Achieving positive social change through entrepreneurial ventures

David Nikolich

Social entrepreneurship is recognising social problems and achieving positive social change through entrepreneurial principles, processes, and operations.

Entrepreneurs used to be those who had an idea, started a company, and made money. They wrote a business plan, circulated the document to a bank, and worked tirelessly to scale their company and drive profits for themselves and their investors. But today, Entrepreneurs have different motivations for starting a business just as consumers have different motivations to buy.

It’s like moving the concept from the commercial incentive to ‘buy one and get one free’, to the social incentive to ‘buy one and give one to someone else’!

But it’s not just about start-up businesses

Existing businesses, including the more traditional powerhouse Company’s need to socially adapt if they are to survive and indeed thrive. They need to adopt and promote ideals such as all packaging made from 100% recycled materials, or all produce is locally sourced, or we are a carbon negative end-to-end operation.

These things are becoming increasingly important to consumers all around the world

Businesses must listen to what customers want and act accordingly. Investment Management Companies are consistently developing ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) funds to offer their clients. These are funds that let the client invest in line with their values and beliefs. The popularity of these funds has been exponential; therefore, the returns have been growing year on year, creating a favourable win/win scenario.

Our vision here at ABSTRACT is to make the corporate world a better and fairer place to work in. As such we are working with several well-known brands to create sustainable transformational change, turning the archetypal command and control pyramid upside down and empowering the right people to operate with the right behaviours, while creating the right environment for others to operate within themselves.

Our purpose is to change peoples’ lives

For the last ten years, we have been working with talented people to change the gender and diversity balance at mid-to-senior levels within large Companies and huge Corporations. So far, we have changed the lives of thousands of individuals across three continents and are really proud to continue to do so. For every delegate that attends our ACCELERATE career management development programme, we make a philanthropic donation to the charity CARE to support entrepreneurial women in third world Countries.

As you would expect, we have also been working hard to ensure that our own business has an acceptable gender and diversity balance and that we have an equal pay policy for everyone aligned to each role within the Company.

At your next committee or board meeting, ask yourselves this question; What are we doing or what could we do more of, to become a better business through social entrepreneurship?

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