Sustainability Blog, like many others, seem to think the practices of corporations, socially responsible or otherwise, are like the news on TV - we just watch it happen. There is another popular opinion that CSR is just a bunch……

Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts…..

Last year I founded a rather unique Social Venture (Impact Makers). We are based in Richmond VA, and although we have access to the Kellogg and Yale SOM alumni networks, we feel somewhat isolated from others doing similar social ventures and involved in CSR generally.

I think our model is fairly unique and provides for an interesting new “twist” in Corporate Social Responsibility.

Specifically, Impact Makers is a “social venture” operating in the management consulting space, and I believe is truly unique in that it:

- Provides professional services (currently focused in healthcare) at market prices
- Competes with other firms to win business
- Pays market salaries to its professionals
- Is a nonprofit structure with books open to the public
- Contributes all profits to community organizations (and consulting time)

** The interesting twist on CSR: at no additional cost to our corporate clients, they are able to transform their already budgeted IT / consulting services budget into social impact. In other words, simply by hiring Impact Makers, our corporate clients are able to tout their social impact / responsibility in their local community - at no cost. A good example - while a consultant at Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), I saw the firm give away 10% of profits to their Foundation ($100 million); however, that same year they had an IT consulting budget of over $800 million. If that budget went to Impact Makers or similar competitive social ventures, at 15% profit margin, the social impact of hiring Impact Makers (only measuring dollars donated to the community) would be larger than that of the entire foundation.

For a brief overview of our organization, you can visit our website at: http://www.impactmakers.org

Aside from local print press, we are also being covered on CNN Headline News in the local Richmond market – you can see the 5-minute video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dWEckHnxW4

FEEDBACK REQUESTED:
1) I would greatly welcome any thoughts on our model generally from a CSR perspective. For those in CSR - is this an interesting model to pursue?
2) This is an interesting way to expand the reach of CSR initiatives within corporations - any thoughts on how to include social impact on vendor selection criteria at large corporations? Does anyone know of this happenning today at any firms?
3) Any of you know other organizations doing something similar?

Please feel free to forward our website link to anyone that you think may be interested to further discuss our innovative new model.

I look forward to hearing from all Group members!
- Michael

here is a good place to start.