Seven Principles of Social Business

I was recently reviewing some notes and materials discussed in a university Business Management course and came across some notes on Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. He is said to be the "Father of Micro-Finance". Whether you agree with his social agenda or not, he has begun a sort of revolution in building entrepreneurship in some extremely poverty-ridden areas of the world. The concept of micro-loans is even available in the U.S. It may be worthy of looking into.

Professor Yunus developed his programs based on Seven Principles of Social Business:

• Business objective will be to overcome poverty, or one or more problems (such as education, health, technology access, and environment) which threaten people and society; not profit maximization

  Financial and economic sustainability

Investors get back their investment amount only. No dividend is given beyond investment money

When investment amount is paid back, company profit stays with the company for expansion and improvement

Environmentally conscious

Workforce gets market wage with better working conditions

...do it with joy