“Because government and nonprofits alone are insufficient to solve the world’s most pressing problems . . .”
Like Jay Coen Gilbert (one of the founders of B-Labs and the Benefit Corporation) says in the video below, both government and nonprofit entities will have incrementally less resources moving forward. Indeed, the more interconnected the world is, the weaker sovereign nations (government) become vis-a-vis the power of international corporations. The buying power of some of these companies dwarf the GDP of most nations. What’s needed is a vehicle that captures the power of the market–the power of business–to solve the world’s social problems. This is how the Benefit Corporation was born as explained in this TED talk:
Quick background: TED is a nonprofit corporation that hosts an annual speaking conference where the world’s most influence thinkers are invited to speak on interesting topics, “Ideas worth spreading.” The TED talk series has some incredible speeches. I have always found an interesting video on the site from Seth Godin to Malcolm Gladwell.
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