Huffington Post: How do I join the B Team?

The question is raised in comments on a recent article by Arianna Huffington, writing on her participation in Sir Richard Branson's B Team:

Camels and eyes of needles came immediately to mind 

About a year ago, I'd joined in a discussion on what was then Skoll Social Edge, on the subject of empathy. It was hosted by Arianna Huffington.  I wanted to point to the difference between empathy and active compassion, particularly compassion in business,

It was around the same time I'd posted this article on 'Re-imagining capitalism for people and planet' and I introduced Arianna to the work of deceased colleague Terry Hallman and his efforts to leverage support for placing institutionalised children in loving family homes. I referred Arianna to something Terry had written 5 years ago on the subject of social enterprise. 

'The corporations involved in this almost fantastical deployment of the machines and communications infrastructure that we now rely on profited for themselves and their shareholders, and certainly produced social and economic benefit around the world. Those efforts were and are so profound in influence as to transform human civilization itself. That is the Information Revolution, and it is nothing short of astonishing.

So it is safe to say that all these players in the Information Revolution — the enterprises that created it — have engendered almost immeasurable social benefit by way of connecting people of the world together and giving us opportunity to communicate with each other, begin to understand each other, and if we want, try to help each other.

It is that last phrase — “try to help each other” — which is what the phrase “social enterprise” is getting at. As Bill Gates said in 2000, “poor people don’t need computers.” and rejected a business approach to alleviating poverty. That statement served to mark the clear distinction between what traditional capitalism did and did not do. Gates’ aim at that time was to profit from people who could afford his company’s products, while those who couldn’t were largely or completely ignored. That has been the accepted limit of traditional capitalism. It has been a marvelous means of social benefit and economic advancement for many people. Nevertheless, those excluded are just left out.'

'The term "social enterprise" in the various but similar forms in which it is being used today -- 2008 -- refers to enterprises created specifically to help those people that traditional capitalism and for profit enterprise don't address for the simple reason that poor or insufficiently affluent people haven't enough money to be of concern or interest. Put another way, social enterprise aims specifically to help and assist people who fall through the cracks. Allowing that some people do not matter, as things are turning out, allows that other people do not matter and those cracks are widening to swallow up more and more people. Social enterprise is the first concerted effort in the Information Age to at least attempt to rectify that problem, if only because letting it get worse and worse threatens more and more of us. Growing numbers of people are coming to understand that "them" might equal "me." Call it compassion, or call it enlightened and increasingly impassioned self-interest. Either way, we are all in this together, and we will each have to decide for ourselves what it means to ignore someone to death, or not.' 

I suspect that last sentence will haunt me for the rest of my life. He was alluding to the children in 'Death Camps', who have since died.

My article on re-imagiing capitalism had related how in 1996 Terry began with a paper on an alternative to capitalism written when he'd served in an honorary capacity on the steering group to re-elect President Clinton and had gone on to source an experimental development initiative in Russia, a proof of concept for his social business model, know as People-Centered Economic Development.

In another article 'Every Child Deserves a Loving Family', I'd described the impact made on government policy in Ukraine.  

Well aware of the need to copyright and protect the social mission from oligarch predators, Terry had published his work in a leading web journal and I followed up by submission to the EU Citizens Consultation and later to a social business ideas compettion run by Erste Bank

First call however was the UK Social Enterprise Coalition, who I'd told: 

"Our current work is focussed on Ukraine, where we’ve recently completed a 3 year research project to bring peer group lending and social purpose business in at a national level. We’re now being  supported in the non-monetary context by local resources who are helping with language assistance and channelling the plan through to national government.

We’re proposing a business mix of revenue positive and revenue neutral activities toward a major social objective, the funding of group care homes for all Ukraine’s economic orphans and street children. Our target for external seed funding will be the Millenium Challenge account for transitional democracy. Additionally we propose a new faculty for Social Enterprise in one of Ukraine’s state universities." 

By 2009, our effort were facing threats from one direction, a smear campaign from another, while a third party was making moves to hijack our published work.  Terry Hallman, our founder, waa chronically ill and needed medication but had no health insurance. 

While Terry was sill alive that year, I read about Sir Richard Branson's pitch on business needing to focus more on social problems. It was delivered at the Ukrainian lunch at Davos. We'd been operating in Ukraine as a business focussing on social problems and what he was saying was pretty much what we's said in a proposal 7 years earlier, for tackling homelessness and poverty among Ukraine's repatriated Tatars.  This was where we began in 1996, with the new bottom line, of business with a focus on humanity.I didn't try to join the B Team that year, I wrote to Virgin Unite who were soliticiting project ideas,  suggesting that I could help build such an entity.

Hello Virgin Team,

I'd submitted several suggestions to your website with no response and this was a follow to explain our work.

At the Ukrainian lunch in Davos, Richard Branson gave a talk suggesting that business should focus more on social problems.

http://pinchukfund.org/en/news/archive/2009/01/29/986.html

This is what we've been doing in Ukraine for 7 years to reach the point that our efforts have persuaded government to adopt changes to childcare policy. We're a small business rendering 100% profit to do something about the plight of orphans and street children in Ukraine.

One of my submitted suggestions was about raising funds to help the founder of a charity Happy Child who support sick and disabled children in Ukraine. She herself is disabled and in need of surgery.

Another suggestion is the proposal to create 10 models of excellence for the rehab centres Ukraine's government agreed to last year. Little has been done since the announcement.

If the Ukraine lunch speech was an indication of intent to apply this in Ukraine, then we're able to show the way.

Regards,

Jeff Mowatt

So what happens to those left out?