Building a Strong Unity of Purpose and Profit

“We as women think differently. When we engage in business we typically have purposes that are much more global than just making money,” with these words, Panagiota Betty Tufariello , an acclaimed IP attorney, kicked off the panel called Purpose and Profit United moderated by her at the recent Athens Women's Football Summit .

Taking the stage were two honoured women whose actions embody the idea of uniting purpose and profit: Suzanne McKenzie , the founder and CEO of Able Made , a public benefit corporation in the US, the founder and chairperson of Ucal McKenzie Breakaway Foundation (UMBF) , and Karen Dobres , equality activist and former elected director at Lewes Football Club .

They each have their own authentic point, which became the start of their responsible and game-changing journey into the world of football,?

“I was a three-sport athlete growing up: football, softball, basketball, and I want to celebrate everyone who is putting their efforts into empowering girls because, for me, having sports in my life was such a formative experience”, starts McKenzie, whose personal tragedy, the death of her husband, Ucal McKenzie, from cardiac arrest during a football match, was a kind of kick-off for the initiative of Ucal McKenzie Breakaway Foundation.

UMBF is a city youth empowerment organization for boys and girls ages 8 to 18 from low-income underserved communities. Ucal was a first-generation immigrant from Jamaica, coming to the USA, at the age of 16 assimilating into the country through the sport. Combining his passions, which were soccer, family, and helping others, he influenced many lives as a high school guidance counselor, soccer coach, and city youth mentor.?

Through sports, UMBF could build a curriculum that was very different from the other youth programs, and based on what happened with Ucal Mckenzie Hands-Only CPR and AED awareness was one of the program's cornerstones. And this kind of incorporation bears tangible and vivid fruits. One of the clear examples of this is the case that happened with the team against which Ucal McKenzie was playing, Kendal Wanderers F.C.. Thanks to the use of CPR and AED defibrillators the life of the player who suffered cardiac arrest toward the beginning of the game, was saved.??

Able Made , another brainchild of our speaker, has become a kind of nurturing powerhouse for this initiative. A fashion brand, that has sustainability and responsibility as its core values, adhered to UCBF thus automatically making its customers contributors to the good. “I'm just blown away that we can say that a fashion brand and some of its proceeds that we donate into the foundation made that happen so we can quantifiably our customers and our brand help save a life,” says McKenzie.??

The brand was relaunched in 2022 leaning into the soccer heritage of the brand and telling their story. So it started a collaboration with the British luxury brand Burberry to upcycle its fabrics into soccer apparel. McKenzie emphasizes the inspiring landscape of clientele, which consists not only of international customers but also locals who have a love of soccer passed down through generations. And they say for a reason that the best marketing is when people talk about you, in this case putting on your product.?

Suzanne McKenzie emphasises the importance of investing in women and their ideas, having respected investors such as representatives from Adidas, Nike, the co-owner of an NWSL team, and others. "We can be resourceful to a certain point, but we need financial backing to get to the next level," says McKenzie, adding that the biggest hurdle is catching up with working capital to the momentum of the brand they've built. "It's like you're in the air flying your plane, but you need to refuel it," she describes the situation with this metaphor.

In the case of our other speaker, Karen Dobres, the anger was the feeling that pushed her to join the board of Lewes FC. She was angry that she had thought that only men played football because all she could see on the TV or in newspapers was men’s football. “I had gone to see a women’s match and thought it was amazing. It made me feel more powerful as a woman. I wanted all the women to see this because it demonstrated a kind of leadership in a way of being a woman that I wasn’t used to,” says Karen having a modeling career at her belt and comparing the positioning of women in the football industry with the one in fashion where you are more used to being a passive decoration. The astonishment that she felt about women’s football turned into motivation to bring more women into the game and eventually, she ran for the board to get more authority and validity to make the industry better and? “to get a crash course in sexism”.?

One of the projects that Karen and her team realized was the so-called Sister Ships Network. It’s a formalisation of Lewes FC’s relationship with groups that they have been talking to about Equality FC since the club launched budget parity for both first teams in July 2017. “Unwelcome women… they had never been welcome and we had a chance to make them welcome genuinely because we told them that the women on the pitch were paid the same as the men on the pitch. And if they come to our football club they won't see themselves reflected in these women as undervalued,” mentions Karen.

Creating breastfeeding areas, installing a statue of a female pirate outside the stadium, a community garden, holding evenings where women could learn about the offside rule from female players and coaches - all of these and other initiatives, some successful, some perhaps not so much, have helped the club build a brand and community that is attractive to sponsors. For example, in 2021/2022, iconic British fashion brand Lyle & Scott became the club's shirt sponsor, driven by a desire to be associated with the club's community. It was the first number six deal in the Championship.

When it comes to obstacles at a club level, Karen says, “When we have an obstacle we respond to it by trying to change it, because we are fans of change”, and specifics by referring to the funding problem. The FA Cup funding gap between men and women is a clear example of disparity. “When Lewes FC played Manchester United last season in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup we got ￡4500 and the men in the equivalent match would have got ￡45,000. For them, it’s a drop in the ocean, but for us, it would make such a massive difference”, says Karen.

“We won't stop shouting about this until it's equalized, our players wrote a letter about it before the Manchester United match, our amazing men's team is playing tomorrow in the final qualifying round of the FA cups and they will wear Tshirts that we produce with the scales on the back talking about the FA Cup prize fund,” adds Karen.

Turning to the second part of the panel's title, profit, our speakers share their experience and vision on how to make socially important activities and ideas profitable.?

Mackenzie points to the benefits they've earned from building a community that has become attractive to influencers who eventually organically turn into brand ambassadors. “They are excited about the story we're telling with the brand and in regards to how we're supporting our communities and supporting the next generation of players including girls. So in terms of our sponsor dollars, we don't have to do a lot of spend for these athletes at the highest levels to be excited about championing the brand. And I think that that's part of our strategy in terms of influencer-engagement-ambassadorship and potential of having them as investors as well,” explains the whole picture McKenzie.?

Karen Dobres suggests starting with the basics, “I would like everyone to change their Twitter handles as a football club to at their women and at their men, just like we do it at Lewes FC - @LewesFCWomen and @LewesFCMen. These are ways we can change the world free.” She talks about their desire to get all women into the Super League which would give them a platform for their messages of equality. Having a changed history at their belt, when women were told that they couldn’t do it but they did, women’s football, in Karen's opinion, needs far-ahead thinking and audacious goals. For example, Lewes FC moves from just paying the women the same as the men to giving the female players more because they have operated at a higher level.?

In closing, Karen encourages us all to become an owner of Lewes FC and thus be a part of this evolving journey.

We thank our speakers for such an inspiring panel and wish them more like-minded people who are ready to contribute to creating a strong unity of purpose and profit.

Written by Lilith Aghajanian