Branson 3B$ donation to fight Global Waming

Profile: Richard Branson

The time to act is now, Sir Richard says
Sir Richard Branson's announcement that he is to donate the next 10 years' profits from his Virgin travel businesses to the fight against global warming is the latest - and most significant - act of philanthropy from one of the world's best known businessmen.
The move, announced in New York on a podium alongside Bill Clinton, is estimated to be worth $3bn (£1.6bn) over 10 years - about half his current personal fortune.

Just a week earlier Sir Richard had unveiled plans to invest hundreds of millions into the production of environmentally friendly fuel.

And in an interview with the BBC News website earlier this year he spoke of other philanthropic aims - including a health clinic to reduce deaths from HIV/Aids in South Africa.

He has also invested heavily in education and supports the ground-breaking CIDA university in Johannesburg, which provides affordable higher education for poor black youngsters and includes the Branson School for Entrepreneurship.

'Make a difference'

This latest announcement follows a visit to his west London home from Al Gore.

The former US vice-president turned environmental campaigner, whose film An Inconvenient Truth is shocking audiences with its message about the effect of global warming, told Sir Richard that the businessman was "in a position to make a difference" over global warming.

But Branson has not always had the money to invest in causes he is passionate about.

In the early days of Virgin, he and his staff would hide and pretend to be out when there were demands for bills to be paid.


Another Branson adventure will take Virgin into space

Born in 1950 and educated at Stowe School, he went into business at 16, publishing "Student" magazine and starting business life as a hippy entrepreneur with a flair for publicity.

By the age of 20, he was the subject of a television documentary.

Having originally founded Virgin as a mail order record company he later opened his first store, in London's Oxford Street. The Virgin Records music label was formed in 1972.


Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, recorded in Virgin's first recording studio - an Oxfordshire barn - and released in 1973, caught the laidback flavour of the era to become a phenomenal best-seller.

When punk came along, Virgin signed the outrageous Sex Pistols when other record companies refused to touch them. The move turned out to be a marketing coup.

Media tart?

Many other stars were signed up, including Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds and The Rolling Stones, making Virgin Records a major player in the international music business.

Since then Virgin has expanded into air and rail travel, mobile phones, finance, weddings, retail, drinks, hotels and gymnasiums with around 200 companies in over 30 countries employing more than 25,000 people.

Virgin Radio, the first national commercial rock music station, was launched on to the airwaves in 1993 and sold to Chris Evans in 1997.

Among its latest businesses are the development of Virgin Galactic - its space tourism business.


Bridal gurn... Richard Branson got a knighthood despite this...

Never one to miss a publicity opportunity Sir Richard has been pictured in a wedding dress and snapped with Pamela Anderson (at the launch of a cola drink in a bottle shaped like the model), Diana, Princess of Wales and Nelson Mandela.

But perhaps nothing has got his name in the headlines more than his daredevil antics.

In 1985, Sir Richard set out from New York to beat the record for crossing the Atlantic by boat, but barely a hundred miles from home the boat had hit some floating driftwood and sank.

Sir Richard and the crew had to be plucked from the sea but the escapade made him and his company household names.

Years later, and with more transatlantic achievements completed in the meantime, Sir Richard set the record for the fastest crossing of the English Channel by an amphibious vehicle to mark the 20th anniversary of Virgin Atlantic in 2004.

Showman

In the mid-1980s the Branson company was floated on the Stock Exchange, but the Branson style didn't fit the way City institutions expected public companies to behave. So he bought the company back from the shareholders.

To find the money he had to sell Virgin Records to Thorn-EMI. Even so the price, agreed in 1992, was huge, at almost £500million.

In 1994 Sir Richard made a bid to run the National Lottery, promising to give all the profits to charity, and lost. He lost a second attempt in 1999.


Virgin first carried paying passengers on a tilting train in 2001

Meanwhile, the Virgin bandwagon rolled on as he won important franchises in the country's rail network, taking over Cross-Country and West Coast Main Line.

In 1999 the married father-of-two was knighted for "services to entrepreneurship" but that did not signal an end of new businesses.

In 2000 Virgin launched a series of new businesses including Virgin Cars, Virgin Wines, Virgin Student, Virgin Money.com, Virgin Energy and Virgin Travelstore.com.

The next year Virgin Trains ran its first "Pendolino" tilting train on the West Coast Main Line with passengers on board.

