Purpose Isn't Just for Social Impact
it’s the way to run a business. period.
Photo by Luís Eusébio on Unsplash
“Yeah, purpose seems to be on a lot of agendas right now.”
I was on a brief networking call with someone I’d never met before.
“Yes,” I responded. “People are ready to change how we do work.”
“It must be great to work with people doing social impact,” they asserted. I could feel the aspirational vapors through the phone.
“It can be. But I work with a lot of different businesses.”
Pause.
You may already know where I’m going, but since I have some version of this conversation every week, I’m going to say it anyway:
➔ Being purpose-driven isn’t relegated to social impact.
I think the reason many people hear “purpose” and think “social impact” is because social impact inherently means serving someone else.
Social impact can be defined as “any significant or positive change that solves or at least addresses social injustice and challenges.”
As such, the term “social impact” connotes solving things like poverty, educational gaps, or addiction.
These challenges are often addressed by nonprofit organizations, which many see as being unconcerned with the task of making money in a profitable way.
Unfortunately, that also means these efforts get framed as something solely aspirational, as something other than business by those who still think money is the goal rather than the resource.
This transactional mentality results in people thinking, “Well, I’m not curing cancer, so I can’t run a purpose-driven business.”
And that’s all sorts of wrong.
➔ Running a purpose-driven business isn’t confined to those in the social impact space.
It’s a smart way to run businesses, and frankly, it’s the only way to do it well in the new world of work.
As a purpose-driven business, you exist to deliver value. That may be by solving a problem, making it easier to do something, or helping someone to achieve better results — anything that improves someone’s life in a meaningful way.
That’s your focus.
Everything you do drives toward delivering that value as effectively as possible.
You generate profit by inextricably linking the value you deliver to the way you make money so that profit is the outcome of effectively pursuing your purpose.
Now, focus is your strategic advantage and the way you work every day.
➔ If you don’t identify as a social impact business, you can still be purpose-driven — and reap all the benefits of that focus.
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