social delta

Purposeful Commerce

February 13, 2025 / jonathanawade

When you buy something—anything, really—there is an exchange of value. Money is exchanged for a good or service, right?

The trouble is that we frequently forget that there are more currencies than money, and more products than a single good or service.

Time is maybe our most valuable currency. It is a fixed asset. It is always limited in supply. We get to choose how we spend it, and once spent, it can’t be refunded. Like money, we need time to thrive. We also have compassion to spend. And patience. And privacy. And commitment. These are all currencies.

As for the products we purchase, we can easily forget that when we buy a loaf of bread, for example, we are actually buying many goods and services. We are buying the grain from the nutrients of the land. We are buying the labour of the farmer, the miller, the trucker, and the baker. We are buying a small fraction of the combine harvester and even the time of the person who built that machine. And we are buying the raw materials that were used to make that machine. We are also buying the environmental impact of the process by which that loaf of bread arrived at our local grocery store.

The purchase of a loaf of bread, then, is an exchange of two BUNDLES of value:

(Money, time & commitment)

is exchanged for

(Bread, agricultural community livelihoods & supply chains)

This expanded view of commerce is important is because making deliberate purchasing choices matter, and every choice affects multiple aspects of what might appear to be a simple transaction.

Let’s look at some scenarios:

Right now, Canadians are fearful of potential financial losses and inflationary trends in an environment of threat of tariffs and trade restrictions; therefore, we can choose to spend on products and services that reinforce the growth and resilience of our local and national communities.
In every transaction, if we spend the time to speak to the vendor, we gain more than just their product, we gain an understanding, a connection, and a relationship; buying online might be cheaper, but we are making a choice to relinquish social cohesion.
When we consume social media, we are exchanging time, patience, privacy, and editorial control for quick news, comedy, and the financial wealth of the media owners; we can make a choice about what we are spending and what we are getting. (note that this “purchase” doesn’t use the customer’s money as currency in the transaction)

Why am I writing this blog on a site about social entrepreneurship?

Well, social enterprise is a form of commerce which deliberately takes into account a broader understanding of an exchange of value. When the vendor is clearly and intentionally working to improve some form of social justice, then a customer’s purchase takes on a multi-dimensional aspect.

Let’s take the loaf of bread example: If you buy a loaf of bread from a social enterprise, you also might be “buying” sustainable wages for local bakers, or the knowledge that you are supporting sustainable agricultural processes, or you the multifaceted benefits of helping to create a job for someone otherwise excluded from the work force. You are exchanging your money, time and commitment for bread and some (or many) forms of positive social impact.

For those who may be feeling as though the social fabric is being eroded by political divisiveness, the rise of oligarchical actors, and growing intolerance and cruelty, it is powerful to recognized that buying choices can make a tremendous positive impact.

When you buy something—anything, really—you are able to affect the course of history.

Leadership in Social Enterprise

August 27, 2024 / jonathanawade

Society often celebrates leadership as admirable–indeed, we idolize those we call leaders–yet there is no universal agreement on what truly makes a leader. Leadership can be approached in many ways, and some scholars suggest that different situations demand different leadership styles. Leadership models vary—some emphasize inherent traits and skills, while others focus on the ability of leaders to adapt to the circumstances they face. Expectations for leaders are high, but many may hesitate to adopt the title for fear of disappointing or alienating their team by assuming a hierarchical stance.

In my experience as a social enterprise consultant, I have observed three principal archetypes who are drawn to lead the creation, launch, and growth of social enterprises.

The Aspiring Solopreneur:
Often young and idealistic, these individuals are usually motivated by personal experiences of social injustice, either witnessed or endured. They are the warriors and activists who seek change, often working long hours without compensation. Charismatic and articulate, they quickly gather a group of supporters who share their vision. However, their impatience can be a drawback, particularly when they don’t understand why established institutions aren’t responding to their logical arguments and impassioned stories. This frustration can lead to under informed accusations against governments, corporations, and multilateral agencies. They may also lack connections within the broader social field and might face significant personal financial challenges later on, such as mortgages or raising children, which could force them to abandon their work.

The Seasoned Social Change Agent:
Typically older, these individuals have seen their idealism tempered by years of working to make incremental changes. They often work within established organizations—typically non-profits or co-operatives—that share their vision of a better future. Well-connected within their communities, regions, or even globally, they have often struggled to secure funding through philanthropy and grants and are looking for sustainable ways to finance their projects. However, their experience may make them cautious, leading to a “poverty trap” where they fear taking risks or investing in essential business efforts such as market research, supplier engagement, fair staff compensation, or marketing.

