Posted by The Happy Tutor
The Double Bottomline and The Prose of Business
Interesting draft article by Jerr Boschee and Jim McClung, Towards a Better Understanding of Social Entrepreneurship: Some important Distinctions. (PDF). Published on the nenterprise alliance social venture forum. To join, go here. Provides a clear account of earned income, self-sustaining nonprofits operating on entrepreneurial models and serving a "double bottomline" (profit and social good, or God and Mammon.) What is interesting to me is the prose style, that of board level business people. It has vision, clarity, purpose, moderation and due order. Yet, for that very reason, it would make Wm Blake weep in frustration. When charity becomes businesslike, must we, committed to charity, work in cubicles, report to an MBA in the corner office, and generally live a prosaic business life, on behalf of social good? Or, will we still be permitted the indiscreet, immoderate speech of Diogenes, Jesus, Swift and Tom Paine? Friends! Do not let the Ends take advice from the Means. And prophets and poets, please do not take lessons in prose from Bentham and Hayek. Business prose is the prison house through whose chinks we can barely see the sky.
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