Social Business
Concept of non-profit/non-loss business proposed by Mohammed Yunus after his experience with the Grameen Bank.
Description
Sanjay Perera:
"In his latest book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, Yunus explains that a social business is an enterprise quite different from a cooperative or a charity. It is essentially a business set up to provide necessities for the poor like drinking water, food or healthcare.
In Yunus's own words on social businesses from the book:
"...a business designed to meet a social goal...a business that pays no dividends. It sells products at prices that make it self-sustaining. The owners of the company can get back the amount they've invested in the company over a period of time, but no profit is paid to investors in the form of dividends. Instead, any profit made stays in the business -- to finance expansion, to create new products and services, and to do more good for the world."
So companies or people put in capital to set up the business and provide low cost products for the poor. Once the money invested is earned by the initial investors, all other money that comes in goes towards financing the business itself. Hence, this becomes an exemplar of a self sustaining enterprise. This is a non-profit, non-loss business which does not answer to shareholders in providing them great returns on equity, just the basic sum they put in for that equity. The example looked at in detail in the book is how French corporate giant Danone provides daily yogurt cups which cost 6 euro cents (9 cents US) for the Bangladeshis."
(http://sanjayperera.blogspot.com/2008/05/money-beginning-of-end-antithesis-part_5722.html)
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