Last Monday I gave a three hour lecture on Business Models Beyond Profit at Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany. It was in the context of impACT, a pan-European student competition in social entrepreneurship. Find the slides of my presentation below.
It’s a really exciting topic and I am a firm believer in the combination of “doing good” and “doing well”. In my opinion the traditional frontiers between nonprofits focusing on social and environmental impact, and corporations solely focusing on profits will disappear – because of new and innovative business models. So many young professionals want to make a difference, but are not willing to forgo decent salaries. Personally, I think that’s not a contradiction. The challenge is to come up with the business models that combine both impact & profit.
Michael Shuman, author of Going Local, nicely summarizes why I think nonprofits must be replaced with different business models (and I’m speaking with the experience of somebody who worked in the HIV/AIDS and malaria field):
There’s a very good argument that many of the attributes of typical nonprofits – heavy reporting requirements, self-reappointing boards, poor access to capital, awful labor standards (in the name of the public interest) – make them lousy vehicles for social change…I think we need to rethink the structure of do-good enterprises.
In my presentation I mainly focused on showing how the Business Model Canvas can be used to describe and design “new” models like Grameenphone, MyC4, Grameen Bank, Kiva and more. Have a look and tell me what you think:
By the way, we are looking for funding to write a social entrepreneurship version of our book Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers and Challengers. We know that this would be of immense value and that it would have a huge audience. Organizations like the Skoll Foundation, Ashoka and others are likely to be interested, but we don’t have the contacts there…
Alex—I taught social entrepreneurship at University of Wisconsin Madison and would have LOVED to start the semester with your power point. I love your use of visuals to easily community. A business model is also vitally important if you elect to remain a donor-driven non-profit as these organizations need to differentiate themselves and align everything to a unique value promise if they want to stand out in a crowd. How can I imbed your video slide share program in my blog, with full credit to you? Just add the link to this post? (I am new at blogging.) Thanks. Kay
Kay, thanks for the kind words. To embed the presentation you can go to:
http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/business-models-beyond-profit-social-entrepreneurship-lecture-wise-etienne-eichenberger-iqbal-quadir-grameen-bank-grameen-phone
There you can copy the code beside the "embed" window. Simply paste it into your blogpost and you'll get exactly the same thing as in my own blogpost. I do the same to insert the slides into my blogposts.
Hi Alex, I loved this presentation. I am actually going to be working with a non profit on their business model in a few weeks. I had been thinking about using some of your stuff, this fits perfectly. I think you approach can generate a lot of value for non profits
Reading it, I had one thought: Could it be possible to develop a generic web based tool for non-profits working on their business model ?
Maybe something as simple as a video or two and a few worksheets ?
Peter, yes of course. I think there could be some helpful online tools for nonprofits. It could very well be that we will provide some of these tools at a later stage…
Excellent post- I commented upon it at futurelab , where it has been posted as well.
Hi dear Alex
This business model change (turning your blog into a new website)is exciting . Thank you for your data transfer .I think you didn’t miss anything.
Have fun
Hey Froberg,
I guess you should use this web based tool: http://bmdesigner.com/
As you can see entering on it you have three ways to have fun with this application:
1) Exploring BM already posted;
2) Designing you own BM, into the perspective of your business and/or non profit organisation value proposition; and
3) Innovating in your Bm structure or 9 block contents
Seize!!!
Regards
Alex.. excellent presentation. Really like you thought and your presentation visuals. I am an “N” in MBTI types, and really a visual learner. This one gets 10 out of 10 from me! Keep up the brilliant work. Cheers from Indonesia.
Hello Alex,
I love your book “Business Model Generation”. I studied business models of ventures of multinational ICT companies engaging with the Base of the Pyrqmid and used for instance Martin Klein’s model to assess the BOP business model qualities (see http://www.businessfordevelopment.com/), but it seems your model is more recognizable for business folks.
I observe that sustainability of a business model (triple P) is still a separate part aside from the 9 building blocks of the canvas (see slide 100 of your presentation).