Giving Compass' Take:

• President and founder of Sojourners, Jim Wallis, shares his thoughts on how businesses can - and should - consider ethics in their decisions. He praises the B Corp model, which allows businesses to consider both profits and social concerns in their dealings. 

• How can individuals find and support ethical businesses? How can philanthropy support the development of ethical businesses?

• Read an investor's guide to B Corps and Benefit Corporations.

Ethics can’t be extracurricular with businesspeople. Unless ethics becomes central to the vocation of business, we’re in trouble.

So says the Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners, a national faith-based organization. I recently talked with Wallis about why business leaders should work toward a just society — and where we might find unity in divisive times.

How do you integrate purpose and profit?

That is, to me, at the core of what the B Corp model offers. It enshrines into corporate law that balance between purpose and profit so that there is a venue, as you say, in which these issues can be raised at the highest level. This becomes a required, integrated conversation that is, as you said, central to the business, not extracurricular to the business.
Relationships provide accountability in our lives. So if businesses are in relationships — with people, with society, with organizations — [then] it’s more than just financial. There’s that kind of ongoing conversation.

What is the unique role of business leaders at a moment like this, where the politics seem so broken that many people want to throw their hands up and retreat into their own space? 

You’ve got businesses cutting off relationships with the NRA. You’ve got Dick’s not going to sell assault weapons. So you can make decisions before there’s a ban on assault weapons, not to sell assault weapons. So there are decisions businesses can make that don’t depend on government intervention, don’t depend on winning the political debate. You can lead by example.

Read the full interview with Jim Wallis by Jay Coen Gilbert at Medium.