challenge you to think broadly about the value your business brings to the world: Does it add value to society? How? Does it minimize impact on the environment or, better yet, address an environmental problem? Does it have a viable financial model that will help ensure its long-term sustainability? How do all of these elements create maximum value for the customer you are trying to serve?

The following Lessons from Sustayne will take you through a process of identifying what your business value proposition is and asking yourself key questions about environmental aspects of your business. Then, you can take your results and consider how you have articulated the integration of the social, environmental and financial aspects of the value your business brings to the world. It's a great way to find out where you've got your business model set and where you need to focus on improvement.

Business Value Proposition Generator
This tool will take you through the key elements required to be able to clearly articulate the value your business brings to its customers. It helps you think through things like market positioning, pricing and customers. You'll end up with a fairly awkward statement. Don't worry - this just serves as the jumping off point for you to take the information, personalize it and make your own, pithy elevator pitch. It also helps you figure out what elements of your business model you need to do more research on - who is your competition? How are you different? What price will you come in with? What value do your customers get for that price?

Sustainability Checklist
Created by our friends and content partners at Sustainable Business Consulting, this checklist will help you think through major areas of environmental sustainability (e.g. water, waste, shipping, recycling) to determine whether and how they are integrated into your value proposition. You'll end up with a list of environmental sustainability areas to focus on as you further develop your model.

As many of you know, Sustayne (TM) is a straight forward and effective set of tools developed by Social Enterprise Group and Bainbridge Graduate Institute to help guide you through the development and growth of your social venture. If you want more on Sustayne, consider signing up for one of our oil-free, low-cost summer teleworkshops.

We'd love to hear from you - post a comment here or contact us at info@socialenterprisegroup.com to let us know if you have questions or just to let us know how the tools are working for you.

Lessons from Sustayne: Idea Vetting

So, you’ve got a great idea for a social venture. Or, you’re the leader of an organization and your staff and board keep coming to you with ideas. What do you do with them? On one hand, it’s great to foster a culture where ideas are vetted and dreams are dreamed. On the other hand, you’ve got WORK to do and paying attention to every little idea can be time consuming. One of the first things we focus on in Sustayne is to ask a few key questions to determine if an idea is worth assigning any more resources to.

First, develop a brief set (3-5) or organizational goals pertaining to social enterprise. Is your primary goal to develop a job training program or is it to generate revenue? Or, something else?

Identify the key goals of your social venture:
1.
2.
3.

Next, for each social venture idea, rate the extent to which the idea aligns with each of the following organizational factors. Once you’ve rated a venture, take a look at where it scored high and low and consider:

1. Are the areas where the venture scored low problems that can be remedied either through modifying the business model or via the organization? Are any of these areas “show stoppers”?

2. What is the organization’s willingness to change or work on specific organizational factors?

Scores
1 = not at all, 2 = not much, 3= moderately, 4 = well aligned, 5 = great fit

Rate each idea yourself, then have others in your organization rate it. Score separately, then compare.

To what extent does the business idea align with the organization’s mission?


To what extent does the business idea align with the organization’s core values?


To what extent does the business idea leverage organizational assets? (i.e. relationships, brand recognition, reputation, facilities, financial, knowledge)


To what extent does the business idea directly address the primary goals of the social venture?


Consider the minimum level of profit required to make the business idea worthwhile. To what extent is it possible that the business idea has a market demand and profit margin that can meet the organization’s profit needs?


Consider the minimum level of social impact the organization needs to achieve in order to make the business idea worthwhile. To what extent does the business idea realistically have the potential to make this level of social impact?


To what extent does the organization’s history of risk taking align with the risk level of the venture?


Consider the capital requirements of the business. To what extent can the organization realistically raise or find other sources of funding to cover these costs?


Consider cultural impact and reputation. To what extent does the venture’s level of impact align with the organization’s threshold for cultural impact and effect on reputation?


Total Score:
(copyright Social Enterprise Group 2005)

I've found this tool to come in handy to quickly eliminate or further consider various ideas. I hope this works for you - feel free to comment on how you used this tool. This is one of many I'll be sharing as part of our "Lessons From Sustayne". Want to know more about Sustayne? Go to www.socialenterprisegroup.com for more info. on workshops and licensing opportunities. Good luck!

The Pilates of Social Enterprise?

I was amused to stumble across Yale professor Jeff Trexler's blog http://www.trexfiles.com/ that discusses Sustayne, our comprehensive business planning methodology for social ventures. I love the comparison to Pilates. Yes, we are definitely trying to get a proven, quality methodology out there and get as many instructors/consultants as possible trained to deliver this to social entrepreneurs in all sectors in all parts of the world. Why? Because I deeply believe that a powerful tool for changing the world is entrepreneurs - specifically social entrepreneurs. AND, I believe that these entrepreneurs need as much assistance as possible in the early stages of developing their ventures to determine how best to develop their business model and set it up from success from the get go. Sustayne is based on the life work of Gifford Pinchot III, author, entrepreneur and founder of Bainbridge Graduate Institute www.bgiedu.org . He has been using this method with Fortune 500 companies and major government agencies, such as the US Forest Service for over 20 years. I've been working for the past several years to organize it and modify it to fit social venture development. Voila! Sustayne is born.

Mr. Trexler also spends a couple of lines lamenting the name Sustayne. So, for anyone who's interested, here's where it came from:
the word sustayne was used widely in 16th and 17th century poetry and was generally used to reference sustaining oneself spiritually, emotionally and physically
- it harkens back to a time when society, the earth and business were inextricably linked – the impacts of one on the others was widely known
- this work comes from my deep belief that bringing this link deliberately back into the way we develop solutions to social and environmental issues as well as the way we sustain ourselves financially IS an important key to making a real change in the world
- we use a water wheel as the logo – again, a symbol of the time this word was used as well as fitting into Sir Isaac Newton’s laws of Motion (originated in 1687; from Wikopedia.com) :

o Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and objects at rest tend to stay at
rest, unless an outside force acts upon them.
o The net force on an object
is equal to the product of its mass and its acceleration.
o To every action
(force applied) there is an equal and opposite reaction (equal force applied in
the opposite direction).

Sustayne is the force that generates the motion to cause a reaction.

So, we’re pleased even the name causes a reaction! For more info., go to www.socialenterprisegroup.com or call 206.903.8578.