NPR’s Karen Grigsby Bates interviewed Blake Mycoskie of the shoe company, Tom’s. As Tony Sheldon of the Program on Social Enterprise at Yale School of Management says, Mycoskie’s vision is a harbinger of the way many future entrepreneurs want to structure their own businesses.
Their careers can’t be only about financial returns, that the social return and the social impact is also integrated into that and they don’t want to just make a lot of money and then give a lot to charity, they want what they do with their lives to be in service of a broader vision.
Here’s the radio spot Soul Mates: Shoe Entrepreneur and here’s the article: Soul Mates.
My opinion is that social enterprises such as Tom’s will eventually out number non profit organizations. And, fyi, there is no Tom. It’s short for tomorrow’s shoes.