Issue #3: Keep the change.

As I have more and more conversations with business, nonprofit, and cultural leaders about “purpose, it becomes clear that our best chances of making lives better is by encouraging businesses to do more of the right things for their stakeholders. The reason why a company's relationship with its "purpose" is such an important topic in offices these days, and the reason why people want those businesses to make the right decisions, is because businesses tend to act rationally in a world where so few things do.

What comes most rationally to businesses is the pursuit of profit. Profit and purpose can, in fact, not only support each another, but also maximize the potential of each other -- however, it doesn’t happen naturally; you need a catalyst. Massive opportunity is usually only realized by exponential change, though exponential change can also happen incrementally, and over time. It's the series of thousands of small steps that when added up, feel like exponential leaps forward -- in what is usually seen to be a relatively short period of time in hindsight.

And that's the promise of sustainable, purpose-led business transformation. The threat of competition who do it better (as was in the case of "digital transformation"), in every way, should be enough motivation to rapidly evolve the way you do business, run companies, treat employees, and empower public benefit. But when all of your stakeholders (employees, customers, communities) demand it, then the choice becomes even more clear. You don't have to hit a reset button, but it's past time to find the "evolve" button. As Darwin said (and he's often misquoted on this), it's not the strongest species that survive, but the ones most adaptable to change.

Anger and outrage are normal feelings. It’s OK if they are the catalysts. They are part of what makes us human. But once you process the "why", focus on the "how". We need to support and work with each other as we go on these journeys to build more meaningful and purposeful businesses that put people and communities at the center of everything. Find (or build) yours. Even Rage Against the Machine is getting the band back together. Thanks for subscribing and sharing. Happy Thanksgiving.

-- Ian

What's Good.

Follow the money. If you're skeptical about purpose and profit having only a theoretical link, you don't have to look further than the investment community to see where the upside is. Yet another new investment fund has launched that seeks to find opportunity in the tackling of civilization-wide problems -- another sign that one of the important roles of business going forward is to help solve problems, rather than create them. This time, it's Aligned Capital, a fund "designed to anticipate civilization-scale, evolutionary changes in human behavior, and to invest in their core technologies". In their announcement, they invoke Buckminster Fuller (FYI, he coined the term "Spaceship Earth"), who said, "You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete." In other words, DO SOMETHING.

The power of eBay. You may think of eBay as a shopping and auction site, but it has actually been a fantastic platform for giving. Last week, eBay announced that they have empowered nonprofits to raise over $1 billion in total global funds -- and it seems like it's still gaining momentum. As reported by "Good is the New Cool"'s Afdhel Aziz, eBay for Charity has more than 83,500 global charities registered on its platform – up 26% year-over-year – and is enabling $211 every minute in charity funding by eBay buyers and sellers, an increase of almost 10% compared to last year (through eBay for Charity, 100% of funds raised go back to intended nonprofits). When companies think of themselves as a platform for impact, they unlock so much more of their potential as force multipliers. See eBay and Afdhel at Kindred 2020 (San Diego Convention Center, May 11-14, 2020).

Did we miss the point of "The Tipping Point"? Clive Thompson has a long piece in Fast Company about Duncan Watts, who, through his own research, has fully embraced the point that there are no tipping points (as Malcolm Gladwell wrote about), but rather, everything happens (at least in the world of marketing) for random reasons. This is one of those blanket statements that is too clever for its own good in the sense that nothing in this area is really binary. In my opinion, things don't happen because of influencers, they happen faster because of them; we see this effect in politics, in fundraising, in movement building, and of course, in marketing, all the time. Score another one for "and" vs. "or".

Brush with greatness. Plastic, for the most part, sucks. Colgate-Palmolive's Tom's of Maine recently unveiled a a first-of-its-kind recyclable toothpaste tube recognized by the Association of Plastic Recyclers. The tube is designed to be compatible with the #2 HDPE plastic stream. While most plastic tubes wind up in landfills, Tom's is the first designed to be circular, so that the material can be re-processed into new products and packaging. Tom's of Maine has also recently achieve B-Corporation status.

The 6 Ps of brand activism, with sprinkles. Ben & Jerry's brilliant Global Head of Integrated Marketing, Jay Curley, dropped some of the best knowledge I've read in recent memory about how brands can tackle important issues while also selling more stuff. It's the Ben & Jerry's playbook, and the best advice I can give you is to read it and share it widely. See Ben & Jerry's CEO, Matthew McCarthy, speak at Kindred 2020.

What's the deal with the obsession about purpose and sustainability anyway? One of the most thoughtful analyses of why companies are waking up to the conversation around (and action towards) purpose and sustainability was written last week by Nell Derick Debevoise at Inspiring Capital in Forbes. And it all comes down to the integration of work and life.

Colorado's latest billion-dollar startup is a B-Corp. Last week, investors led by General Catalyst, put $157 million into Guild Education, a B Corporation (they have pledged to balance profit with social impact and shareholders). It's always refreshing to see that a company can both raise money and lift up society.

Speaking of B Corps... B Labs co-founder (and AND1 -- remember those mixtapes?! -- co-founder) Jay Coen Gilbert talks about how actually slowing down (something a cancer diagnosis led to), enabled him to be more productive, make better decisions, and forge stronger relationships with his team.

The global food supply chain is broken. Mars is investing $1 Billion to help fix it. Mars CEO, Grant Reid, was interviewed by Business Insider about how that investment is going, and what else needs to be done.

Cereal giving. It's almost Giving Tuesday, and Kelloggs is using Salesforce's Philanthropy Cloud to expand its "Better Days" employee giving program by using the software to create a "Better Days Hub"; empowering employees to influence and contribute to Kellogg's already existing philanthropy programs, and to onboard new ones.

More irrelevant by the HR? KPMG recently conducted a survey with alarming findings, including that 57% of HR professionals believe that if the HR function does not modernize its approach to understanding and planning for the future needs of the workforce, it will rapidly become irrelevant within the modern organization. The need for a "purpose-led culture" leads the way in necessary changes.

And that's a wrap. A new edition of Kindred's Good for Business drops every Monday. If you enjoy this, please share it with your colleagues and friends.

Don't miss your chance to attend or sponsor Kindred 2020 (San Diego, May 11-14, 2020) — THE event for sustainable, purpose-led business transformation.