09:00 am GMT // worldwide social business day: Prof. Yunus in BANGLADESH
On Monday 28th Prof. Yunus will answer questions from students in Dhaka, Bangladesh during the celebration of the first Worldwide Social Business Day.
If you can't be there, you have here the possibility to post your questions. We are also expecting a live stream from the Q&A session with Prof. Yunus around 08:25 am GMT. Let's hope the internet connection in Bangladesh is stable :)
Post your questions here below!
If you feel like it tell us who you are, from which part of the world you join us and what you do. But most importantly take the chance to personally ask Prof. Yunus about Social Business.
Comments
It seems anonymous understands the hazards, but not the advantages of connectedness. This response, based entirely on fear cedes advantage to those bold enough to take advantage of connections while remaining cautious enough to apply rational security measures.
curt
divorce923
Dear Prof. Yunus,
First, I am a big fan of your work. I think it is set to make a serious impact on capitalism, and on the lives of people in both poorer and richer nations.
The problem I see is that many of our societal problems have been generated by people acting without taking note of the potential negative impact of their actions. A lot of the time people have the very best intentions, but their ideas generate other problems in the medium to long term. And yes, problems will always develop. And no, I don't think we should let potential problems slow down badly needed work.
BUT, my question is: What are you going to do to promote a critical self-awareness within the Grameen movement, in order to identify, mitigate and/or avoid as many negative side-effects as possible?
Dear Prof. Yunus and GCL,
first of all I would like to thank you for your fascinating work!
I`ve learned from you - among many other great things - that people have more dimensions than moneymaking.
I`m a philosopher/economist based in Berlin and my aim is to disseminate culture (cultural issues) as an innovative and economic factor in industry, trade and corporate life.
Would you please tell me what do you think about cultural issues in social business?
Thank you very much and happy b-day!
Kind regards
Clara Mavellia from Berlin (Germany)
Dear Ms. Mavellia,
Thanks for addressing an important issue.
``Social business`` is across the boundary. So culture is always very important. There are also many unsolved cultural problems or Issues which needed to be solved. It`s true that culture influences social business but effective Social Business can also influence culture and make people different cultural background to work for one goal.
Kind regards,
Farzana (Frankfurt, Germany)
Dear Prof. Yunus
Some critics say that big companies like BASF use Social Business only as a means to improve their image. What do you say tot hat Prof. Yunus?
Peter Z., Frankfurt a.M., Germany
Dear Peter,
thank you for your question. I would like to give you two answers to that
•A company might create a social business only for PR purposes but irrespective of the reason, it’s a good thing that the social business is being created anyway.
•People will judge a company by how it operates its core business, not by its PR talk. Even if the main focus of the social business created by the company is to generate good publicity for the company—the publicity can only delay the process of social business, not stop it
Thank you for posting your question
Dear Peter,
Good question!
As you can imagine, Prof. Yunus has often been asked this question - specifically if he ever thinks that these companies are "using" him as a PR ploy.
To that he answers that it was not he who thought that these companies were using him, but rather that he was using them! He is happy to see social business adopted and spread by all around the world, and is more than happy for people to "use" him if that means doing good in the world and fighting social issues such as malnutrition and poverty!
Sheda
Dear Prof. Yunus Sir,
My question is:What can SB do to meet the UN millennium goals and to put poverty to the museums?
Tobias from Germany
Dear Tobias,
This is precisely what social business is about. Social business is a vehicle to solve social problems, it needs motivated drivers
• We have 8 problems to solve by 2015 and we can design social businesses around each of these. For example, we can design social businesses to focus on maternal health, child health, sanitation.. etc, all within the broader sphere of removing poverty from the world
• We have to make incremental steps; each step forward gives us momentum to take larger strides
• We hope that by 2015, each country has achieved all 8 millennium goals.
Thank you for your question.
Dear Prof. Yunus,
I´m running a conventional business with some 200 employess and from my experience I would say that SB is maybe something only for very big companies. As there are no dividends and interests paid back investments into Social Business are only attractive to big companies. They invest only the money that they normally would give away as donations. Do you agree Prof. Yunus?
Christian K., from Düsseldorf, Germany
Dear Christian,
I don't agree that social business is only for big companies - it depends what your goal is. If the goal of your company is to make profit, then big or small, of course you will want to focus on that. But if your goal is poverty alleviation or concentrating on a social objective, then it doesn't matter how large or small you are - you don't sacrifice anything except for paying the profit out. In fact, keeping the profit inside the company and re-investing it may be the best thing for small businesses!
The point is that at the moment, several social business joint ventures have indeed been the creation of a new legal entity which is separate from the original parent company, and which *possibly* gets its start-up capital from the parent company's CSR budget. However, social business can be for anyone or any type of business - either a new business can be founded as a social business, or existing companies can even be restructured to become social businesses.
What do you think?
Sheda
Any business can be re-engineered to become a Social Business, but the key is to figure out what kind of social or ecological issue can be addressed with your current product or service range. It takes a shift in focus (or philosophy) to become a Social Business, not a change in form.
