Why do we do what we do? It's not that complicated:
- We are lucky. For me personally I have won the life lottery. I was born into a terrific family, in a peace-loving, well-governed country and have a great wife and two wonderful daughters. On top of that I was in the right place at the right time during my business career with the result that I accumulated more wealth than I or my family was ever going to need. It only makes sense that when fortune has smiled so well on us that we try to find a way to way to make the wheel of fortune spin better for those who haven't been so lucky.
- We need it. Canada (and the world) needs to find more sustainable ways to solve some of our pressing social challenges. One of our core beliefs at SCP is that it is possible to harness market forces to do social good and that hybrid business models that operate with double and/or triple bottom lines have to play a much larger role in the future in the way we think about organizing our economy. If there is a silver lining in this recent economic meltdown, I am hoping it will be a realization that an exclusive focus on single bottom lines is not the perfect way to generate economic returns or create a better world.
- It's a challenge. It's not often in life that you get to take a clean canvas and try to figure out how to create something important and meaningful from it. There is probably nothing more rewarding than attempting and hopefully succeeding in such a quest. As you can tell from reading other parts of this website there still is much ground to cover and plenty more challenges to overcome. We think however we are on the right track.
Posted by Bill Young on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009