How Social Enterprises Lead the Way for a Strong Workplace

Clearsight’s Dallas-based Co-Founder and Managing Director Gretchen Frary Seay published this week a thought leadership piece on how social enterprises offer an ideal model for a strong workplace:

“The business world is tough. To succeed takes grit, determination, a little savvy, a lot of luck.

For women, it’s often even tougher because, in addition to universal challenges, we also have to contend with deep institutional biases.

But that hasn’t stopped generations of women from standing up, working hard and shouldering their way forward in the face of adversity. Today, those efforts are starting to pay off, as women are succeeding in the business world in ways our ancestors only dreamed.

Every year, American Express commissions what’s called The State of Women-Owned Business Report based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners. As its title suggests, this report tracks progress on women business owners across the country.

2018’s numbers are nothing short of exceptional. Women-owned firms now make up 40% of all firms, 31 times higher than in 1972. Between 2017 and 2018 alone, a staggering 1,821 new women-owned businesses opened every day. Businesses owned by women of color grew by 163% in 11 years.

On the state level, Texas was listed as the best state for women-owned businesses behind only South Dakota. Three Texas cities — San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas — made the Top 10 best metro areas for women entrepreneurs.

Despite this amazing progress there’s far more work to be done. In the U.S., according to Pew, women still only make up roughly 22% of Fortune 500 board members and a meager 4.8% of Fortune 500 CEOs.

Globally, the picture is even direr; women are far less likely to have stable work and are far more likely to experience abject poverty than men, according to research by the United Nations.

So how do we fix this? Partly, we have to continue doing what we’ve always done: work hard, support each other, speak out. But these days, there’s a way to use the achievements we’ve already won to help support other women around the world.

The social enterprise model shows us how.

A social enterprise is a company that uses significant amounts of its profits to support philanthropic missions like literacy or healthcare, with many focusing on women’s issues.

For example, here in Texas, there’s a women-owned social enterprise called Love 41. Love 41 sells homemade leather products and uses the profits to sponsor programs providing work-training, education, and daily necessities for women in underprivileged communities worldwide.

On the global level, nonprofit organizations are using the social enterprise model to promote women’s initiatives as well. The Toronto-based WE Movement, for example, which is hosting one of their “WE Day” events on March 27 here in Dallas, has several women in top leadership roles within their organization and has made empowering women across the globe one of their missions. Much of their efforts are funded by their affiliated social enterprise, Me to WE.

Social enterprises are leading the way for gender equality in the workplace. According to a study of social enterprises in the United Kingdom, over 41% of social enterprises are women-owned, and over half have majority-woman workforces.

Social enterprises offer a strong model for a truly equal workplace. Not only do they afford women opportunities within their organizations, but they help support women in need across the globe. The rest of the corporate world should take note.”