It was only a few years ago that the corporate community regarded companies like Institute B and Potluck Cafe and Catering as do-gooders who could never make a go of it.
My, how times have changed.
Consumer awareness and online scrutiny have put pressure on companies to be more transparent.
Vancouver’s Institute B consults with and funds businesses that, according to its website, “put profit and societal value on equal footing.” Since 2010, it has aided a dozen businesses, including Richmond-based Global Gardens Group, which produces dairy-substitute products.
Vancouver’s Potluck Cafe and Catering operates by the same principles. Located in the Downtown Eastside, Potluck caters food for big corporations like Vancity, Shaw (TSX:SJR.A) and Telus (TSX:T) and provides affordable and free meals to neighbourhood residents. If you think Potluck’s business strategy is strictly small potatoes, think again. Last year, the company earned $1 million.
Both businesses are featured April 8 in the Vancity Theatre premiere of Not Business as Usual, a documentary about British Columbia businesses that practise “conscious capitalism,” placing social value on the same footing as profits.
In the case of Potluck, profit is a moot point: it is a non-profit organization.
Of the $1 million Potluck made in the last fiscal year, $400,000 went to employee salaries (18 of its 30 staff are Downtown Eastsiders who face barriers to regular employment), and $300,000 to $350,000 went toward food, including that used for the 20,000 free meals it provides annually.
“As our business has grown, sustaining those employment opportunities has also grown,” said Heather O’Hara, Potluck’s executive director.
“A million-dollar business can sustain a lot more than a $10,000-dollar business, in terms of employment.”
Corporate catering, which provides 90% of Potluck’s revenue, grows by 5 to 30% annually, said O’Hara.
And while Potluck is located in the Portland Hotel, and provides meals for the Portland’s residents, it is not part of the beleaguered Portland Hotel Society.
Darrell Kopke, also featured in the documentary, founded Institute B in 2010, wanting to “create an incubator for for-profit, social-impact corporations.”
In addition to consulting and mentoring businesses, it has raised close to $20 million to help fund companies wanting to be “conscious capitalists.” Institute B keeps half that money in the Abacus North Capital Fund, which worthy entrepreneurs can access.
A former general manager at Lululemon Athletica Inc. (NASDAQ: LULU), Kopke learned there that “the next wave of business is the ideology of sustainability,” and founded Institute B.
Entrepreneurs can approach Institute B for advice or funding, the latter achievable if they meet criteria established by the international organization B Lab. B Lab has a 200-point system used to evaluate companies and to differentiate between entrepreneurs who do good things for the world and those who are “greenwashing,” simply giving the illusion they are doing good.
A company needs at least 80 points to become a certified B corporation.
The April 8 screening of Not Business as Usual will be followed by a panel discussion involving Mark Brand of Save On Meats, W. Brett Wilson from Dragons’ Den, Joel Bakan of The Corporation and Sandra Odendahl of RBC.