The Enlightened Business Person:
These are individuals from the business world who transition into social enterprise, often driven by personal experiences or causes they encounter later in life—such as a rare disease diagnosis or a direct connection with someone in crisis. These entrepreneurs are often capable, experienced entrepreneurs who may not need advice on balance sheets or brand ambassadors. However, as they enter the social change arena, they may be unaware of the extensive network of individuals and organizations already deeply involved in the social issues they are just discovering. Additionally, they may be criticized for applying a simplistic cost-benefit analysis to complex social problems, such as housing insecurity, addiction, mental health crises, or environmental degradation. Frustration can arise when they perceive the decisions of those on the “front line” as irrational or overly consultative and slow.

Each of these archetypes brings unique skills, passions, and blind spots to their social enterprise journey. As a consultant to social entrepreneurs and a student of what makes a successful social enterprise, I believe that effective, lasting social change requires highly functional teams united by a shared vision of improvement. Leaders with emotional intelligence (often referred to as EI or EQ) are better equipped to manage interpersonal relationships judiciously and with empathy, which helps create stronger teams.

The traditional “command and control” leader is increasingly obsolete. While this leadership style remains necessary in emergencies, on the battlefield, and in life-or-death situations, creating social change requires a more nuanced, interactive approach.

Two common leadership styles in the social sector are Transformational Leadership (also known as Visionary Leadership) and Servant Leadership (sometimes referred to as Affiliative Leadership):

Transformational Leadership involves leading by example and inspiring others through a clear vision and engaging techniques. This style is well-suited to aspiring solopreneurs and can be combined with Authentic Leadership, where the leader remains true to their values and ethics, fostering trust within the team. However, transformational leadership can be idealistic and difficult to sustain over time, especially in stable environments that do not require constant change.

Servant Leadership takes the opposite approach, with the leader prioritizing the needs of the team, often at their own expense. This approach fosters an inclusive environment and empowers the team to take responsibility and ownership of their work, with the leader providing support. However, this seemingly selfless form of leadership can overlook the potential for power struggles and may lead to a loss of focus on the original mission. Additionally, servant leadership can result in decision-making delays if there is no clear directive from a group of actors.

Gone is the pervasive belief that leaders are born rather than made. Increasingly, scholars and practitioners recognize that leadership skills—such as active listening, situational assessment, and mindfulness—can be learned and that different leadership styles should be applied as situations demand. The three archetypes of social entrepreneurs—solopreneurs, seasoned social change agents, and enlightened business people—all benefit from developing their emotional intelligence to learn from and work with others who are vital to their success in creating social change.

Beneficiaries may be clients, but they are not always customers.

June 22, 2023 / jonathanawade

Social service organizations have beneficiaries; these are the people who benefit from the programs and services being provided. Non-profits, and those who register as charities, often will refer to these beneficiaries as “clients,” but this nomenclature gets confusing when the organization starts a social enterprise.

It is Social Delta’s practice to refer to clients or customers as those who PAY for a good or a service, and to specifically use the term “beneficiaries” for those folks who benefit from FREE (or more accurately, subsidized) benefits and services offered in our communities.

Members are different again. Members are those individuals who support an organization with an exchange of value, but they are not really customers. Membership dues or fees are paid in exchange for a bundle of goods and services reserved for members alone (newsletter, voting rights at the AGM, discounts with third-party suppliers, etc). It is notable that many of these member benefits are not used by the majority of most members of a non-profit organization. Ironically, although “membership” revenue might be characterized as an income earning line of business, the membership fee in most cases is more like a donation than a purchase of goods or products.

The first question many might ask is: “Why it is important to make a distinction, when customers, members, and beneficiaries are getting value from the organization?” The answer lies in how these groups of individuals can be identified, contacted, cultivated and supported.

When are beneficiaries considered customers? Rarely.

Yes, in some cases, beneficiaries can be—or can become—customers. It does occur. Tenants in low-income housing run by a charity typically pay something for their housing. There may be a nominal fee for parts in a non-profit bicycle cooperative. If a social enterprise operating from within a non-profit organization starts charging for goods and services it has traditionally offered for free, then they are migrating from a “free to fee” model of delivery and their customers may very well be beneficiaries of the social mission through the organization’s social enterprise activities.

