How-To

The path to For-Purpose

The door is open for companies, individuals, and places to play a bigger role in creating positive growth. Read on to learn 10 Steps for becoming For-Purpose.

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Embrace Abundance

Abundance is a tool for talent retention and attraction. Because when a company cares as much about making a difference as it does about making a margin, employees really buy in.

Become Humanity-Centered

Humanity-centered design is about recognizing the impact of your company’s actions, whether you’re a local business or a global enterprise. Many decisions that companies make, like procurement, hiring and advertising, can serve bigger causes without adding costs.

Define Market Mission & Moral Purpose

Most companies know their market mission. From global brands to neighborhood restaurants, Most profitable businesses size have a market mission. But what about a moral purpose? This is a goal that’s aligned with the core capabilities of your business that aligns with the ambition, scale and clarity of your market mission. A hardware department store can be the largest supplier of construction goods and services in the US, AND help build homes in underserved communities.

Focus Philanthropy on Purpose

Companies tend to treat their giving like thinly spread peanut butter. To be truly effective, your giving should be guided by strategic thinking. For-Purpose companies know the moral purpose that they are on and don’t veer from that path. A clear moral purpose is also the easiest way to say no to worthy efforts that aren’t really a good fit for your company.

Set Bold Goals for Both Bottom Lines

When crafting a moral purpose, it’s best to start by understanding the issue you want to improve just as you do with your market mission. Whether your company is trying to address homelessness or help fund more parks, the moral purpose should be just as clear and actionable as the market mission.

Staff for Both Mission and Purpose

You need staff members that are skilled in their daily roles, while also having interests in, and knowledge of, the areas you’re trying to impact in the community. Staffing for both mission and purpose means that you’ll have a depth of understanding on your team of both bold goals that you’re pursuing and how they can benefit from being pursued together.

Pour Profits Into Purpose

It’s important to dedicate material resources to your moral mission. Ultimately, For-Purpose companies should strive to match their post-tax profits with the moral mission dollar for dollar. However, a 10% basis is a great starting point.

Adopt Long-View Accounting

In reading about the failings of current capitalism, there seems to be no greater culprit than short-term thinking and actions. The relentless quarterly demands of reporting for publicly traded companies and perverse incentives for making decisions that benefit the now while degrading the future seem to be slowly killing our economic way of being. Adoption of long-view accounting is not very different that Warren Buffett’s value investing outlook which has little to no regard for quarterly returns and always puts the focus on longterm, think 5, 10, 20 and 30 year decisions.

Measure More Than Money

Putting a clear accounting on your purpose is a great place to start. If you’ve taken responsibility for the park in your neighborhood, measure the number of people using the park at regular intervals, how many events are happening in the park or survey the neighbors about use and improvements. Focus on the other ROI—return on individuals. Employee engagement, satisfaction, turnover, and level of customer satisfaction are all ways to measure more than money.

Commit to Continuous Improvement

More than anything else, For-Purpose companies recognize that continuous improvement is the path to building better companies, better teams and ultimately a better world. If you can’t start with ten percent of post-tax profits, start with five percent and work your way up. If your market mission is much clearer than your moral mission, take one step in moving it to clarity. If you're currently swept up in the predatory powers of short-termism, resolve to work with your team to shift a material amount of attention to long-term thinking and long-term goals. Continuous improvement is a muscle that stays strong with use and must be deployed as a discipline in an on-going way.