But large sections of rail had to be upgraded before the trains could actually use their tilting facility.

Earlier this year he reached an agreement for NTL to takeover Virgin Mobile - a deal which will create the first UK firm to provide a four-way offer of cable TV, internet access, fixed line telephony and mobile phone services.

It was the surging cost of fuel at Virgin Rail and Virgin Atlantic that sparked Sir Richard's interest in making his business more energy-efficient.

And if others, as Al Gore predicts will happen, do follow his lead then his latest announcement could well be his greatest legacy.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5368602.stm

checklists from book Values-Driven Business by Ben Cohen and Mal Warwick

checklists from book Values-Driven Business by Ben Cohen and Mal Warwick

Contents

From Chapter 2: Are you ready for a Values-Driven Business?
from Chapter 3: Turning your Employees into Partners: A Checklist
from Chapter 4: Partnering with Your Suppliers: a Checklist
from Chapter 5: Mobilizing your Customers for Social Impact: a Checklist
from Chapter 6: Digging Deeper into Your Community: a Checklist
from Chapter 7: Minimizing your Environmental Footprint: a Checklist



From Chapter 2: Are you ready for a Values-Driven Business?

Are you willing to sit down with your employees (and perhaps other stakeholders) to discuss your company's vision, mission and values?

Do you feel sufficiently confident about the quality of your products and services that you are prepared to stand behind them?

Are you in compliance with all relevant federal, state, and local regulations, registration requirements, and tax laws?

Are you prepared to take steps to reduce the impact of your company's operations on the environment?

Are you prepared to raise employee's wages, if necessary, to bring them up to a living wage?

Are you committed to sharing the burden of health-care coverage with your employees - and, if feasible, to underwrite it entirely?

Are you committed to gender, ethnic and racial diversity among your employees - and to taking steps to ensure that they feel included in your workforce?

Are you prepared to screen your suppliers for environmental and labor practices and involvement in their communities - and to shift your business elsewhere if that should be necessary to conform with your company's values?

Are you committed to contributing - through volunteer efforts, in-kind donations, philanthropic gifts, or some combination of these - to the betterment of the community or communities where you do business?

Are you committed to sharing a portion of the profits of your business with your employees?





from Chapter 3: Turning your Employees into Partners: A Checklist

Put a profit-sharing plan in place, distributing a meaningful share (at least 10 percent) of quarterly or annual profits to all qualified employees (e.g., those who have been on the payroll for a specified period of time, those who work full-time).

Institute a program to provide employees with equity in the business, through either an employee stock ownership plan or some other means.

Provide for the election of a nonmanagement employee to your board of directors.

Read Jack Stack's book The Great Game of Business to familiarize yourself with open-book management and determine whether it makes sense for your company.

Visit ACORN's Living Wage campaign to learn about living-wage standards and how to determine the living wage for your business.

Working with selected managers and employees, prepare a "wish list" of employment benefits that your company doesn't already offer. Then poll your employees to learn the priorities they place on those potential benefits. As conditions allow, implement these benefits starting at the top of the list.

With your managers or selected employees, brainstorm ways that the company might offer new employment benefits at little or no cost.

With outside assistance if necessary, explore the extent to which your company is successful in promoting diversity and inclusion among the employees and discuss ways you might improve your performance in this area.

Institute a system by which employees may make suggestions for improvements in any area of the company's operations without fear of reprisal - in writing, if necessary, but ideally in an open forum or through an employee representative to your board.

At least once annually, hold an all-staff meeting to discuss ways in which the company might improve its social-bottom-line performance.





from Chapter 4: Partnering with Your Suppliers: a Checklist

Make a list of all the contractors, vendors, and suppliers that serve your business. Determine how many of them represent ownership by people of color or women.

Prepare a short questionnaire about employment practices, covering any issues of interest to you, including matters such as employee ownership, diversity and inclusion policies, job benefits, profit sharing, and the like. Canvass your contractors and suppliers using this questionnaire.

List the ways that suppliers or contractors might contribute to the community. Ask them how many of these activities or practices apply to them.

Quiz your suppliers, vendors, and contractors about their environmental practices. Figure out how well they meet your own company's high standards in this field.

Investigate whether a promising woman-or minority-owned firm might meet your company's needs as a supplier if it receives technical or financial assistance from you.

