On Purpose + Profit - A letter to #PwC about copyright

It was December 2010 when our founder working in Ukraine contacted PwC through their web portal. USAID (East Europe Foindation)  and The British Council had by then been introduced to our work on a development centre for social enterprise. So too had the APPG on Ukraine and the FCO..

 "I understand PwC is working with East Europe Foundation and British Council on BC's SE Project in Ukraine.

I'm pleased to see this effort, and commend you on volunteering.

However, there are some unaddressed legal issues involved. Namely, copyright. The entire project derives from

I'm not sure it would be appropriate to call the project to a halt on grounds of Intellectual Property Rights violations because the project is so badly needed for Ukraine. I am sure that the Ukrainian side will not think twice about IPR violations. Ukraine remains among the worst locations in the world for such violations. Without IPR protections, it is extremely unlikely that social enterprise can take root in Ukraine. Reason: any social enterprise project, anywhere in the world, which is capable of turning a profit can have the 'social' part stripped out in favor of increased financial profit. If you understand Ukraine, you surely understand that is instinctive. There is no cognitive loop involved. Ukrainians see no point and assign no importance for IPR. IPR theft is an Ukrainian sport.

By contrast, UK and the US do understand IPR protections. There is no way forward without establishing IPR protections from the start of this project in Ukraine. It is incumbent upon UK and US partners to set the course and hold fast to it.

Therefore, on principle, by law as understood in UK and the US, and to foster the viability of the entire SE project, it is appropriate and necessary to square IPR issues before the project proceeds further. It can be shut down entirely, but that does no good for anyone except to reinforce the importance of IPR.

I shall look forward to your response, and will contact EEF and BC separately.

In the meantime, I wish all of you the best of holidays. And this note for the Christmas season: I'm not Scrooge, but maybe more the ghost of Christmas present. Remember Ignorance and Want at the end of that chapter.

With best wishes,

Terry Hallman

Founder

People-Centered Economic Development"

When he died a year later, A local NGO wrote of his efforts and the children who were of no concern to mafia

It began in 2004, when our profit-for-purpose business model was introduced to the UK  in an interview, saying: "The P-CED model is not a charity sort of operation. It is business. What we choose to do with profits is entirely up to us, and we choose before anything else happens to set most of our profits aside to assist poor people. In fact, our corporate charter requires us by law - UK law, where rule of law is very well established - to use our profits only for social benefit. We cannot do anything else with it. " 

The Micmarket article - Re-imagining Capitalism: The New Bottom Line included key points from the 'Marshall Plan proposal  

"An inherent assumption about capitalism is that profit is defined only in terms of monetary gain. This assumption is virtually unquestioned in most of the world. However, it is not a valid assumption. Business enterprise, capitalism, must be measured in terms of monetary profit. That rule is not arguable. A business enterprise must make monetary profit, or it will merely cease to exist. That is an absolute requirement. But it does not follow that this must necessarily be the final bottom line and the sole aim of the enterprise. How this profit is used is another question. It is commonly assumed that profit will enrich enterprise owners and investors, which in turn gives them incentive to participate financially in the enterprise to start with.

That, however, is not the only possible outcome for use of profits. Profits can be directly applied to help resolve a broad range of social problems: poverty relief, improving childcare, seeding scientific research for nationwide economic advancement, improving communications infrastructure and accessibility, for examples – the target objectives of this particular project plan. The same financial discipline required of any conventional for-profit business can be applied to projects with the primary aim of improving socioeconomic conditions. Profitability provides money needed to be self-sustaining for the purpose of achieving social and economic objectives such as benefit of a nation’s poorest, neediest people. In which case, the enterprise is a social enterprise.'

PwC are now promoting what the 'Marshall Plan argued about business for purpose: Arianna Huffington sings their praises:

When it came to a discussion about Cultivating Empathy, she'd not been keen to engage.

The Backstory

Organisations like USAID and The British Council are the soft channels through which our governments stike deal with despotice regimes like Quatar and Ukraine. Both had been introduced to our proposal but childcare reform was a step too far when it comes to social enteprise.

The British Council / USAID intiiative brought in several of the corporations run by Ukraine's leading oligarchs with no particular brief for tackling corruption or civic engagement, The call on USAID to support an anti-corruption network had fallen on deaf ears .       

These organisations will allways be ready to accommodate the plutocrats.  

“As the 60th anniversary of the Marshall Plan came around in June 2007, noise was emerging within Ukraine of a certain political boss preparing a Marshall Plan for Ukraine.  This person was a reputed mob boss — exactly the sort of entity that the original Marshall Plan meant to oppose.  It seemed most likely that whatever he came up with would be self-serving, hijacking the label ‘Marshall Plan’ and turning the whole notion on its head.  I reviewed the original Marshall Plan and realized that what I had written was, in fact, the definition and spirit of the original Marshall Plan.  Thus, in June 2007, I appended the original title with “A Marshall Plan for Ukraine.”  After some discussion among trusted colleagues over timing, I published an abbreviated version of the paper in two parts in August 2007 in the ‘analytics’ section of the Ukrainian news journal for-ua.com.”

