Giving Compass' Take:

• In this story from B the Change, author Tim Frick discusses the necessesity for entrepreneurs to design their businesses intentionally to be sustainable.

• How can existing businesses use these principles to adjust their strategies? Must they completely redesign to be sustainable?

• To learn how five students inspired actions on sustainable development goals, click here.

In the first post of this series, I discussed how purpose-driven agencies can use frameworks like the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a catalyst for social innovation, yielding higher purpose and higher profits. In this post, I’ll cover how design practices, assessment tools and impact-driven business models help our agency work toward success and shared prosperity.

Organization Design and Impact Business Models

Future success for many agencies — and organizations in general — will depend upon the intentionality with which they design their organizations. The role of design within an organization can significantly impact how it creates shared prosperity in its products, services and processes as well as in the overall organization.

Using the BIA [B Impact Assessment] and SDGs as Design Tools

The BIA and SDGs help us think differently about how we design agency processes, products and services. After initially certifying as a B Corp in 2011, Mightybytes used the BIA as a catalyst for social innovation, creating a company roadmap with sustainability at its heart that emphasizes continuous learning and ongoing improvement.

Strategic Partnerships

Strategic partnerships generated by these practices provide business referrals for us, helping Mightybytes create sustainable profit — circularity in action. None of this works without the agency turning a consistent profit, so referrals from current clients and strategic partners are critical to our success.

Read the full article about business design by Tim Frick at B the Change