Those who are benefiting from programs, services and products offered by a community organization are often not good prospects as paying customers. Unsurprisingly, this statement is especially true for organizations working with the most marginalized and needy in our society. It is incredulous to think that a domestic violence victim would have to pay for their room at a shelter, for example. Likewise, an at-risk youth living on the street is not likely to accept help if they have to pay for it.

Knowing that past beneficiaries are not typically good customer prospects is important in setting expectations for new social enterprises. Many board members and senior non-profit staff might assume that their mailing list of past beneficiaries is a “warm prospect” list when they start selling something.

However, it is the experience of Social Delta that the conversion of a beneficiary to a customer is arduous, typically yields less-than-expected sales, and can jeopardize how a charity is viewed by the people it is trying to help. A modest fee might support a sense of dignity for a beneificiary, but it will rarely generate the revenue needed to pay the cost of providing that good or service.

Beneficiaries are not always customers…but customers are always beneficiaries of a social enterprise.

“Which stakeholders are the best prospects?”

It will vary by organization, and by what is being sold, of course, but current and past volunteers and donors, particularly monthly donors and/or high value donors, may both be worth cultivating as warm sales leads. Members, perhaps counter-intuitively, typically bristle when the individual elements of their “membership bundle” each get a price tag, and they will often not become loyal customers.

The stark truth, however, is that most successful social enterprises look outside of their stakeholder network to acquire the sufficient number of customers to become sustainable. Early and significant investments in marketing will help to reach out to new audiences…and in doing so, will convert these new customers to become stakeholders in the mission of the organization through their purchases.

Social Enterprise Job Opportunity in Ottawa

November 24, 2021 / jonathanawade

OREC (the Ottawa Renewable Energy Cooperative) is seeking to hire a part-time Communications Manager to support the day-to-day operations, member and investor relations, and public-facing communications of the co-operative.

You can see a full job posting on their website, here: https://www.orec.ca/careers/

Applications for this position are to be submitted by December 7, 2021.

Chatbots in social enterprise

August 3, 2021 / jonathanawade

Some estimates state that 80% of all companies will use chatbots to generate leads or build customer loyalty in the next few years. How does this, and how should this, affect social enterprises?

First, what is a chatbot? It is an automated “instant message” discussion that “pops up” on a website or social media platform to engage the potential customer with either a text or voice conversation. The goal of a chatbot is to mimic genuine human interaction through clever writing and the use of artificial intelligence. In some cases sophisticated algorithms combined with user data ensure the outputs are as personalized as possible, only more efficient.

Chatbots typically start with an open question, such as “How can I help you today?” Users who choose to engage will often ask a question that can be answered by one of perhaps hundreds of pre-programmed responses (Chatbots, then become a customer service robot that can access an almost infinite number of responses in a Frequently Asked Questions database). As the “conversation” proceeds, the bot typically will request a prospect/customer’s name and email address and remarkably, statistics show that the majority of site visitors will actually provide that information (which is very hard to get via other customer development tools and activities).

Chatbots are counter intuitive to many marketing professionals, and to social change entrepreneurs. They challenge the notion that personal interaction is one of the most effective ways to generate leads, build loyalty, and engage customers. The thought that artificial intelligence can do this work for social enterprise may feel, somehow…wrong. Duplicitous even.

However, chatbots are tireless workers who never need time off, can respond to thousands of interactions simultaneously, and can create new leads from browsing users, effectively deliver key messages or marketing promotions, and can, in fact, answer the majority of basic questions. Websites are static, whereas chatbots create the illusion of dynamic interaction. If a user wants to find out the store’s opening hours on the long weekend, they can choose to find that information on what might be thousands of pages on the website…or they can simply ask the chatbot and have a response in seconds. However, it is important to recognize that chatbots should not compensate for bad web design, they should augment an easily navigated website.

There are some downsides, of course. Estimates suggest that the programming and technology required to create an effective chatbot can cost $20-$30K. This is a lot for an early stage business, and it may be difficult to justify without concrete proof that it will help bolster sales and the customer relationship. Investing in a chatbot, fundamentally requires a leap of faith, and it can also diminish (or deplete) available funds for other forms of marketing. It is not surprising that the relatively simple-to-use chatbot plugin for Facebook has become common. From the 2016 launch to mid-2018, there were over 300,000 active chatbots on Facebook.

