Springfield’s business community is peppered with startups and small businesses that reflect the passion of their owners: to environmental sustainability, to the alleviation of poverty, to the nutritional health of our community.
In its essence, Askinosie Chocolate is neither just a chocolate maker nor only a moral force in the cocoa industry. And 5 Pound Apparel would just be an awesome store with funny shirts about Missouri without its commitment to alleviating hunger. Urban Roots Farm is just a farm until you see there’s a community development project happening just west of downtown.
These outfits operate on value propositions that go well beyond the goods they produce, and they all started thanks to the almost reckless passion of their owners.
The impact of these businesses is real: Although their net revenue may be modest in the grand scheme, there’s no denying the significance of socially minded entrepreneurs to the welfare of Springfield’s small-business scene. They exemplify a business model that, in some ways, is still in its infancy – one that aspires to combine the need for profitability with an equal responsibility to social mission. These entrepreneurs remind us something important about the nature of business: Through commerce, we can be our brother’s and sister’s keepers.
These owners also are operating under a model that requires similarly committed customers to buy in – literally. The direct costs associated with responsible sourcing can be very high, and prices have to be led by cost.
Cocoa farmers in Tanzania are grateful that $8 is not too high for a bar of chocolate. That “Missouri is Awesome” T-shirt has a contribution to Ozarks Food Harvest baked directly in. In Springfield coffeehouses and beyond, your $4 cup of coffee is also a charitable contribution to a farmer’s cooperative somewhere far away.
A social mission carries its own responsibilities – and costs – and the challenge takes on additional layers. The beneficiaries of your mission count on your business to succeed, and the success of your business counts on your customers.
It’s admirable that people with passion face the business risk to take on a meaningful social cause. But is it sustainable in the long run? Even more, is it transferrable? If you’re the owner of a fledgling company whose raison d’etre lies partly in the promotion of a social cause, do you have an exit strategy? What does a plan of succession look like if you want to sustain your mission? Or is that essentially not your problem? Perhaps it’s enough to simply know you’ve done some good – and to call it good.
Some see the mission of their business as indispensable and others see the mission of their business as their own business. What I have consistently heard in the past weeks is clear, though: The tragically untimely death of Tom Billionis, owner of The Coffee Ethic, has a way of throwing the question of what happens next into sharp relief. Tom was his brother’s and sister’s keeper, and his company was an outward expression of that truth. It’s a truth worth preserving in the body of that company.
On a broader level, at stake is something that is difficult to quantify: the sense that we live in a city that not only has a vibrant small-business community but also shares the passion for a better world. Your sense for whether our world should have less hunger, better neighborhoods, healthier food and more literacy relates on the buying decisions you make.
We live in a city where individuals are making their mission central to their business. In celebration of Small Business Week and the weeks after, will you help them?
John Taylor is executive director of the Edward Jones Center for Entrepreneurship at Drury University. He can be reached at jtaylor3@drury.edu.
