Together, we can be the change!

I was in my early 20s, fresh out of university, ready to save the world! Google search was still in its infancy when I typed the words: “volunteer abroad”

That’s how I came across United Planet, a Boston based non-profit organisation offering volunteering opportunities across the world and inviting you to do your part in creating a positive and important difference in local communities. I sent an email to David Santulli, founder of United Planet and about a month later he was on a plane to meet me in Istanbul to talk about introducing Turkey as a country to United Planet’s volunteer abroad opportunities.

I am now closer to my 40s and still think of the time I was volunteering with United Planet as the most purposeful / joyful / fulfilling time of my life. I could not wait to get out of bed early in the morning to meet with volunteers, go into the foster care homes and build an incredible connection with children who don’t even speak the same language with volunteers coming from abroad. It was our “shared purpose” which brought us together so powerfully beyond borders, languages and we were all willing to go after bigger challenges to solve.

I am in the corporate world for over a decade now and strongly believe that organisations have a bigger role to play to bring the same powerful “shared purpose” to our everyday lives at work. The corporate world is in an exciting transformation where technologies are enabling human’s to live a much better life yet not all of the world’s population are benefitting equally from these market forces. There are roughly a billion people in the world who don't get enough food, who don't have clean drinking water, who don't have electricity, the things that we take for granted. So how do businesses continue to make profits through doing their core work / products and also use their power to solve world’s biggest problems and improve lives of those who don’t benefit from these especially when governments in large part fail to address some of these problems alone?

Bill Gates introduced “Creative Capitalism” 10 years ago, it calls for an approach where governments, businesses, and non-profits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities. And this is where companies are expected to play a key role thinking about their longer term strategy and defining a purpose that not only serve their shareholders, but also employees, customers, and communities. The world is calling for better leadership and “creative capitalism” to define how companies can continue to drive investment returns and also be the change for good. Leaders and organisations are increasingly starting to operate in glasshouses, their every move, speech, decision is being watched by global citizens who demand businesses to serve a social purpose rather than only making profits. Millennials choose to work for organisations where they can feel part of something greater, where they can be the force of change.

As Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock says companies must ask themselves: What role do we play in the community? How are we managing our impact on the environment? Are we working to create a diverse workforce? Are we adapting to technological change? Are we providing the retraining and opportunities that our employees and our business will need to adjust to an increasingly automated world? Are we using behavioural finance and other tools to prepare workers for retirement, so that they invest in a way that will help them achieve their goals?

Companies these days have a much bigger role to play, so do individuals working for those companies, we all have a responsibility and stake in helping to drive social change and that’s what makes me very excited to go to work every single day and help answer some of these questions.