Category: Social Business

WHI: Project brings clean water to poor communities

The WaterHealth International (WHI) is an established and famous company for creating safe and affordable solutions for providing drinking water in poor communities around the world. To make it possible, WHI builds smalls purification plants, where water passes through a filtering process and is disinfected by the use of UV technology, that allow water to be marketed and consumed.

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This is a classic and positive model of a social business, your initial investment can be sourced from traditional methods of charity or equity, and communities can own partial or complete, if it is structured in a cooperative system. To keep the maintenance of the stations and the remuneration of employees, the income earned from the sale of the resource to the benefit reverts to keep the active business.

Data provided by the WHI show that currently about 25% of the world population has access to contaminated water sources, which are used to own consumption or to perform everyday activities. Despite knowing this basic needs, just offer the feature does not solve the problem, so the solution of this organization is so important, in addition to offering a sustainable manner supply, helps in job creation and development of these communities.

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The great news is that more than 5 million people in India, Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia have design stations. In addition, the company recently formed a partnership with Coca-Cola the Child With Water program, which is estimated to bring drinking water to about 1 million children living in developing countries.

Want to know more about the International WaterHealth? Visit: www.waterhealth.com. Are you inspired with this initiative and would like to put your entrepreneurial spirit into practice? Make a free consultation with the project Cassio Antunes Endeavour.

KLEM Project: action generates income for poor communities in Africa

Is it possible to make a profitable business and still contribute to society? The KLEM Project shows that yes, the action was conceived by designer Lee Jinyoung, who was inspired by the style “do it yourself” to generate a source of income and put a pair of shoes on the feet of the residents of poor communities in Malawi, Africa.

To make it possible, this project is based on the business model “One for One”, which in addition to exploring and re-use native materials, makes the population less dependent and every other shoe sold is donated to a barefoot child in the world. Thus, the project installed a sales cycle that drives the region’s economy, creates jobs and still meet a social need.

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Business opportunities are everywhere, just observe, and to KLEM Project inspiration came when Lee and his team participated in an episode of the program “Design is Human”, aired by SBS TV. During the recordings and through conversations with the community, they found a serious problem, most people besides having sub-jobs were poorly paid and 40% of their expenses were met with foreign aid.

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So that residents develop the shoes are offered kits in style “do it yourself”, containing guidelines for the production, a fabric that is easily molded feet and a piece of recycled tire serving as sole.

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This business model is still on the rise, projects like KLEM and, once known brand shoes, TOMS (Shoes for Tomorrow), in addition to our Cassio Antunes Endeavour initiative, which offers free advice to entrepreneurs in underserved regions around the world shows that you can make a difference, move the economy without losing social responsibility.

Watch the video and learn a little more about KLEM Project Africa. 

What is social business?

Social business is a type of enterprise that , besides being viable from an economic point of view, has a positive impact on communities, cities or disadvantaged countries . Although it has some similarities to the more traditional models , the inspiration for its development stems from the desire to solve a social problem without impacting the environment and considering the economic feasibility of such intervention.

To better understand , we can use as an example the work of Cassio Antunes Endeavour Project, which provides free advice to entrepreneurs in poor communities around the world . What makes the organization a social business is the care of a local reality, that is for sure would not make sense if this initiative were directed to people with access to information and financial conditions to open and develop an enterprise.

In addition, a social entrepreneur does not have monetary focus and understand that the return of his initiative will not only be individual , but especially for a group of beneficiaries. On profits , some chains claim that the investor must recover from the operation only invested capital and invest profits in the development of action, a more liberal current studied by professors from Cornell and Harvard Univerdades addresses the division of profits must occur to attract new investors and make the business competitive .

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Social business : where to start?

Before starting a business in this context evaluate the market and study companies that follow the same structure of your project. Follow then the five structures used by most successful social enterprises :

Compensation: In this format a group of people pay for the service or product offered and the profit earned is transferred to people who can not afford to subsidize .

Job creation : In this structure the social enterprise aims to offer decent wages and develop the professional skills of its beneficiaries .

Connection: that the social enterprise format facilitates the business relationship between beneficiaries and new markets.
Independent support : In this format the company offers a product or service for a foreign market , that is, unrelated to their beneficiaries or the social impact generated , but uses the proceeds to support social programs.

Cooperative : Business model created by a group of people who meet through a service or product needs of its members . There are no owners in this structure and all decisions are taken by mutual agreement among the members .

Continue to follow tips on entrepreneurship here on the blog and to make a free consulting check on about Cassio Antunes Endeavour Project.