Also, chatbots need to be able to pass the (prospective) customer to a live agent if the customer becomes frustrated, or if they are not getting the information they need. It is often difficult for small businesses to make this transition from bot to human interaction seamless. A bot can book an appointment with a customer representative, but there is often a few hours delay (or more) and this means that the “lead” might grow cold or even find an alternative product online.

So, is a chatbot the right thing for a social enterprise? In truth, chatbots are becoming the norm on many commercial websites, and in the last few years, online users appear to be embracing them as useful tools to help them access information on a company or its products. However, chatbots are most useful only if your customers embrace them and only if they work well. They can be particularly effective for businesses that have high web traffic, and in cases were simple responses are all that is needed in most circumstances. If your business sells a toy that has specifications that are important to share (are they recyclable, for example) that is an easy question to answer. However, if your business is selling facilitation services, then answering a prospective client in person might be a better way to convey your value.

Social Delta has been surprised at the statistics on the effectiveness of chatbots, and therefore advises that they not be dismissed as a tool in the marketing toolbox; however, as with all marketing tools, chatbots should be evaluated by the social entrepreneur by considering their value to the business. They should strategically employ the technology if there is an expectation of benefit (financial or mission impact) that exceeds the cost (money or time or reputation).

However, social entrepreneurs should not presume the tool to be invasive or annoying; somewhat remarkably, the studies show chatbots to be a strong customer cultivation tool in many cases.

Remembering Barb McInnis

July 5, 2021 / jonathanawade

I have just learned that Barbara McInnis, the social justice visionary and advocate we all aspire to be, passed away last Friday in Ottawa. My condolences go to her family and to our whole social change community, which has lost a champion.

Barb–everybody called her by her first name–was friendly to a fault, convincing without being pushy, a diligent and humble citizen, and a woman of conviction and purpose. She was easy to approach, always willing to offer advice, guidance, information and support for any idea that might benefit our community, both locally and beyond. Many of her achievements, including the co-founding of the Ottawa Community Foundation, have been chronicled in her obituary, and in the many tributes to her.

However, it was not only her many achievements that will be her legacy; Barb was a leader without hierarchy. Much is said of the value and aspiration to create egalitarian structures in our society, but she lived this ideal in practice, as a person in a position of power and influence, and yet still accessible, personable, and genuinely interested in the lives of all she met.

Barb, in my mind, had mastered that elusive form of leadership, where people–people like me–felt compelled to follow her because she was one of us, yet she had clarity of purpose. She was magnetic. Her achievements are simply a testament to her magnetism. They are the outcomes, the signposts, of a life well lived, with fairness, firmness and commitment.

May we all aspire to be like Barb, and work tirelessly, and with meaningful human interactions that include people on the journey to social improvement.

I, like so many others, are fortunate to have called Barb our friend and I will miss her influence, her ideas, her support and her bubbly, smiling, personality.

Plastic Bricks. Of course.

February 10, 2021 / jonathanawade

Every once and a while a story crosses our desk that makes us wonder why nobody had done that sooner.

Nzambi Matee is a social entrepreneur in Kenya who is making construction-grade bricks out of plastic that are purportedly 7 times stronger than concrete.

We always hear that plastics take generations to decompose and break down, and yet few of us might have asked ourselves the question: “In what circumstances do we specifically need something that will never deteriorate?”

The answer is blindingly obvious: buildings, walls and walkways.

We celebrate the longevity of Roman roads, medieval castles, the pyramids, Angkor Wat, and the crypts beneath Paris’s streets. We have been (over) building with concrete for decades to create edifices–from dams to skycrapers–that we hope will stand the test of time.

At the same time we are producing plastic waste that is clogging our waterways and burdening our landfills.

Matee is an engineer who has designed a heat and pressure process to combine plastic waste (of various grades) with sand to create strong and colorful building bricks. A sort of lifesize Lego. She designed and built the machines necessary, and since 2017 her company, Gjenge Makers, has repurposed 20 tons of plastic waste. The factory now creates 1500 bricks a day.

The social benefit of Matee’s work goes beyond environmental sustainability. She is also proactively creating employment for women and youth in Nairobi, including jobs for “pickers” who are often facing significant barriers to employment. Click here for more information, and to view a video celebrating this incredible business venture.

Social Delta celebrates the social entrepreneurs like Nzambi Matee who take equal parts dissatisfaction, conviction, ingenuity, skill and savvy to solve a social problem and meet a market need at the same time.

We are inspired. We hope you are too.

Remembering Barb McInnis

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