For Purpose/For Profit Orgs

CSR that Improves the World But Leaves Your Damaging Business Model Intact: Authentic or not?

February 9, 2011

Tweet How can your organization claim to be making the world better, when your business model depends on making the world worse? This question about corporate social responsibility efforts has bugged me for decades — pretty much since I learned what capitalism was. The question came up again for me Tuesday during the conversation at […]

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Insights about Authenticity from the Open Community Book Tour

December 22, 2010

Tweet Iā€™m taking part in the virtual book tour and are doing to explore concepts from . Maddie and Lindy, along with their colleague Jamie Notter, have long been some of my favorite bloggers. “Even though” they write about communications strategies, and focus on a very specific type of organization (associations), their ideas are big, […]

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Facebook for Women vs. Facebook Designed by Feminists: Different vs. Revolutionary

October 5, 2010

Tweet What would Facebook be like if it were designed by women? In my earlier post, I proposed that Facebook would look, feel and function differently if it had been designed by “women”. [What I actually was writing about what what Facebook might look like if it had been designed by Feminists– but I used […]

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Balancing Profit and Purpose at Whole Foods: Red Fish Blue Fish

September 24, 2010

Tweet Jessi Schoner, a researcher at University of Minnesota’s eWorkPlace and a reader, sent me an interesting article about Whole Food’s efforts to nudge customers towards more sustainable choices of seafood. Whole Foods … is launching the first in-store color-coded sustainable seafood rating program this week. … The system relies on three colors–green (“best choice”), […]

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Is your organization flourishing or withering?

September 22, 2010

Tweet Organizations are organic things — they are born, they die, they suffer and they thrive. But very few organizations flourish. Organizations that flourish are rare creatures. We find them where business goals are tied to larger purpose, where larger purpose is linked to community needs, and where individuals’ authentic selves are nourished by and […]

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Should Non-Profits Buy $800 Chairs?

July 12, 2010

Tweet During a meeting in a downtown conference room at a non profit a few weeks ago, I noticed we were all sitting in Aeron chairs. These are geeky-stylish, ergonomically adjustable office chairs that retail for about $800 a pop. There were 12 of us in the conference room, sitting on a total of about […]

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Organic Discount or Competency Penalty? The real reason organic wines sell for less

March 9, 2010

Tweet Stereotypes about non-profit and for-profit firms explain why organic wine can’t command higher prices. Today’s Freakonomics column picks up on UCLA research reported earlier this week by Matt McDermot at Treehugger.com. The researchers, Magali Delmas and Laura E. Grant, demonstrated that organic wine cannot command as high a price as conventional (non-organic) wine. This […]

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Why So Much Anger at the Girl Scouts?

February 22, 2010

Tweet Ever since I poked the beehive back in August with my post about Walmart and Girl Scout cookies, my blog and I have been receiving angry comments from people who just hate the Girl Scouts. It’s one thing to be angry at Walmart, but the Girl Scouts? I don’t understand… Why is there so […]

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Girl Scouts Rebrand Their Cookies: “Every Cookie Has A Mission”

February 18, 2010

Tweet The Girl Scouts have been busy with their organizational re-branding efforts. With the start of the 2010 Cookie Season, they have a new branding campaign specifically designed to make Girl Scout cookies meaningful. Back when I wrote the post Wal-Mart Knocks Off the Girl Scouts, about Walmart entering into competition with the Girls Scouts […]

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Girl Scouts: Limiting Cookie Sales by Strengthening Their Brand?

February 8, 2010

Tweet Good news for you and your Thin Mint Addiction! The Girl Scouts are making it easy to find out where those dang cookies are being sold! (Now I don’t have to drive to Walmart and get the cheaper but less meaningful generic imitations!) The Girl Scouts have an online cookie locator– just type in […]

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