October 30, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Leaders of nonprofit groups that run businesses to promote their causes offer their advice for success in Good magazine (November/December), which devotes a special section to “the power of business to do good.”
Among them are Jessica Flannery, co-founder of Kiva, an organization that enables people to make small loans directly to struggling entrepreneurs in poor countries.
She tells the magazine that “we just started and did the best iteration we could and then we kept improving on that. And we weren’t afraid to start when it wasn’t absolutely perfect.”
She adds: “When you say no to something, you’re really saying yes to better things.”
The magazine also sought recommendations from Julius Walls Jr., president of Greyston Bakery, a Yonkers, N.Y., organization that was one of the first attempts to start a business that would provide money for a community-development group, the Greyston Foundation.
“If you’re stuck and struck with challenge — and you will be — don’t immediately default to the social mission as being the cause of failure,” he says. “It’s too easy for people walk away and say, ‘You know, that business failed because of the social mission.’ No, it failed because you stunk at running that business.”
The articles are available online.
