What is Social Business?

A social business is a non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a social problem. The profits are used to expand the company’s reach and improve the product/service.

Social Business in an enterprise that matches socio-environmental goals typical of the Public Sector and of Third Sector Organizations with the economic sustainability and efficiency of a traditional enterprise.
The resources invested in a Social Business, unlike those employed in aid or charity projects, keep on generating socio-environmental benefits thanks to the auto-sustainability of Social Business and can be recouped by the investor.

Professor Yunus wrote the seven principles that every Social Business must follow:

<ol>
<li><strong>Business objective will be to overcome poverty, or one or more problems (such as education, health, technology access, and environment) which threaten people and society; not profit maximization</strong></li>
<li><strong>Financial and economic sustainability</strong></li>
<li><strong>Investors get back their investment amount only. No dividend is given beyond investment money</strong></li>
<li><strong>When investment amount is paid back, company profit stays with the company for expansion and improvement</strong></li>
<li><strong>Environmentally conscious</strong></li>
<li><strong>Workforce gets market wage with better working conditions</strong></li>
<li><strong>“Do it with joy!”</strong></li>
</ol>

Seven principles of Social Busines handwritten by Muhammad Yunus

"The missing link in capitalism"

Dr. Muhammad Yunus, founder and managing director of <a href=”http://www.grameen-info.org/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Grameen Bank</a> and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been instrumental in lifting people worldwide out of poverty. He did it with the pioneering use of microcredit – supporting income generating activities by lending small amounts without collateral to the poor.
Promoter of the idea of social business, a non-loss, non-dividend company with a social objective , Dr. Yunus has founded several companies in Bangladesh to abate poverty and aid development, including mobile phone services, energy, education and health care.

Together with Grameen Bank, Dr. Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to create economic and social development .

He is the author of the best-selling books “Banker to the Poor” ,“Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism” in 2008 and “A world of three zeros” in 2017.  Most recently President Barack Obama decorated him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the USA.

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