Going through a major overhaul

This site will be revamped soon. Please check back. Thanks, Mac

I am working on rethinking how I will use this site

I have been so busy with client work recently that I have been delinquent in sharing my thoughts. I plan to do so soon.

For those of you who don’t know me, please review old posts (some very old) and learn more about what I think about. My values and priorities remain the same. Always happy to hear from you.

And in the meantime, my apologies for not keeping current. Mac

The unemployment struggle and basic survival benefits

Too many people are blaming the poor and the unemployed and underemployed when not enough are willing to address the issues of the loss of working class jobs.

Letter to the editor: Devil is in the details on food stamp cut

A business commitment to “the local”

In my work with sustainable businesses, I never forget that social responsibility includes jobs.

fhttp://www.pressherald.com/2014/11/29/maine-voices-businesses-could-stimulate-states-economy-by-embracing-buy-local

After returning from Social Venture Network

SVN is basically my tribe. Having been a member since 1989, I have done almost 100% of my work directly or indirectly with its members- people who believe that business can be- must be- the catalyst for social and environmental common sense.

I went to 18 consecutive meetings through the 90s, but work kept me away for most of the last ten years, except for a few. So, it was with joy that I returned to Baltimore last weekend to reconnect with friends, to have an audience who are genuinely interested in what I am thinking about- especially employing the disenfranchised, and to identify new fellow travelers to do consulting with.

I am particularly excited to have already heard from two local community groups from former mid-sized industrial cities that now have daunting poverty, weak prospects and that are looking to develop an integrated model that will build stronger community with the inclusion of its most fragile citizens. I am looking forward to the possibility that I will be able to help them through this process, which will require the participation of groups that don’t always play well together.

 

 

 

 

Sustainability and Social Equity: Why the Disconnect?

I have spent the last two months studying postings on LinkedIn and Facebook as well as announcements regarding conferences, webinars and multiple other formats, all under the broad heading of SUSTAINABILITY or SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS. My survey confirmed  what I had already suspected. The Sustainability community is effectively 100% devoted to issues related to Climate Change and the Environment, more often than not about technology, measurement and investment strategies; and the People/Social Equity component, with rare exception, has gone off the radar screen. I find this to be a disappointing trend. I continue to be an ardent supporter of all climate/environment/green initiatives; but the dropping of the parallel priority is disheartening, as the impact of the deteriorating state of the middle and particularly the lower middle class on our economy is getting almost insurmountable.

I can already feel the rumblings of a response that says: we are already working as hard as we can. Why is this the job of sustainable business? HERE’S WHY:

As a full-time consultant and CEO in the Socially Responsible Business world since 1989, I have an historical perspective which informs my thinking. Using the benchmark of the founding of Social Venture Network in 1987, the commitment of members of this community (and its early spinoff affiliates: Business for Social Responsibility, Students for Responsible Business (now Net Impact) and Investor’s Circle) was simultaneously to “planet, people and profit,” with “people” referring particularly to the folks who do the real labor. The change in the early language from double bottomline to triple bottomline only confirmed that each of the three legs of the stool was important.

On the social equity front, there were early attempts by socially responsble entrepreneurs to address fairness for all participants in the capitalist system. Not all were successful, and some may have even been utopian or naive; but they all demonstrated a commitment to reasonable equity:

     –     When I was hired to run a large natural foods coop distributor (all workers were owners), I accepted a salary that was no more than five times the lowest paid worker. Other companies had similar models, with a range of ratios.

     –     Even in relatively low pay fields, there was a commitment to pay for a majority, if not more, of health insurance for all employees.

     –     With more jobs moving overseas, some fought the tide and kept jobs in this country- even if it put them at a competitive disadvantage. As exemplified by Ben and Jerry’s and the Greyston Bakery (which I ran for three years), some reached out to suppliers that were employers in underserved communities.

There remains a short list of companies and categories where the “people factor” is still part of the commitment. Individual companies like Eileen Fisher and IceStone are aware of the impact their business decisions have on the average worker, both inside and outside their companies, and try to respond as best as they can in a competitive marketplace. And segments of the natural foods industry demonstrate their commitment both internationally via Fair Trade and domestically in their work with local farmers. But the list is indeed short.

As the Socially Responsible business world morphed into the Sustainable Business world, many of us assumed that all the priorities of the earlier community would carry forward. They have not. The marketplace rules and is driven by competition, unrelenting cost management, expectations of investors, regulatory oversight and a multitude of the other factors of doing business.

