Social enterprise is potent: Kielburger
Free The Children cofounder Craig Kielburger says social enterprise is the world’s most significant untapped source of financial support for social good.
Social enterprises are businesses that have a public-minded mission stitched into their DNA; they make money in order to advance their cause.
Kielburger has helped build one of the country’s most successful social enterprises, Me to We, which supports the work of the international charity, Free The Children.
“I think we need innovation in the non-profit sector,” Kielburger said in a recent interview. “Because I think non-profits that traditionally rely on high levels of government funding, or on institutionalized giving, I don’t believe those are sustainable.”
Launched in 2004, Me to We offers consumers environmentally-friendly products that come with an added benefit: half of the firm’s profits go to charity. The social enterprise now sells clothes, travel, books, jewelry, accessories and greeting cards.
Since its launch, Me to We has contributed more than $5 million to Free The Children while bringing jobs and volunteers to the charity’s sponsored villages in Kenya, Ecuador and India. The social enterprise also offsets Free The Children’s expenses — the Kielburgers’ salaries, for instance, are paid by Me to We — in an effort to eliminate administration costs from the charity’s balance sheet.
According to Charity Intelligence Canada, Free The Children’s administration costs have fallen in each of the past three years and now stand at 5.4 per cent of total revenues.
Kielburger and his brother, Marc, launched the social enterprise because they were concerned that funding for some of Free The Children’s projects in Africa would dry up as the world focused its attention on Afghanistan and other strategically important countries post-9/11.
They also wanted to link consumer choices to social good, and leverage the power of the market to nudge the world in a positive direction.
Not all of their ideas have gained traction. Me to We music, for instance, did not break any sales records.
“We’ve always approached this with the spirit of an Internet startup: If it doesn’t work, acknowledge failure, innovate and try again,” Kielburger says.