Social Ventrue Network
20 Ideas That Changed the Way the World Does Business
By Mal Warwick and the Staff of Social Venture Network
Copyright © 2007 by Social Venture Network. All rights reserved
In 1987, when a small group of visionary business leaders and investors came together in the mountains of Colorado to form what became Social Venture Network, the phrases “corporate social responsibility” And “socially responsible business” were terms of ridicule in the mainstream U.S. business press. The icons of values-driven business, such as Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’ s and Anita Roddick of The Body Shop, were routinely mocked on the business pages and the evening news and at corporate gatherings. Today, just two decades later, four of every five companies on the Fortune Global 500 now issue annual reports on their non-financial performance, consumers in Europe and North America are favoring demonstrably responsible companies, and business schools the world over are scrambling to offer courses on sustainability and CSR.
We know that Social Venture Network (SVN) had a lot to do with that change, because we were there. In this chapter, we’ll spell out twenty of the Big Ideas championed by our members, encouraged and often incubated within SVN-ideas that helped foster that world-altering trend.