But, since the late 70s in this country, the impact on working people of globalization and the “efficiencies” of technology is a crisis that is getting worse. To create a partial list, that impact on the now multiple millions of unemployed and underemployed includes, for many: family disruption, food insecurity, spousal abuse, addiction and incarceration. Their sense of self worth and hope for the future is shattered, and in one way or another we are devoting a steadily increasing amount of our governmental, personal and charitable dollars in response.

So, I can hear the question rising again: why is this the responsibility of sustainable business? Frankly, it is everyone’s responsibility; but it needs to be inspired by a community that has made VALUES part of its business model. If a few companies commit, either internally or through their supply chain, to a small piece of business that employs people who have been excluded, whether urban or rural, it could create a tidal wave of ethical response, not dissimilar to the slow but steady growth in green practices in the broader business world.

I have made a personal commitment to prioritize this problem in my work and am seeking out fellow travelers (entrepreneurs, foundations, non-profits) to partner with. I am not naive enough to think that we are ever going to return  to the core manufacturing jobs that started disappearing thirty or more years ago; but this is a disease that will only get worse if we don’t try to treat it. We must be inventive about new opportunities that are not simply service sector  jobs that pay minimally and are a poor fit for many.

I expect that this will take an hybridic effort with business and non-profit alliances, and even faith-based communities,  that together can walk the narrow and complex path between social mission and profitable enterprise. Remember that a lot of folks have now been disconnected for more than a generation, and the reentry is more complex than “giving them a job.” Frankly, we all know that government is not going to do it, and picketing Walmart and fast food chains for higher wages is a bandaid that may not even yield any results.

I understand this complexity and would love to hear from anyone who would like my help.

I am also interested in hearing stories of successful models that may be replicated. Please share them with me.

I plan to be writing more about this challenging subject, so sign up for my blog to hear more.

Mac

Talk by Bernie Glassman Living a Life that Matters October 8, 2013 7:00 PM Portland, Maine

The Cathedral Church of Saint Luke

Invites you to a Talk by

Tetsugen Bernie Glassman

“Living a Life that Matters”

Tuesday, Oct. 8th, 7 pm at St. Luke’s Cathedral, 143 State St., Portland

Freewill offering to support the work of St. Luke’s Cathedral

Bernie Glassman is a renowned Zen Buddhist teacher. After two decades as senior student of Taizan Maezumi Roshi, Bernie moved from Los Angeles to Yonkers, NY and created the Greyston Foundation, a network of social business and services that is recognized as a model of conscious business practice and urban poverty reduction. The Greyston Bakery is known for making the brownies for Ben and Jerry’s best-selling Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream.

Bernie more recently founded Zen Peacemakers and has led thousands of participants in street retreats and the annual interfaith Auschwitz Bearing Witness Retreat. Zen Peacemakers today consists of a network of 73 formal affiliates on 5 continents.

This year Bernie released a new book The Dude and the Zen Master (written with his friend, actor Jeff Bridges). He will sign copies purchased after the talk.

Come schmooze with Bernie at a light supper the previous evening (Monday, October 7^th, 6:00) and support the work of St. Luke’s Cathedral at Local Sprouts, 649 Congress Street, Portland.  Reservations at  https://www.eventbrite.com/event/8269202407.  ($50.00 to attend)

For Information: Contact St. Luke’s Cathedral  772-5434  office@cathedralofstluke.org

EMPLOYING THE DISENFRANCHISED

The Situation:

For the last four decades, historically working class jobs in the United States have either been transferred to low labor cost countries or been eliminated through the efficiencies of technology and innovation. The workers who filled these jobs, whom I have generically labeled disenfranchised, are often less educated, do not present themselves well and can carry social stigmas, such as long-term poverty, former substance addiction, incarceration and indeed race.

For decades prior, these workers were the backbone of healthy economies. As long as they demonstrated a solid work ethic, they held jobs that allowed them to support their families in a stable if modest lifestyle.

The options for full gainful employment for these workers have severely diminished and continue to do so. They end up in far lesser paying jobs, far less fulfilling jobs or jobs that are not economically viable to support an individual, let alone a family. Corporations that were historically “of a place” and committed to the well-being of that place and its citizens have abandoned that tradition to instead support greater profitability and return on investment to their shareholders, with little regard for the impact on their former home community and its citizens.