Determine whether your contractors and suppliers are aware of the vision, mission and values of your company. Share that information with them. If desireable, offer a tour of your facility to provide them with a fuller understanding of the values that drive your business.

If your company works with suppliers outside the United States, make site visits to their facilities to satisfy yourself that their business practices are consistent with your values. If necessary, contract with an agency such as Verite to investigate on your behalf.

Conduct a survey in your community to learn whether any businesses or nonprofits that hire the disabled might provide you with necessary goods or services.

Produce a flyer or brochure that clearly sets forth your company's vision, mission, and values, and distribute it to all your existing vendors and contractors. (Include it with your marketing materials, too!)

Ask each of your vendors for a list of the ingredients it uses in its products. Are they nontoxic, natural or organic? Do they use recycled materials? Do their products contain any known or suspected carcinogens?






from Chapter 5: Mobilizing your Customers for Social Impact: a Checklist

Use available space on your product packaging to highlight an issue that is of great concern to you and your employees. Invite customers to call a toll-free number set up by a nonprofit organization that will provide additional information and channel activists into productive activities.

Produce a free customer newsletter, either online, in print, or both, and devote some of the space to statements about issues of concern - ideally including suggestions about practical steps readers can take to act on an issue.

Offer free or at a discount other companies' products or services that convey a sense of caring to your customers and deliver a social benefit. For example, you might help a business owned by women or people of color to get off the ground by introducing your customer base to its products or services.

Either on your own or using the services of a public relations agency, seek to have articles or interviews placed about your work in trade publications, using as a publicity hook your company's outspokenness on a controversial issue.

Either on your own or using the services of a public relations agency, place an occasional feature story about your company's active involvement in public policy issues in a local newspaper or magazine or on radio or television.

Prepare inserts on issues of concern to place in your packages or invoices, ideally including explicit information about how readers can take action to support the position you advocate.

Offer tours of your plant or offices to introduce customers to the values that drive your business and the policies and practices that you've put in place. Use the opportunity to urge them to participate in an advocacy campaign in which your company is involved. Distribute take-home materials that enable them to take action on that campaign.

Participate in community events by setting up exhibits or information tables at which you can distribute literature on issues that matter to you as well as to inform visitors about your company's products or services.

Make philanthropic contributions to nonprofits that embody the values you champion and that take action on the issues that represent your highest priorities.





from Chapter 6: Digging Deeper into Your Community: a Checklist

Set up a company-wide volunteer program to help build homes for Habitat for Humanity, take part in an environmental cleanup at a stream or beach, or work in some other constructive way with a local nonprofit organization. (Not everyone will participate, but many will. Either way, it's a benefit.)

Consider whether your company might "adopt" a nonprofit or a fledgling minority - or a woman-owned business through cash contributions or an investment, mentoring, and sharing of resources, perhaps including unused office space, office equipment, and furniture.

Talk to your employees - and to the appropriate local authorities - about the possibility of holding a block party for all your neighbors.

Set up a philanthropic matching-gift program that will match employee contributions to charity at least one to one. If necessary, set a limit on the total donations any employee may submit for matching.

Contact your local community foundation (if there is one). Determine whether gifts to the foundation could be a viable alternative to selecting individual nonprofits to receive the company's support.

Hold a staff meeting to discuss philanthropy with your employees. Ask for ideas and opinions about different ways to organize a philanthropic program for your company.

Sponsor a forum for local companies to discuss the advantages of values-driven business.

Hold an open house for the community. If it's appropriate, set up tours of your plant on a regular schedule and invite all to learn about your work.

Talk to the principal of the local high school. Volunteer to host a session for students to learn about your company's work - and the world of work in general.

Once a month, invite a leading local nonprofit organization to speak briefly at an employee staff meeting to familiarize you and your coworkers with its work. If you have the space, open these meetings to your customers.

When possible, locate your company's operations in underserved communities to generate employment and job training opportunities.

Focus on one critical community problem and use your company's financial and political influence to create change.

