Purpose With Profit - Theory of Change

We introduced you to the Theory of Change in one of our most recent articles.

Theory of Change starts with the underlying issues we are trying to address. The assumptions, activities, outputs, outcomes and impact result from the activity.

We face planetary and humanitarian crises and share our 'why' in our Problems and Assumptions article.

Our Theory of Change has been developed based on many wicked problems. These are complex problems where solving one part can lead to many other consequences. Hence, we recommend starting with our article Five Levers Of True Planetary Sustainability.

Now, we continue to share the rest of our Theory Of Change.

Let's simplify it even further.

Our Theory of Change is seeded by one underlying hypothesis…

The world will start changing to be more sustainable and equitable when more people benefit from businesses that do good!

The Benefit is through employment, which we refer to as livelihoods.
 

By Good: these businesses serve humanity and the environment better than the current ‘business as usual’ approach.

We monitor five pillars to measure the good. These pillars are Purpose, People and Planet, strategies as well as Profit.

And the fifth is a hidden pillar called Precision. These are like Purpose + Profit + Environment + Societal + Governance in corporate language.

Our 5Ps surpass ESG!

Broadly, we consider the ‘Purpose with Profit’ as a verb, a movement, as the most important lever to empower businesses, the public, capital and governments to operate, buy, support and invest in bringing about systematic change to balance people, planet and profit. (See Five Levers)

In this article, we’ll explore:

• Four Sudharshan States of Business
• PWP – Vision Mission Values & Mantra
• Good Citizenship
• Invisible Ceiling for Purpose-led Businesses
• PWP Activities
• PWP Outputs
• PWP Outcomes
• PWP Impact

We welcome any and all feedback to create a more robust Theory of Change.

We have identified Four States of Business that we call Sudharshan States.

Sudharshan is a Sanskrit word made up of:

Su => means good

Dharshan => means vision.

Once you appreciate our Purpose with Profit approach, you’ll have ‘good vision’ to see businesses differently.

You can plot any business in the Four Sudharshan States of Business below.

On the Y axis, we have Profit (or Revenue). On the X axis, we have a Planetary Footprint, a contrast between a red planet exceeding our planetary boundaries and a blue planet where humans live in harmony with themselves and the earth.
 

Today, almost all businesses start in the Yellow quadrant, focusing on profit only. Most remain small and medium (SMEs <50 staff), and a few aspire to become larger businesses in the Red quadrant.

The planetary and humanitarian crises will exacerbate if most businesses remain in the Red and Yellow quadrants.

Like us, many have realised the profit-only model is broken and started creating impact businesses that look at the People, Planet and Profit approach.
 

Unfortunately, many of these businesses remain in the Green quadrant, with low revenue and not many livelihoods being created for several reasons (see purpose ceiling below).

We exist to help the Green quadrant to uplift to the Blue quadrant, which we playfully call the ‘Greedy For Good’ quadrant.

We have identified five streams of impact businesses:

1. Alt-proteins & vegan businesses - to reverse biodiversity loss and species extinction.
2. Social enterprises – So far, largely humanities.
3. Indigenous business – Most indigenous businesses are created because of a need and extend to serving their local community.
4. Business & ESG Consultants aligned to system change, including Bcorp.
5. Sustainability technology businesses

We believe business can be a force of good when we balance People, Planet as well as Profit – thus bringing system change.

📈 We exist to enable good businesses to scale, profitably.

🙌🏾 To enable social impact business leaders to enjoy their success

🫱🏾‍🫲🏻 Enable impact intermediaries to build stronger networks

· 🌏To live well, sustainably, with the least harm

· 💗Speak from the heart, kindly & fearlessly

· 💪🏾Perform your best, with the right Attitude and Skill & Effort

· 😁Create more Joy in Work and Life

· 💡Adapt openly to the Positive Change

· 🫱🏾‍🫲🏻Uplift the most vulnerable

Greedy For Good ™

We encourage all staff & associates to participate in the Good Citizenship – a civic duty we all hold as citizens. Pragmatically, a fifth day or 20% of the working week is dedicated to good citizenship endeavours. This can include contributing to causes, communities, or capacity building in areas we care about most. Especially to support good governance at all levels of public office.