As William Julius Wilson recognized in his 1996 book, When Work Disappears, that change has had debilitating and long-term consequences. Wilson describes the impact on minority, urban communities when primary corporate employers and the smaller companies that support them withdraw, a trend now found in rural and even suburban areas as well. The results at both the personal and community levels have been devastating, with visible symptoms including increased substance abuse, family disruption, incarceration, foreclosure, personal bankruptcy, reliance on social services, emergency room visits in place of accessible health care as well as, for the community, loss of tax bases along with reductions in local government services, including schools, police and fire departments.

We now have our second or third generation of children who do not see their parents going to jobs that can support their families (especially with the accompanying burden of diminished healthcare benefits); and we have no idea what the long term impact of that kind of role modeling will have on future generations.

The Current Response:

Over the past few months I have spoken to local and national leaders, challenging them to identify solutions to this dire situation. The response has been almost predictably two-fold: 1. they agree that it indeed is a problem of epic proportions, influencing millions and likely tens of millions of people and devastating communities; and 2. when I ask for ideas or solutions, their responses range from nothing to well-worn platitudes.

Government leaders, especially those at the local level, are deeply concerned as the lesser skilled unemployed and underemployed weigh more heavily on their diminishing resources. Their solutions are to improve the local economy through development of high-growth forward-looking businesses (believing that “all boats will rise together”) and to support retraining their citizens to work in these new businesses. While neither of these is a bad strategy in and of itself, they do not address the employment of the ever increasing number of community members who are willing to work hard but who are minimally educated and won’t be “going to Community College to get a computer certificate.”  

In my own city of Portland, Maine, our forward-thinking Mayor is doing a great job of promoting our city as a destination for new, small hip technology ventures but has no idea what to do about the former employees of the closed hot dog factory, the severely downsized chicken processing plant or the nearby closure of a Hostess factory (together about 1,000 jobs).

At the national level, politicians of all persuasions obsess with solutions to support the Middle Class. They all have programs for training and the creation of “middle class jobs,” but I have yet to hear a single recommendation to support the work aspirations of the true working class.

Corporate Leaders realize that this tsunami of underemployment and lack of employment at the lower end is an impending disaster, but they say that they must remain competitive by providing the best products at the best prices (i.e. lowest labor cost) and by employing a lean, agile and highly contributing team. And yet, I have spoken to enough of these leaders, and especially those who feel a moral imperative, some of which may be faith-based, who are aware of the impact that business decisions have had over the last decades and agree that corporations have an obligation to contribute to the solution. They just don’t know how, and there are always other more pressing priorities.

As someone who has been a consultant and CEO exclusively in the Sustainable (formerly Socially Responsible) Business world since 1989, I do want to note the particular disappointment that I have in this community’s response to the issue. If you read the Mission Statements of these companies, there is almost always a bullet point on the importance of Social Equity. And yet, when one asks company leadership how they have implemented that point, the silence is usually profound. There are a few wonderful exceptions, and they should be celebrated; but as a whole, the green/climate change efforts are always foregrounded with little or no space for issues of social equity.

Non-Profit Leaders are the most attuned to this problem because for many their missions are focused on the communities of citizens who have been most severely impacted. Their own limitations are in two areas. First, their missions and their strategies are focused on the symptoms of the crisis; and second, their skills at actual sustainable jobs creation are often minimal.

Having worked with non-profits whose missions focus on homelessness, hunger, and family disruption, I am consistently impressed with how they deal with these growing crises. They are nimble; they are solution oriented; and they are skilled at doing more with less. But when I was recently meeting with the National Field Organizer of a successful organization in the United States that addresses homelessness (www.100khomes.org), I asked her if she was ever frustrated  dealing with the symptom of a problem and not with the cause (in this case lack of gainful employment). Her answer was immediate: Yes, the cause must urgently be addressed, but we are barely able to deal with the symptom.

Non-profit leaders have on many occasions tried to create work opportunities for their clientele, but with a few exceptions they are frankly not very skilled at it. Their priority is understandably on the immediate needs of their clients, and that priority supersedes building a longer term sustainable workplace.

While the number is tiny in relation to the need, there are non-profits that have had success in creating work opportunities in disenfranchised communities. Two are the Greyston Foundation and its Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, NY and Rubicon Programs in California. Their success has been employing “hard to employ” individuals in profit-making businesses, but that success has been enhanced by strong support services and committed customers.

