Earlier in the quarter we discussed how we could use business to help society. One of the business ventures we brought up was the Darfurstoves and their goals to help with the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. The class decided that it is not only important to want to help people but in order for it to be a sustainable solution in business it must also make money. The tricky part is that it also cannot just be about making money. This was the fallacy with the PlayPump (sorry for the spoiler for those of you who have yet to take Mgmt 495).
The PlayPump was designed to use the energy of children playing to pump water out of the ground. It could support a small village and kept women from having to walk miles to another water source. With good intentions, PlayPump International installed pumps all over parts of southern Africa with funding from donations and advertisers. Months later, when a third party went in to check on the progress, it turns out that most of the pumps were not working as promised. It seemed like PlayPumps International did not do their due diligence in researching prime locations for these pumps or for villages that wanted them. No one was willing to take responsibility for the ineffective pumps and eventually the program was abandoned.
The moral of this story is that philanthropic ventures have to chase the triple bottom line (profits, people, planet) and not lose sight of any one of the three. I do believe that it is possible for a business to succeed in this kind of venture but the leader needs to be in it for the right reasons and have a good business strategy. A new term for this type of business is 'social entrepreneurship' and there could be a future for it if business leaders can balance the priorities.
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