PS I too am based in Düsseldorf, would be interested in meeting to try to help further. Please get in touch over this site...
Hi everyone,
we are about to broadcast live from the first Worldwide Social Business Day in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Q&A session with Prof. Yunus will be both in Bangla and in English. Fortunately we have Verena in Dhaka who will guide us through the session. Enjoy
Unfortunately we had problems with the sound during streaming. So Verena is now collecting all the answers from Prof. Yunus and will post them directly from Bangladesh.
Dear Professor Yunus,
I am convinced that social bussiness is the solution to poverty, but im worried about how people's mentality is (like consumerism and mass media control) and how youth is gona participate in social bussiness.
What are your plans, in the future, to make social bussiness being promoted in developing countries, where it is more needed?
How do you plan to make youth participate in social bussiness, and make people connect to work together?
Yours sincerely,
Alberto Flórez from Lima, Perú
Dear Alberto,
I also believe that youth have the power to change the world - and we are indeed the world's future leaders!
Right now, many social business initiatives have been set up in the developing world - mostly in Bangladesh. Please visit this page to find out more information: http://www.muhammadyunus.org/Social-Business/
Also, the Yunus Centre as well as the Grameen Creative Lab are both setting up several cooperations with different universities around the world to help bring the message of social business into lecture halls and classrooms. But of course, apart from these two organisations, it's up to individuals like yourself to bring social business into your community and local university! You can join our social business community in the community section of our website (http://www.grameencreativelab.com/global-community.html) to connect to others who share the same goals as you.
Sheda
Dear Prof. Yunus, dear Hans Reitz and Grameen Creative Lab team,
A friend of mine and I have started social business fashion company called MAMMU http://mammu.lv/ .
We are a high quality fashion label working with talented, atypical artists and designers. The products are produced by mothers in need who have to combine childcare and work and we are providing them with flexible working times. There is no government programs in Latvia which is supporting mothers in this hard situations .
The company is run according to the seven principles of Grameen Social Business.
Now comes my question were I would be happy do get some feedback from. Since we are producing high quality fashion we are selling our products to resellers, those resellers own art,design and fashion stores which are not non profit orientated. So on the end some company's who resell our products are getting a profit trough our company. How are you dealing with this in the company Grameen Check ?
many regards
Fionn from Riga :-)
Dear Prof. Yunus, dear Hans Reitz and Grameen Creative Lab team,
I am writing with a question that concerns one of the Grameen social business principles - all profit should be reinvested (probably many questions about that already and yet...)
in order not to be misunderstood, I'd like to mention before posing the question that in the last three years none of the enterprises that I develop pay out profit - but not because I want them to be called a "social business" (which I think is not important) or follow any rules - but purely for the reason that paying out profit in the particular enterprises would not help to realize the mission OR the business model funcions so that there is no profit (but there is income to cover the costs) - and again just because it helps to fulfil the social mission.
However, I see that there are some social enterprises that are scaled up greatly and where it would make economic and social sense to pay out the profit and invest in other social enterprises - this would allow free flow of resources from one social enterprise to another, and we know that it helps. and in these cases paying out profit would not mean that it is the priority of the enterprise because its mission is social.
At the same time, another enterprise can formally follow the rule of not paying out the profit but at the same time find other ways of extracting economic value at the expense of social value.
so I think what matters is having a social mission and transparent accountability that shows how that mission is being accomplished.
and therefore the question - how this rule of not paying out profit helps? why needed? if paying out profit is in contradiction with the social mission of the enterprise, it won't be paid out - and there are all the stakeholders to follow it - would you disagree?
thank you for taking time to read this!
humbly,
Tatiana from Riga/ Latvia
Dear Tatiana,
Thank you for your question.
I don't know what Prof. Yunus' answer to this question would be, but I can attempt to share with you my own thoughts.
There are two kinds of social businesses as outlined in Prof. Yunus' new book, "Building Social Business" (read it if you haven't already! :)). Social business Type I is the traditional kind of social business that we're always talking about. However, social business Type II is a social business which can be profit-maximising, as all profits it generates are paid out to the poor - and therefore its aim still contributes towards poverty alleviation and the benefit of the poorest of the poor.
Perhaps the social businesses that you talk about could also be set up as a social business type II. Even if not, the profit that you would like to see flow from the first social business into another could also be achieved by having social business number 1 invest in social business number 2 - and following the seven principles of Prof. Yunus, this investment capital would be paid back in FULL over time - but without any interest being paid out.
Also, when asked about whether a social business couldn't just have a 1-2% interest rate offered on investments, he always answers that as SOON as the tiniest bit of interest is offered, or the smallest amount of profit is paid out - the business ceases to be a social business. We already have all shades of grey in the capitalistic market - people can choose themselves to create a business which also has social goals but generates a profit - but he has founded this concept of social business which is strictly something different. People can then choose which model they wish to follow.
What do you think?
Sheda
Dear Sheda,
thank you for your answer!
Tatjana
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