Our social purpose is to scale up the adoption of plant-centric food to mitigate the planetary crises (plural) and public health concerns.

How we do it:

• Plant-Forward - supporting the growth of the plant-centric economy with a tribe of over 2500 members in Sydney.
   
• Actively being involved in regulatory policy-related matters, like the Australian Senate Food Labelling Inquiry.
   
• Judging Naturally Good Food Expo to elevate purpose with profit businesses.
   
• Pro-bono or low-bono coaching & advisory. We volunteer for the Small Business Mentoring Service.
   
• Constructive work as a market-building and market-enabling approach. Like supporting impact networks to grow.
   
• Donations and in-kind support to values-aligned not-for-profits, like Peanuts Wellbeing Sanctuary. They are breaking the cycle of abuse.

For example, we contributed ~150 hours to co-convening the Tamils for Yes campaign and outreach for the recent referendum for The Voice to Parliament. Progressive topics usually fail with culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

As we mature, our primary advocacy support will be to encourage plant-centric food adoption through plant-forward.

We have worked with impact businesses and founders for the last seven years. We uncovered several challenges for purpose-led impact businesses, both external and mindset.

1. Sacrifice –After seeing hundreds of businesses, we continue to see many founders ‘sacrifice’ their personal and family lives for the ‘cause’. One of our missions is to ensure the founders & senior leaders enjoy their success.
    
2. Too Much Good - Impact businesses care a LOT about many diverse topics. We observed that many ‘good’ businesses don’t grow because they try to do too much ‘good’ that they stall the business.
    
3. Expertise – Many purpose-led founders feel their business operates differently from the standard.  And they don’t have values-aligned experts to help.
    
4. Strategies – Many in the impact space do not have a commercial business background, so they may be unaware of strategies to help grow their impact business.
    
5. Network - Many impact businesses do not have a dedicated business growth network. They are largely in their infancy or standing alone, as a ‘lone wolf’ approach.
    
6. Values-Aligned Capital – Finding values-aligned capital and patient capital is also challenging. This is why founders typically approach advisors like us.
    
7. Measuring 5P’s– Many in the impact space don't measure their impact together with financial business metrics. They don’t apply a Purpose with Profit approach to cultivate and showcase their greater impact – This holds back their growth potential.

To support more businesses entering the Greedy For Good ™ state, we have identified the following activities:
 

• Core Activities (1 & 2)
• Non - Core Activities (3 - 5)
• Good Citizenship

1) Medium Impact Businesses – We are seeing a need to grow venture-backed larger impact businesses (>30 staff) that are not growing as fast as they deserve. We measure, enhance and showcase their Purpose With Profit approach – enabling them to stand out in the market. We’ll showcase these stories through publications so others can learn from these studies.

We are open to applying our strategies to impact offices to further enhance their impact assessment.

2) For Ambitious Impact Businesses & Intermediaries – we have a Ready for Growth workshop and business model network that can help:
 

a) Founders -

i) With new ways to fund & grow their business.

ii) Network & collaborate with other like-minded founders.

iii) With the motivation to see new possibilities.

b) Intermediary:

i) Increase engagement in your network.

ii) Capacity build businesses in your network

iii) Grow a new revenue stream.

3) Market Enablers – We are happy to present and consult with governments, institutions, universities, expos, and industry bodies to build capacity and grow the impact sector.

4) Values Aligned Capital – We are an intermediary for Lend for Good: being able to provide capital when businesses need working capital without diluting equity.

5) Expertise – We have values-aligned expertise that can help impact businesses in many areas.

6) We'll continue to support participatory democracy, perform civic duties and support diet change with plant-forward.

1. Medium Impact Businesses – Implement Purpose with Profit strategies with scorecards for impact leaders to measure the impact and business KPIs/OKRs. These will be published in a book in 2024. We see working with a few clients deeply and then adding staff to work with more impactful businesses. 
   1. Select a few larger clients (5)
   2. Podcast – released in 2024
   3. Book published in 2024
   4. Collaborating with software partner
       
2. For Ambitious Impact Business & Intermediaries - We foresee working closely with one intermediary to be able to grow their network and build a strong model.
    