Summary:

The challenge as I have defined it is daunting; and yet it never seems to attract attention because there are always more “urgent” issues. But it is not going away, and the population in question continues to grow from its already large base.

As I see it, the real opportunity is for corporations to take the lead but in full and enthusiastic partnership with government, social service agencies and even faith-based organizations.

To use the Greyston Bakery as a simple model of the kind of opportunity that can exist: one CEO (Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry’s) asked the head of a faith-based social service organization (the Greyston Foundation), which was devoted to employing disenfranchised residents and had a for- profit bakery, to develop one small ingredient (a brownie) to put into an ice cream flavor. It would have been a much easier decision to let a Purchasing Manager find an existing bakery to make this product. Today the Greyston Bakery is an enterprise with more than 60 jobs in a community that is a prime example of those described in Wilson’s book mentioned above.

To put it simply, what would happen if every corporation took a small piece of its operations (an ingredient, a product, a service) and committed it to an organization (for-profit or non-profit) that was employing people who were ready and willing but excluded from the work force? There is clearly no quick fix, universal solution to a crisis that has taken decades to develop. But a few new models, communicated and celebrated both locally and nationally, could ignite a change in priorities and create a groundswell of corporate commitment to a group of people who have been abandoned and are going to be with us for the foreseeable future.

Mac McCabe    

August, 2013

 

 

Ensuring a Charter School offers healthy choices

Two peninsulas down from my photo above is a new Charter School where the local junior high and high school kids, many the children of fishing families, will learn about the aquacultural and agricultural environment that their families have lived in for generations. I am proud to have helped them get healthy options and have the sourcing of their food be part of their curriculum.

 

http://www.theforecaster.net/news/print/2013/08/22/harpswell-coastal-academy-orders-take-out-charter/170080

Is your sustainable business really sustaining itself?

In the early 90s during the infancy of the socially responsible business world, there was nothing more exciting than getting together for a weekend retreat or a regional gathering of entrepreneurs who were convinced that this new model for doing business was the salvation of business, of people and of the planet. We were thrilled to see each other; we excitedly shared new ideas and new endeavours; and we celebrated each other’s successes.

What we did not talk about was what was not working, what was keeping us up at night, and what  terrified us about our businesses. Mostly later at night, often after several drinks, the real stories, the true complexities of running businesses started to leak out. And once one entrepreneur told his or her truth, others began to open up. These admissions actually made the community stronger because we could admit that starting any business was hard–starting one where responsible values were being incorporated was often even harder.

We are now in a moment where you are part of a substantial and growing community of entrepreneurs who are passionate about the role of sustainability in solving our world’s daunting problems. You have a vision; you have your own particular idea about how you can can be part of the solution; and indeed you are surrounded by a community of friends and fellow entrepreneurs who enthusiastically support and cheerlead your efforts and commitments. Every day, you receive emails and social media, and you have phone or face-to-face interaction with people who celebrate what you are doing.

But one thing that has not changed since the 90s, what is keeping you up at night, is the day-to-day struggle of making your business a success. The business world, especially for a startup or early stage business, is highly competitive and is fraught with obstacles and challenges; and on top of it all you are creating a business that in addition to aiming for financial success has a mission to do things honorably and sustainably.

That’s where I come in. For over thirty years I have worked at the intersection of small business consulting and sustainable/socially responsible business consulting. There are a lot of advisors who offer excellent service in one or the other; but my experience and expertise land where the two come together. During these decades, I have been a consultant, an advisor and even an interim or long-term executive exclusively for companies–and non profits–that prioritize sustainability and social responsibility.

Does any of the following sound familiar?

– You are feeling lost because your results look nothing like your plan.

– Your business is growing faster than you expected, and  you are not sure how to take the next step.

– You feel like your financial objectives are getting in the way of your sustainability objectives–or vice versa.

– You need more financing and are having trouble knowing how to go about finding it.

– You are unhappy with your accounting or financial controls–or are not even sure if you understand what you are looking at.

– You have a construction project that is out of control.

– You are having problems with existing staff, or you don’t know whom to hire next.

I am experienced and easy to get along with. I do not use a formulaic approach but listen carefully. I will work with you to find solutions that you will feel comfortable with. I give honest but supportive feedback and see messy complex problems as challenges. 

Please contact me!