benefit corporation Archives

Lee Wallace, Peace Coffee, Fair Trade for Smallholder Farmers

Fair Trade Coffee from Smallholder Farmers, with Lee Wallace, Peace Coffee [ENCORE]

December 18, 2017

NOTE: This is an encore presentation of an episode that first aired on July 11, 2016. Advice from Lee Wallace is featured in the book, Crazy Good Advice: 10 Lessons Learned from 150 Leading Social Entrepreneurs. To hear the original, extended interview, go here: https://tonyloyd.com/096. Smallholder farmers grow more than half of the coffee consumed worldwide. Imagine if you will, that you are working at a non-profit in Minnesota, focusing on public policy. The phone rings, and the person on the other end says “Hello. This is the Port of Los Angeles. We have 38,000 pounds of green coffee with your name on it. How would you like to…

Tyler Gage, Author of Fully Alive: Using the Lessons of the Amazon to Live Your Mission in Business and Life

Live Your Mission, with Tyler Gage, Co-Founder of Runa, and Author of Fully Alive

November 6, 2017

Tyler Gage, Co-Founder of Runa, has a new book, Fully Alive: Using the Lessons of the Amazon to Live Your Mission in Business and Life. Tyler Gage was first introduced to Guayusa in his college years, during a soul-searching trip to the Amazon. “I was struggling with anxiety and depression,” he explains. Gage experienced “existential anxiety,” even after achieving his life-long goal of being recruited to play soccer at Brown University. Feeling lost, out of place and like there were deeper parts of himself that he could not understand, Gage embarked on an adventure to the Peruvian forest. He spent time with indigenous elders. He participated in fasting rituals…

Advocacy Through Industry, with Raan and Shea Parton, Apolis Global

October 23, 2017

Apolis is a socially motivated lifestyle brand that empowers communities worldwide. Brothers Shea and Raan Parton grew up in the privileged surroundings of Southern California. To ground the brothers in reality, their parents traveled with Raan and Shea. Seeing how the rest of the world lived afforded the boys a perspective shift. This early experience of diverse cultures made them comfortable enough to eventually move from the passive role of tourist to participant: “The most rich way to experience places or cultures is to be working there and to be part of it.” By the time Shea was in high school and Raan in college, they shipped their first orders…

Clean Water, Powered by Gravity, with May Sharif, AguaClara

September 25, 2017

AguaClara designs gravity-powered water treatment plants for low-income communities around the world. According to May Sharif, Founder and Managing Director of AguaClara, “More than one in ten people around the world don’t have access to clean drinking water on tap.” When people don’t have access to clean drinking water, adults lose time at work and children miss school. They suffer from illness and or even death. “Up to two million people die each year due to waterborne disease,” May explains. “Most of them are children under five.” By providing access to clean drinking water, people prosper and children learn. Conventional water treatment plants typically do not last more than two…

Unleashing $16 Billion for Social Good, with Stephen Garten, Charity Charge

September 11, 2017

Charity Charge is a social enterprise on a mission to empower people and corporations to fund the causes they care about simply by using a credit card. Every year, 31% of all credit card holders don’t redeem their credit card reward points. That’s $16 billion per year in value. What if those dollars could be unleashed for social causes? That’s exactly what Stephen Garten and his company, Charity Charge does. When Stephen was 19 years-old, his father passed away from cancer. His father was 53 years old when he passes away. “Life is short,” he realized. Now, at age 31, Stephen sees a generational shift toward purpose and meaning. “How…

Style with a Purpose, with Hamilton Perkins, Hamilton Perkins Collection

August 21, 2017

Hamilton Perkins Collection is a certified B Corporation offering designer travel bags at an affordable price. Each bag is made from recycled plastic bottles and lined with vinyl from upcycled billboards. Hamilton Perkins found his niche early with retail sales. During university, he had a sneaker business on eBay. He made and sold leather bags. After college he entered financial services, rising through the ranks at Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. Yet, he had an entrepreneurial itch. So, he enrolled in an MBA program at William & Mary while working full-time. Not only was Hamilton working full time while pursuing his MBA, but he also had a side-hustle business…

Telling Stories at the Intersection of Business, Environment, and Society, with Jen Boynton, Triple Pundit

April 17, 2017

Triple Pundit is a media company covering the conversation on sustainable business. The argument for a triple bottom line of people, profit, and planet, has been going on for more than 100 years. In 1916, two shareholders, the Dodge brothers sued Henry Ford in Dodge v. Ford Motor Company. The courts ruled in favor of the Dodge brothers, stating that a: business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders.” In 1970, economist Milton Friedman published his article “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.” Friedman argues that any money spent by a company on “social responsibility” takes away from the benefit…

Sharon Rowe, Author, The Magic of Tiny Business

A Pioneer Social Business, Sharon Rowe, Eco-Bags Products

April 9, 2017

The company Eco-Bags Products produces ECOBAGS®, the original reusable bag. Eco-Bags Products is a woman-owned business. They pioneered many of the practices we associate today with social enterprises and, in the process, transformed how consumers think about plastic bags. As an actress in New York City in the 1980’s, Sharon Rowe did not find it hard to land work. But she did find it difficult to both make a living and make a difference. There was plenty of work that did not pay well enough to make a living. And there was work that paid well, doing commercials for products that she did not support. To make ends meet, Sharon…

My Journey

November 28, 2015

This is my journey. Care to join me? There is a lot in my story that would not predict success. I was born in Arkansas in fairly simple circumstances. In high school I graduated 250th of 259. I drove a truck and worked as a janitor. I did not obtain my college degree until my mid-thirties. There were some significant turns in my river of life. At the age of 15 I had a near drowning accident. It helped me to realize how short life is, and how important it is to make an impact while we may. I had an amazing corporate career as an executive with Fortune 500 companies…

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