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Small Change
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Small Change

Why Business Won't Save the World

Michael Edwards
Berrett-Koehler, 2010
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

Popular wisdom says that nonprofit entities could achieve reform and efficiency best by acting like for-profits, and that being businesslike is the finest all-purpose path for organizations addressing the world’s problems. Social activist Michael Edwards disagrees. In this thoughtful, articulate argument, he enumerates – without ever slipping into polemic – the pitfalls in that line of thinking. He explains how nonprofits develop their own methods, and how vulnerable their processes are to inflexible thinking. He discusses with clarity and rigor the likely role business tactics could play in solving pressing issues, and he examines how capitalism and philanthropy do and do not work together. At first, this fascinating discussion seems contrarian, but it gains common sense as it goes along. getAbstract highly recommends this book to those who want to know how capitalism and philanthropy unite, to those who are interested in changing the world (or even the street) and, of course, to anyone with billions who wants to shift the social dynamic.

Summary

“Philanthrocapitalism” – Marrying Philanthropy and Business

This is the age of philanthrocapitalism, when business leaders insist that nonprofits should be run like for-profit firms. Donors want control of a charity’s policies in exchange for their funds. Well-compensated CEOs leave their posts to try their management styles on community organizations. Billionaires contribute millions to charitable causes of their own devising. Business publications laud this new paradigm, though less so now than during the ascent of the overheated economy. The prevailing notion is that nonprofits, government agencies and charities need only hard-edged business acumen to show quantifiable results or, conversely, that their leaders should run them on a more efficient economic basis, including an actual operating profit.

However, commercial methods are not appropriate for all altruistic tasks. In fact, the world can change only when “business behaves more like civil society, not the other way around.” The for-profit impulse cannot unite communities or make citizens care more about others. Competition does not foster collaboration, consumption does not encourage awareness, and economic...

About the Author

Michael Edwards, a writer and activist, works with the think tank Demos and the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.

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