Rudyard Kipling , Profit and Purpose

"If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:"

 

(If - Rudyard Kipling)

 

For my late colleague Terry Hallman the things he gave his life to were children, broken children 

 

The civic activists who discovered his body had been the last to speak to him, reporting that 

 

"The author of breakthru report “Death camps for children” Terry Hallman suddenly died of grave disease on Aug 18 2011. On his death bed he was speaking only of his mission – rescuing of these unlucky kids. His dream was to get them new homes filled with care and love. His quest would be continued as he wished."

 

His efforts had begun 20 years ago  with in a paper delivered to the White House

 

His work on a 'Marshall Plan' for Ukraine had been delivered to government in February 2007 and soon faced the threat of hijack by one of Ukraine's oligarchs assisted by a leading management consultancy. The Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko had called him out over it

 

The 'Marshall Plan' for Ukraine had been part of the output of our "profit for purpose" business, in which profit is applied to tackle social problems. The 'Marshall Plan' had argued for the same, applied on a national level through social enterprise:

' In order to understand the overwhelming critical need for social enterprise and a formal national center to facilitate social enterprise, an operational definition for social enterprise is essential.

'Enterprise is any organizational activity aimed at a specific output or outcome. Once the output or outcome – the primary objective – is clear, an organization operating to fulfill the objective is by definition an enterprise. Business is the most prominent example of enterprise. A business plan, or organizational map, provides a reference regarding how an organizational scheme will operate to produce a specific outcome: provision of products or services in a way to create profit. Profit in turn is measured numerically in terms of monetary gains, the “bottom line.”

This is the function of classic capitalism, which has proven to be the most powerful economic engine ever devised.

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.'

We'd introduced it  to the EU,  USAID, The British Council, Erste Bank and many others

Shortly before his death we would discover that those we'd introduced our proposal to were planning their own version of this project, it excluded the primary focus of childcare reform, engaging another management consultancy, Price WaterHouse Cooper.    

Terry wrote to them reminding them of the importance of intellectual property and the need for integrity in a country where almost everything is stolen.

As his appeal to USAID had fallen on deaf ears, so had this appeal. Ukraine headed nearer to violent uprising 

As violence erupted in 2014, the same civic activists in Ukraine appealled for support from the EU, I shared it with MEPs reminding them of previous appeals.

This friends, is the foundation on which "Profit With Purpose" has been built. The sweat of other men's brows, the courage of their speaking out about organised crime and the bodies of broken children.

The tools with which to rebuild are in fact quite new:  

"Focus of this plan is on the microeconomic sector because this is the most effective way to immediately meet the fundamental objectives of a Marshall Plan: policy directed against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Tools, innovations and methodologies are available today that were not available sixty years ago for tightly-focused microeconomic development aimed specifically and very effectively at target objectives. This is not to diminish nor detract from macroeconomic factors that continue to impede Ukraine's development. Those factors include such things as tax reform, energy policy, continued reduction of systemic corruption, Constitutional reform, and fostering further development of civil society and freedom of media."