Host an annual donations celebration, honoring the nonprofit groups your company supports.






from Chapter 7: Minimizing your Environmental Footprint: a Checklist

to reduce your use of materials and nonrenewable resources, you might

Question whether you really need to make a purchase or to travel or whether you can use ground shipment to save energy and money as opposed to air shipment

Conserve heating and cooling energy by adjusting thermostats to 68-70 degrees in the winter and 74-78 degrees in the summer

Turn off lights and computers, and use energy-efficient (Energy Star-rated) computers, appliances, and lighting, including money-saving, long-life, compact fluorescent lightbulbs instead of incandescent bulbs

Install low-flow toilets and faucet aerators to lessen water use

Use electronic communication to reduce the amount of printing and paper used

Consult an architect about salvaging materials and using green design to increase the available natural light in your facilities in order to reduce lighting costs

Set aside space for secure, sheltered bicycle parking and offer a stipend to any employee who rides a bike, walks, carpools, or rides public transit to work at least three days per week

Reduce the amount of packaging used for your products
to reuse materials that might otherwise go to waste, you could

Redesign your product and packaging so that it can be reused if possible. For example, reuse pallets, utilize reusable totes (shipping containers) and biodegradable peanuts, and ship your goods in cartons you've received from suppliers instead of buying cartons or having your own manufactured

Seek to place outdated computers, cell phones, and office furniture with schools or nonprofits that can utilize them, and participate in surplus-exchange programs where businesses and government agencies let each other know about unused materials

Send laser printer cartridges to be refilled with toner and returned to you for reuse

Use rechargeable batteries that save money and can be reused hundreds of times

Reuse plates, mugs, and silverware instead of buying disposable plastic plates, cups and cutlery

Set up a composting program to take all food scraps to turn them into a great fertilizer, along with any lawn clippings, leaves and other organic material
to increase the extent to which you recycle the materials you use, you might

Educate employees on recycling, set recycling goals, and set up a program that makes it easy to recycle and rewards employees for achieving the goals, such as throwing them a party

Purchase office products (from packaging and furniture to pens and toilet paper) with recycled content in order to close the loop

Set up a program to recycle all unused electronics (from computers and cell phones) and other products, such as cleaning solvents

Talk to your municipal government (if it has in place a recycling program) or to a local environmental organization to determine whether you're recycling all the materials that are eligible

Ask around town to find out whether a local entrepreneur has started a business to pick up materials for recycling

Insist on the use of at least 30 percent postconsumer recycled paper (paper collected through recycling programs) and nontoxic, agri-based inks in all your printed materials, including publications, letterhead, envelopes, invoices and other standard business forms

Consult the Social Venture Network's Corporate Standards for Social and Environmental Responsibility and find practices appropriate for your business.

You can't manage it if you don't measure it. Conduct an energy and environmental audit internally, using a third-party auditor, or do what many SVN companies do: have a supplier, customer, or another company audit you in exchange for your auditing it. Perform such audits/assessments periodically so you can monitor your progress.

Find out whether a government agency or a nonprofit organization in your area offers free or low-cost environmental audits.

Check out the power company, too, to learn whether it might help you lower your gas and electricity usage.

Based upon the audit's findings, work with your board, partner(s), managers and employees to draft an environmental policy statement and environmental management system that will guide your company's resource use in the future.

Enlist a member of your staff as a volunteer "environmental coordinator", or, depending on the size of your company, hire a part- or full-time environmental coordinator who will take responsibility for monitoring compliance with your environmental policy statement and canvass other employees for new ideas to lessen the company's environment impact. Companies that have implemented environmental policies have learned that this position becomes a profit center, not a cost center.

Research the ingredients in your products, including those supplied by vendors, and eliminate all toxic substances.

Contact your suppliers or vendors to learn about their environmental policies. Switch to new vendors, if necessary, to conform with your expectations that all your suppliers and contractors should minimize their impact on the environment.

Place your environmental mission and requirements on your purchase orders.

If you sell products that require replacement, offer your customers an incentive to return the product and packaging to you for reuse when they purchase replacements.

When designing new products and considering the materials to be used in them, plan for the products' full lifetime, including their manufacturing, transportation, use and disposal. Ensure that your products are either reusable when reconditioned, returnable to you, or readily biodegradable if they can't be recycled.

Before undertaking any major capital project, from building to changing HVAC systems to installing a new piece of equipment, search for existing standards for environmentally superior products (e.g., use the LEED standard) to guide new or renovated building construction, even if you are not seeking LEED certification.

Over time, look at every service you provide and every product you make and ask the question, "Can we do this with sustainable materials, using less material and less energy, and make it less toxic, more durable, refillable and reusable?

Whenever possible, use ground versus air transportation and e-mail or fax versus "snail mail."

Investigate whether you can purchase power from renewable sources rather than the dominant power company.

