Hack:
Inspire and Motivate for both profits and charity

By Srinivasan Abhinavam

July 7, 2010 at 12:13am

Moonshots

Embed the ethos of community and citizenship

Humanize the language of business

Rethink the philosophical foundations of management

Summary

Create a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Credit Exchange like carbon Credit Exchange to motivate corporates to take on CSR initiatives which will give them CSR credits that can be converted to money, in addition to appealing to their innate sense of charity and fairness

Problem

The evolving new economic order is imposing severe strain on national economies. By cutting on welfare spending to reduce their deficits, countries are putting their poorer people to even more hardships. It is time the private sector took on more responsibilty for society's welfare. The problem is how to motivate private sector organisations to participate in public welfare and discharge their social responsibility.

Solution

There is quite a lot of activity going on in the area of CSR and substantial sums have been donated to social welfare by several business persons and philonthropists. However, there is a need for private sector enterprises to take on greater share of the burden of social welfare.
We need to look at two approaches for this to happen.

I. To those who can think beyond profits & growth and their own selves and their business organisations and empire, appeal to their good senses to make the world a better place to live in for everybody. This is the appeal behind the following three thoughts:
1. Assign a part of your income, say one -eighth or 12.5% , as ststed in the ancient Hindu code of conduct "Manu Smriti".
2. Have a sense of "trusteeship" towards your business as distnct from a sense of "ownership" as advocated by Mahatma Gandhi, considered as Father of Nation in India, who spearheaded the independence movement .
3.Practice creative capitalism as advocated by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who have gone on to appeal to the world's billionaires to donate 50% of their wealth to charity.

II. To those who are guided by "current" corporate roles and believe in the concept that business of business is only business or making profits, provide incentives to do social goodby having a credit system similar to carbon credits. By taking on socially relevent projects or donating money to such projects, companies can earn "CSR credits" which can be traded or encashed.

Thus with a combination of appeal to business people's sense of making wealth and sharing the gains, we can hope that private sector will take on more social responsibilty reducing the burden on governments alone.

Practical Impact

If we achieve this, the world will be a better place for everyone to live in. By providing better quality of life for majority of citizens, both governments and private businesses all over the world would be discharging their social responsibilities. The CSR credits can act as a legitimate motivator.

First Steps

Let the heads of governments of leading countries and CEOs of major corporations come forward and meet to develop the agenda

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