| More balance between profit, charities needned: Yunus |
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By Philip Fine, Montreal Gazette
From: www.montrealgazette.com
Muhammad helps bridge the two very separate worlds of making money and doing good. The 2006 Nobel Laureate, in Montreal to speak at a conference at McGill University, says the world is too often divided between businesses that are designed to grow profits, and NGOs and other outfits that operate as charities. "This is too narrow an interpretation of a human being," he said in an interview with The Gazette. More balance between profit, charities needned: Yunus
By Philip Fine, Montreal Gazette
From: www.montrealgazette.com
Muhammad helps bridge the two very separate worlds of making money and doing good. The 2006 Nobel Laureate, in Montreal to speak at a conference at McGill University, says the world is too often divided between businesses that are designed to grow profits, and NGOs and other outfits that operate as charities. "This is too narrow an interpretation of a human being," he said in an interview with The Gazette.
Founder of the Grameen Bank, Yunus is best known for running a succesful microcredit system in his native Bangladesh. It began in the village of Jobra in 1983 and now counts 8.3 million members and has spread to several U.S. inner cities. It works with small groups of borrowers, requires no collateral and scores a 98-per-cent recovery rate.
 Yunus was invited by the McGill World Platform on Health and Economic Convergence, which is signing a memorandum of understanding with Grameen.
Yunus believes the standard business model relies too heavily on one dimension of human endeavour and does not square with the fact that most people are not always thinking about simply maximizing profits. "We are selfish so we build a whole theory on selfishness. We are also selfless. But there is no business created out of selflessness. If you want to be selfless, you step outside of economics."
Yunus sees social businesses as key to helping bring an economic model to social good, where companies organize around key societal needs and become self-sustaining companies.
One succesful example of a social business has come about through Grameen teaming up with France-based Danone, which manufactures a yogourt with micro-nutrients tailor-made for the particular needs of malnourished Bangladesh children. The business has not only helped thousands in the last four years, but it is expected to turn a profit after 2011.
The Beatty Memorial Lecture, featuring Muhammad takes place Saturday. There are no more tickets, but the lecture will be webcast at http://bcooltv.mcgill.ca/Viewer3/?EventID=201009231126
Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/More+balance+between+profit+charities+needed+Yunus/3604802/story.html
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