Measure and report cost savings due to reduced energy use and reduced waste.

Explore whether you or your landlord could install solar panels on the roof, energy-efficient lighting, water-efficient fixtures, energy-efficient windows and doors, occupancy sensors and insulation to lessen or eliminate your purchase of energy.

Work at making continuous improvement toward minimizing your environmental footprint and maximizing sustainability, no matter how small your progress may seem.



http://www.omidyar.net/group/foodchain/ws/vdb%20checklists/

Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual

September 14, 2006
Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual

By KATIE HAFNER
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 13 — The ambitious founders of Google, the popular search engine company, have set up a philanthropy, giving it seed money of about $1 billion and a mandate to tackle poverty, disease and global warming.

But unlike most charities, this one will be for-profit, allowing it to fund start-up companies, form partnerships with venture capitalists and even lobby Congress. It will also pay taxes.

One of its maiden projects reflects the philanthropy’s nontraditional approach. According to people briefed on the program, the organization, called Google.org, plans to develop an ultra-fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid car engine that runs on ethanol, electricity and gasoline.

The philanthropy is consulting with hybrid-engine scientists and automakers, and has arranged for the purchase of a small fleet of cars with plans to convert the engines so that their gas mileage exceeds 100 miles per gallon. The goal of the project is to reduce dependence on oil while alleviating the effects of global warming.

Google.org is drawing skeptics for both its structure and its ambitions. It is a slingshot compared with the artillery of charities established by older captains of industry. Its financing pales next to the tens of billions that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will have at its disposal, especially with the coming infusion of some $3 billion a year from Warren E. Buffett, the founder of Berkshire Hathaway.

But Google’s philanthropic work is coming early in the company’s lifetime. Microsoft was 25 years old before Bill Gates set up his foundation, which is a tax-exempt organization and separate from Microsoft.

By choosing for-profit status, Google will have to pay taxes if company shares are sold at a profit — or if corporate earnings are used — to finance Google.org. Any resulting venture that shows a profit will also have to pay taxes. Shareholders may not like the fact that the Google.org tax forms will not be made public, but kept private as part of the tax filings of the parent, Google Inc.

Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, believe for-profit status will greatly increase their philanthropy’s range and flexibility. It could, for example, form a company to sell the converted cars, finance that company in partnership with venture capitalists, and even hire a lobbyist to pressure Congress to pass legislation granting a tax credit to consumers who buy the cars.

The executive director whom Mr. Page and Mr. Brin have hired, Dr. Larry Brilliant, is every bit as iconoclastic as Google’s philanthropic arm. Dr. Brilliant, a 61-year-old physician and public health expert, has studied under a Hindu guru in a monastery at the foothills of the Himalayas and worked as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

In one project, which Dr. Brilliant brought with him to the job, Google.org will try to develop a system to detect disease outbreaks early.

Dr. Brilliant likens the traditional structure of corporate foundations to a musician confined to playing only the high register on a piano. “Google.org can play on the entire keyboard,” Dr. Brilliant said in an interview. “It can start companies, build industries, pay consultants, lobby, give money to individuals and make a profit.”

While declining to comment on the car project specifically, Dr. Brilliant said he would hope to see such ventures make a profit. “But if they didn’t, we wouldn’t care,” he said. “We’re not doing it for the profit. And if we didn’t get our capital back, so what? The emphasis is on social returns, not economic returns.”

Development of ultra-high-mileage cars is under way at a number of companies, from Toyota to tiny start-ups. Making an engine that uses E85 — a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline — is not difficult, but the lack of availability of the fuel presents a challenge, said Brett Smith, a senior industry analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Another barrier, Mr. Smith said, lies in the batteries for so-called plug-in hybrids, which require more powerful batteries that charge more quickly than the current generation of hybrid batteries.

There are skeptics, too, among tax lawyers and other pragmatists familiar with the world of philanthropy. They wonder whether Google’s directors might be tempted to take back some of the largess in an economic downturn.

“The money is at the beck and call of the board of directors and shareholders,” said Marcus S. Owens, a tax lawyer in Washington who spent a decade as director of the exempt organizations division of the Internal Revenue Service. “It’s possible the shareholders of Google might someday object, especially if we go into an economic depression and that money is needed to shore up the company.”

And there is the question of how many of the planet’s problems can truly be addressed by a single corporate entity.

