Giving Compass' Take:

• B the Change shares the stories of two organizations becoming benefit corporations: Fetzer Vineyards and EILEEN FISHER.

• How can funders help encourage this shift? What are the benefits of making this shift for companies? 

• Read an investor's guide to benefit corporations. 

Companies across the country are taking advantage of a new corporate form — currently available in 34 states — to legally protect their mission and values through sales, leadership changes and more. This legal form, the benefit corporation, puts all of a company’s stakeholders, including workers, the community and the environment, on an even playing field with shareholder profits. This means when a company is making a decision, for example, about a supplier or a new market, its mission — not just its bottom line — has a say.

Two of the 2018 Best For The World: Changemaker honorees each recently took a legal plunge, committing to business as a force for good by becoming benefit corporations. Through this step, Fetzer Vineyards and EILEEN FISHER have made a legal commitment to accountability, purpose, and transparency.

These values aren’t new to Fetzer Vineyards or EILEEN FISHER, which both became Certified B Corporations in 2015 and have long histories of their commitment to the environment, employees, and social good.

Each company says adopting the benefit corporation structure formalized many of its everyday practices and beliefs — in a public, official, legally bound and protected way.

Read the full article about benefit corporations at Medium.