Ukraine's PM of the day Yulia Timoshenko had commented too: 

"Not so a long ago Rinat Akhmetov threatened to hire the clever American experts and write for Ukraine the plan of development on the nearest 20-30 years in a prospect, Yulia Tymoshenko press service reported.

According to plan (read by myself in the internet), it must have been, at least, "Marshall plan for Ukraine". However nobody knows either Marshalls are finished there, behind the ocean or something worse has happened. But as a result instead of Marshall plan we received the “proFFesor’s plan” as usual.

I analyze stage-by-stage implementation of "Marshall plan" from Akhmetov and become convinced that it was written, probably, by domestic specialists (“marshalls” or generals from SCM-group), because it will never occur to any average manafort to put a first issue of such plan a task to "steal "Dniproenergo" at a state”.

It was Bloomberg who confirmed the involvement of Western management consultant:

"Election spending in Ukraine is opaque, but both Akhmetov and Firtash are widely thought to have sponsored Yanukovych’s campaigns. Even as they have supported an increasingly authoritarian Yanukovych at home, however, Akhmetov and Firtash have invested heavily in building their reputations in the West.

Akhmetov’s System Capital Management JSC is a partner of the Swiss-based World Economic Forum. It has used the services of, or attracted financing from, Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG, the U.K.’s Royal Bank of Scotland Plc and Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International AG. Firtash has made generous donations to the University of Cambridge. This year he started financing the Days of Ukraine festival in the U.K., held at prestigious sites in London, such as the Saatchi Gallery.

The two men have also hired prominent Western consulting companies, including McKinsey & Co. Inc., to develop an economic plan for Ukraine, while bolstering Yanukovych, who is the biggest obstacle to any reasonable economic policy."

It hasn't ended yet. The Huffington Post,more than most, has promoted the most recent move involving Firtash and a "Plan To Save Ukraine"

"Firtash promised to come up with a master plan to attract a whopping $300 billion for the beleaguered country in the next 200 days. The self-styled "Marshall Plan for Ukraine" seeks to address the structural deficiencies in the Ukrainian society, restart growth and lift Ukraine from its status as the former soviet bloc's worst performing economy."

What readers won't ever get to know is that Lord Risby who "lends his name" to this initiative and the British Ukrainian Society were among those introduced to the 'Marshall Plan for Ukraine' back in 2007:. I'd already contacted the APPG for Ukraine with no response. Their secretary at the time had been my MP Tom Cox who'd responded testily to my request for his help, 

Azra Zakir < > wrote:

Dear Jeff

 Thank you for your email. I have forwarded it on to both Richard Spring and John Grogan , Chairman of the APPG on Ukraine . If it’s difficult for you to come to London for a meeting, I can very easily travel to wherever you are based. I have spent a lot of time going and meeting people and organizations with a link to Ukraine to build up our links with all key organizations. Now that we know about you, I would be more than happy to come to you for a meeting. I look forward to hearing from you in due course.

 Best regards

 Azra   

The bottom line is this. for all the posturing about "doing well by doing good",when it comes to the worst of the problems, business will always seek the greatest return for the minimum commitment. These businesses and their leaders collude with greedy moguls to pontificate about social return. They do nothing.

In 2010 Axiom News reported on the primary focus of our work in Ukraine 

"Hallman is currently investigating the setup of a multi-million dollar fund offering split financial ROI if needed, that is, a portion to investor(s) and the remainder to P-CED.

The funds will be directed to concluding a project in the Ukraine which involves funding the training of residents to develop social businesses. Included in this work is supporting children who have disabilities, many of whom have been left to die in secretive locations. P-CED is helping to move these children to safety and give them access to modern healthcare".

When it comes to journalism, it's very much a matter of who pays the piper. As we's known with the story of Torez. The reports of 'Death Camps For Children' described as groundbreaking by Maidan NGO would surface 5 years later when the Sunday Times published their breathtaking hypocrisy:

:"We are all guilty of inaction. The violation of human rights in Ukraine is one of the pressing issues of our day. The suppression of freedom of speech, the control of the right of assembly, the oppressive use of the tax police and the blatant banditry of the road police however all pale into insignificance when compared to the wanton starvation of disabled children by those whom the state has empowered to protect them."

The 'Marshall Plan for Ukraine as published by For-ua in August 2007.- as shared with the APPG on Ukraine and many others included this as one of the initiial paragraphs:

"The most urgent component of the project below is relief and modern medical treatment for tens of thousands of Ukraine's children diagnosed as psychoneurologically handicapped. Many have died in state care, in primitive and inhumane conditions. Many are misdiagnosed, and end up in atrocious conditions. Following intense publicity and public discussion of the issue during final preparation of this project, Ukraine's government agreed on 5 March, 2007 to open more than 400 new treatment facilities for these children all over Ukraine. That commitment from Ukraine’s government was a major step forward, clearly demonstrating Ukraine’s willingness and ability to take initiative in childcare reform first and foremost."

We live in a parallel universe it seems. When those who put their lives on the line for social change are seemingly invisible to those who incredibly deliver the same arguments, as if we had never existed.  As if these children had never been born.

How can we export democracy, let alone social purpose,  to another country when politicians, journalists and even all party parliamentary groups align with the interests of oligarchs and deny us a voice?.