But even while expressing reservations about Google’s approach, Mr. Owens said that the structure of Google.org “eliminates all the constraints that might otherwise apply.”

The only conventional part of Google.org is the Google Foundation, a nonprofit with an endowment of $90 million that is constrained in how it spends by the 501(c)(3) section of the Internal Revenue Service code.

Google’s big philanthropic experiment lies in the part of Google.org where the bulk of the funding now resides. This part of Google.org will be fully taxable, with the ability to invest in a full spectrum of programs and companies.

All of Google.org’s spending, Dr. Brilliant said, will be in keeping with its mission, and there is to be no “blowback.” That is, should Google.org make a profit with one of its ventures, those funds will not go to the search engine business, but will stay within Google.org.

Google had existed for only six years, when, in advance of the company’s initial public offering in August 2004, Mr. Page and Mr. Brin told potential investors that they planned to set aside 1 percent of the company’s stock and an equal percentage of profits for philanthropy. By the end of 2004, Google.org was formed.

The company has said it plans to spend the money over the next 20 years, and the Google board recently approved a more rapid disbursement rate, $175 million over the next two years.

“Poor people can’t wait,” Dr. Brilliant said. “Dying people can’t wait for some 20-year plan. It’s not what we’re doing here.”

Ventures that grow out of Google.org could be seen to have a competitive edge because they do not need to show a financial profit. But financial returns from a project like the high-mileage car are not necessarily the aim.

“I think how you count profit is the issue here,” said Peter Hero, president of the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley, a charitable foundation with about $1 billion in assets. “Google.org is measuring return on cleaner air and quality of life. Their bottom line isn’t just financial. It’s environmental and social.”

Once Google.org was formed, the company spent months searching for an executive director. There was no lack of interest in the job.

“Literally thousands of people worldwide got in touch with us,” said Sheryl Sandberg, the Google vice president who led the search. “We’d get someone who was an amazing technology entrepreneur but who didn’t know anything about the developing world.”

Then along came Dr. Brilliant, an affable man generous with bearhugs and self-deprecating humor whose unlikely résumé looks like a composite career summary of multiple high achievers.

After receiving his medical degree, Dr. Brilliant studied for two years with Neem Karoli Baba, a famous Hindu guru.

As Dr. Brilliant tells the story, in 1973, shortly before the guru’s death, he told Dr. Brilliant to “take off the ashram whites” and use his skills as a physician to help eradicate smallpox, which was devastating India at the time.

Dr. Brilliant joined a team of United Nations workers who painstakingly worked their way through India inoculating people against the disease. In 1980, the World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been eradicated.

In 1978, Dr. Brilliant started the Seva Foundation, which focuses on preventing and curing blindness throughout Asia and Latin America. In 1985, Dr. Brilliant was a co-founder of the Well, a seminal online community. Throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s, he ran several high-tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Dr. Brilliant first heard about Google.org in early 2005 while lying in bed in India, sick with dysentery. He had gone there to work with the polio eradication program of the United Nations and, while recovering, he saw news of Google.org in a local newspaper.

He sent an inquiry to the only e-mail address he could find: info@google.com. He got no response.

This year, Dr. Brilliant was awarded the TED Prize, an award given at the annual Technology, Entertainment and Design conference, a gathering of leaders from the technology and entertainment industries. The prize awards three recipients $100,000, and a “wish” for how to change world.

Dr. Brilliant’s wish was for the creation of an “early detection, rapid response” system for disease outbreaks. The idea would be an open-source, nongovernmental, public access network for detecting, reporting and responding to pandemics.

Some Google insiders heard about the award and invited Dr. Brilliant to give a talk at the company. Mr. Page and Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, were in the audience as Dr. Brilliant described the polio eradication efforts of the United Nations. They agreed they had found their director and began to recruit him.

At first, Dr. Brilliant said, he was thrilled. But then he turned skeptical, largely because of the for-profit structure of the organization.

“I got weak knees,” he said. “It was weird. It was precedent setting.” After several lengthy conversations with executives at Google, Dr. Brilliant changed his mind. Six months into the job, he has traveled to India to visit eye clinics and polio vaccination projects with Mr. Page, and to China to discuss clean energy alternatives. Next week, he leaves for Africa to visit Google grant recipients in Ghana.

Dr. Brilliant said he had no desire to “reinvent the wheel” by working on projects others are already involved in. And although Google is a high-tech company, that does not mean that Google.org will be throwing around high-tech solutions.

