[Note: Soapbox ahead, proceed with caution]
It's no secret that Momo is working to join the ranks of companies that make money through social entrepreneurship. We don't think non-profits, NGOs, and foundations can handle the job by themselves. No word yet exists in the dictionary for such a company, and we hardly feel that we're in a position to make one up, but for the sake of consistency we're going to call companies that employ this business model, "social trusts." [Correction: there already is a term for this type of company, I just didn't look hard enough; see my mea culpa here.
A social trust believes its principal function is as a trust, that is, as an owner and manager of resources on behalf of another, namely society in this case. Its primary business objective is to accumulate resources in order to better serve the needs of the society from which its power was entrusted. A social trust strives to evangelize a certain collaborative standard in all business, that only avenues of business should be pursued that make doing the right thing profitable. However, a social trust goes one step further by trying to limit its own business strategy to social problem solving exclusively.
We believe that there couldn't be a more perfect or permanent business model. There will never be a shortage of social problems, so there will never be a shortage of business.
Momo is following in the footsteps of great trailblazers. Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus, for example, just won the Nobel Peace Prize for
"pioneering a new category of banking known as micro-credit, which grants small loans to poor people who have no collateral and who do not qualify for conventional bank loans. The program has enabled millions of Bangladeshis, almost all women, to buy everything from cows to cell phones in order to start and run their own businesses. Similar micro-credit projects have helped millions around the world lift themselves out of poverty."
Momo has been inspired by a new breed of companies like Google, with their slogan "don't be evil," and by a rare class of individuals like Warren Buffet, who is giving away practically his entire $40 billion fortune to charity.
Of particularly strong influence are the late Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, co-founders of Hewlett-Packard and co-founding fathers of Silicon Valley. Here is a great video clip that highlights exactly the point I'm trying to make. In it, James C. Collins, author of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, refers to an infamous meeting of business leaders long ago where the philosophy of Dave Packard got him laughed at by his own peers:
"The purpose of a company is not to make money. It makes money to do what it's really all about: we're here to create things, where if we didn't create them the world would be worse off."
And there you have it. Momo is welcoming feedback of any kind, especially examples of other entrepreneurs and companies that embody the principles of a social trust. We want to give credit to as many as we can, and will be listing them in the sidebar under the heading "Companies We Love."
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