This is such an eye-opening piece by Tom Rippin, the founder and CEO of On Purpose:
"Am I the only one who sees the contradiction here? If you feel the need to make a business case for purpose, then your purpose is making money – not whatever you are trying to make a case for. [...] And what happens to the problems that cannot be solved profitably?"
Tom goes on to explain a better way to think about purpose-driven business, what he calls the systems-driven school of purpose:
"In every complex system, the health of the whole depends on the health of its parts and vice versa. [...] Back in the business world, imagine if every organisation adopted the equivalent approach – to contribute to the health of the systems of which it is a part.
First, work out what the organisation’s role is in enhancing the health of systems it participates in. Then work out the business model that allows it to do that – be it sales, tax or philanthropy-funded. If the role needs filling, any business model will do. We should make best use of all revenue streams available. Whether the money that sustains an organisation derives from customers directly, taxation or philanthropists, is relatively unimportant.
Whatever revenue organisations generate, it is part of a single interconnected pool of money circulating through the economy. The important thing is to optimise the use of the whole pool such that all activities needed for maintaining a healthy economy can be sustained. Whether a particular model generates profit that can be distributed to shareholders or not [...] is secondary.
[...] This is the systems-driven school of purpose, the doctrine of purpose primacy: there is one and only one responsibility for every organisation – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to enhance the health of the systems of which it is a part. These are the rules of the game."