“Why would we put Wi-Fi in a place where what they need is food and clean water?” he said.

Source: the new york times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/technology/14google.htmlei=5070&en=8adc7dec50fe8737&ex=1169269200&pagewanted=print

For-Profit Social Ventures

Article from Greenrising:

September 28th, 2006
For-Profit Social Ventures


Wicked Googlie! I’ve thought about the benefits of for-proft social entrepreneurship for some time and I’m glad to see a company with serious money (Google) is putting some serious dollars ($1,000,000,000) towards it.

I’m an MBA student and my school holds an annual Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition. The problem with the competition is that only non-profit organizations, or ideas for non-profit organizations, are eligible to compete. (Don’t get me wrong, the competition is a great event and I hope it’s successful for years to come.) But, I even took a Social Entrepreneurship class in which I was forced to create a non-profit organization that could support itself by providing a product or service but whose residual income would be filtered not to shareholders, but back to the organization.

What is everyone’s fear about for-profit social ventures? Why can’t people make a buck and do good at the same time? Do for-profit social ventures bring people who want to make money and people who want to help others dangerously close to each other? Hell, if the merger worked if would change the landscape of capitalism. There would be no “pro-business” Republicans versus “pro-employee” Democrats. We’d all get along and business would be good because it would always be helping the less fortunate, who are sometimes, intentionally or unintentionally, the very people hurt by the business’s operations. We know we can’t stop commerce altogether but we also know we need to be more conscious of our behavior and contribute to the social and environmental arenas in which we operate. For-profit social ventures are the answer. They can and (hopefully) will transform the landscape of global business.

Luckily, Google has realized this. “The ambitious founders of Google, the popular search engine company, have set up a philanthropy, giving it seed money of about $1 billion and a mandate to tackle poverty, disease and global warming. But unlike most charities, this one will be for-profit, allowing it to fund startup companies, form partnerships with venture capitalists and even lobby Congress. It will also pay taxes.” Booya. The best part of this is that Google is already getting started. “But Google’s philanthropic work is coming early in the company’s lifetime. Microsoft was 25 years old before Bill Gates set up his foundation, which is a tax-exempt organization and separate from Microsoft.”

The whole point is that companies can insert a new priority into their cash flow cascade, before paying dividends or recording profits. There’s two way this could work. First, companies could dedicate a priority portion of its profits to a non-profit. Second, they could invest in social ventures, like Google is doing. There isn’t enough of a market for option two so I’m hoping option one catches on. The idea, much simplified, goes like this:

Traditional company operations

$ 100 (revenues from selling widgets)
- 70 (all expenses related to doing business)
30 (net operating income)
- 10 (reinvested into operations, research and development)
20 (retained earnings, dividends)

Now say the company commits to giving 10% of its profit to the Sierra Club every year. The Sierra Club, like most non-profits, does not have the ability to earn enough money through operations to sustain itself. That’s why it calls for donations from people interested in the environment. Here’s what the simplified financial picture would looks like:

Progressive company operations

$ 100 (revenues from selling widgets)
- 70 (all expenses related to doing business)
30 (net operating income)
- 10 (reinvested into operations, research and development)
20 (profits from which donation is made)
- 2 (donation to Sierra Club)
18 (retained earnings, dividends)

From a purely mathematical sense this makes the company less competitive, especially if it’s public. BUT, in this case $2 out of every $100 earned ended up in the hands of a non-profit which shares values with the company. Taxes (on many levels) were saved on the $2 not paid out in dividends or retained. PLUS, there’s the social benefit of operating a business in the manner outlined in the second example. Goodwill is earned with community and there’s a long-term effect of good that the Sierra Club will be able to do with the money, which is still not entirely quantifiable. Capitalist purists will say that it takes away from the bottom line, plain and simple. These are the same idiots driving record corporate profits at the expense of the American worker. No wonder the drive towards large-scale and innovative philanthropy is being driven by Bill Gates and the founders of Google. The older generation of business people doesn’t get it (except perhaps for George Soros, Warren Buffet and Richard Branson).

Surely the Progressive company operations example is not competitive in the capital markets. But imagine the example becoming the norm. That’s the day the world will truly become a better place. And for those companies who don’t want to donate - innovate the way Google is.

Source: http://www.greenrising.com/index.php/2006/09/28/for-profit-social-ventures/