3. Market Enablers – We’ll continue supporting the sector's growth, speaking to governments, expos, universities, and other bodies. 
    
4. Aligned Capital – Align impact capital with quality impact businesses. 
    
5. Expertise – We’ll support our clients with expertise.
    
6. Good Citizenship - Plant-forward team set-up and funded.
    

The Outcomes of our efforts can be seen as follows:

1. Medium Impact Businesses – Grow impact brands to be category leaders – showcasing their Purpose with Profit approach. Showing these brands are scalable, creating more livelihoods.  
    
2. For Ambitious Impact Business & Intermediaries – We see impact business & networks growing to create more livelihoods.
    
3. Marketing Enabling - Enabling the growth of impact sectors.
    
4. Values Aligned Capital – We are in communication with impact capital stewards to create a better offering for conscious consumers.
    
5. Matrix of Experts - Grow our community of experts aligned to system change to serve many more clients. 
    
6. Good Citizenship - We like to support and establish the plant-forward activator and build this into a social enterprise. We’ll continue to take part in leveraging participatory democracy activities. 

1. Medium Impact Businesses – Purpose With Profit becomes an umbrella body to link all streams of impact business networks - something like the EO Network. We move to an open-source NFP model that can be accessed from all countries worldwide.
    
2. For Ambitious Impact Business & Intermediaries – We’ll continue to build these business networks to create over 2 Million livelihoods in Australia by 2030 and 1 Billion globally by 2040. 
    
3. Market Enabling – Government, expos, and institutions support and showcase Purpose with Profit as the path forward.
    
4. Capital – We see the growth of Gov’t, Blended Finance, Catalytical Capital, new engines for the conscious consumer and the traditional impact investors to invest in impact businesses.
    
5. Matrix of Experts – Expands to support system change – working with Green and Red quadrant businesses to move towards Blue. 
    
6. Good Citizenship & Market Enabling – Plant-forward community & social enterprise, with many practising good citizenship.

Our Purpose With Profit Theory of Change is more than a concept; it's an invitation — an opportunity to shift paradigms and drive genuine change in the business world for ‘good’.

The challenges we confront today, from planetary crises to social inequalities and species extinction, may be wicked and immense, but they are not insurmountable. We can redesign the business landscape and our world by steadfastly committing to measure Purpose, People, Planet, Profit, and Precision strategies.

Humanity can be uplifted through Good Citizenship endeavours because systematic change is difficult.

Are you with us?

We recognise that each activity can stand independently, holding tremendous potential as separate businesses, social enterprises, or non-profit initiatives. We are not married to retaining each of these streams but rather committed to pursuing where we can accelerate the greatest ‘good’. We welcome your feedback.

Whether you are a business leader, an intermediary, an investor, a consultant, or an advocate for change, your role is pivotal in our collective mission.

For impact founders and business leaders, consider how your enterprise can shift its focus to become Greedy For Good™, embracing the potential for scaling your impact on society and the environment. Join us in measuring and amplifying your Purpose with Profit strategies to elevate your brand as you strive for excellence.

For intermediaries, we recognise your substantial influence in nurturing and fostering purpose-led businesses. We stand ready to support you in every conceivable way to expand your network and empower your businesses to become more Greedy For Good ™.

For investors, explore the diverse approaches available to support values-aligned businesses, contributing to a more sustainable and equitable world.

To our quality consultants, your expertise is needed now more than ever. Collaborate with us to bolster the growth of "good" businesses, shifting our current trajectory and expediting the transformation.

And to our advocates, join our collective mission to champion the growth of ‘good’ businesses and good citizenship in every conceivable manner. Spread the word about Purpose with Profit, encouraging others to become part of this movement. Share knowledge and empower individuals to make conscious choices in their daily business and lives.

The task is massive. Are you up for the challenge?

If not now, when?

If not you, then whom?

Only through collective effort can we move closer to the vision of a world where businesses are a potent force for good, where they balance Purpose People, Planet, and Profit, with Precision to drive systemic change.

Let's collaborate, innovate, and inspire one another to usher in a brighter and more sustainable future for all.

Can you imagine this?

We certainly can.

The door is open, and we invite you to step through it.