During the holidays, it feels great to give that just-right gift to a special someone you know and love. What can feel less great is the nagging uncertainty about whether the money you spent on that token of gratitude is being put to good use by the companies you gave it to.
If mass-market, big-box shopping this season is starting to feel like a bit of an existential bummer, there is another way: Consider purchasing a present or two from a social enterprise.
“A social enterprise is a for-profit or nonprofit entity that creates some sort of social value as well as financial value,” Cathy Clark, faculty director of the Center for the Advancement of Social Enterprise at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, said in a phone interview. “When you buy something from a for-profit entity, you’re creating financial value for somebody. A social enterprise is saying, ‘We’re going to do that, but we’re also going to identify a target stakeholder of this business, and we’re going to try to enhance that stakeholder’s value in some way.’”
These stakeholders are often people contending with poverty, disability, substance issues, domestic violence, or other adversities. Many social enterprises are structured so that the stakeholders not only benefit from fair pay, career enhancement, and support services funded by the social enterprise but are also the people making the goods that these entities sell to generate revenue for those very programs.
While plenty of for-profit entities donate to worthy organizations or partner with nonprofits on deserving causes, those that operate as social enterprises typically offer greater evidence of their commitment to their social mission.
They may have earned third-party-verified B Corp Certification, for example, or they may share “impact reports” online that detail how their work has positively affected the communities they’re designed to serve. Clark also said that gift guides published by philanthropic-minded organizations such as REDF and Stand Together are good places to look.
There’s also a certain beauty—and a few socioeconomic advantages—to giving something tangible and handmade with a meaningful story behind it.
“Social enterprises that are working on rehabilitation or workforce development tend to focus on labor-intensive businesses,” said William Rosenzweig, faculty co-chair at the University of California Berkeley Haas Center for Responsible Business, in a phone interview. “Baking bread or putting seeds in seed packets by hand takes a lot of people, and that’s what they want: to employ a lot of people, even if that’s inherently inefficient from a capitalist perspective. They’re not trying to measure how much money they can make. They’re trying to measure how many people they can help.”
Below are six social enterprises we’ve vetted that can help your holiday gifts spread even more joy.
