Your global proposition is a short, clear statement of your business purpose. Every business activity should meet the standard set by your global proposition.
If you are a social entrepreneur then it will bring together your social and business aims. This is just as true if you use a community organisation or a business as your vehicle.
Some social entrepreneurs begin with a cause and discover they have a business that funds their cause. Sometimes such businesses set up as social enterprises. Typically they have Trustees / Directors who represent the beneficiaries of the cause, local residents for example. Others might set up as conventional business. This latter course has something to commend it as it allows an idea to be tested. The time to move to a formal social enterprise is when a sole trader might consider incorporation.
Another route is where a local business begins with financial objectives, and later embraces social aspirations as its purpose. Local businesses may grow in solidarity as a network and in time understand its role in benefiting their locality. The discovery that “I benefit when everyone else benefits” is the core experience at the heart of mutuality.
This type of business will typically be structured as a business where the owner does not have to refer to a committee for decision-making. As businesses become established and incorporated, they will have a Board of Directors, although a Chief Executive is likely to retain individual decision-making powers.
Both community and businesses are collaborative. The difference is community organisations are usually collaborative internally, encouraging members to be actively involved in running the organisation. This is why they tend to become bureaucratic and less able to relate to partners. Local businesses are usually externally collaborative, seeking partnerships that establish a niche for the business in a supportive environment. They typically depend on personal decision-making and so can lack transparency.
Your global proposition should work within any of these structures. Whether you see your work as primarily a business or a cause, your global proposition combines your business and social aims.
It is essential it does. The global proposition is public and you will return to it as your activities grow. Is this new activity or proposal in line with the social and business aims in the global proposition?
Like anything else, your global proposition is a tool, it helps you communicate the role of your business or organisation and keeps it on track. It can be reviewed without fear of losing its radical edge! If you have found a proposition that works for you, revisions in the light of experience will strengthen it and broaden its appeal.
My Global Proposition
This is a global proposition I drafted a few months ago:
I discover and share online marketing methods to help social entrepreneurs who are seeking sustainable approaches to finding their place in a localised economy.
Note the focus is on sustainable local economy, not accumulating personal wealth. Whilst I don’t take a view about the amount people earn, my clients will want to invest in supporting other local businesses or some cause. How they do this, eg with money, time or in other ways is something we can explore.
Whilst I am not unhappy with this statement my thinking has moved on. I have returned to my earlier idea of community development online.
I offer a full community development support service to social entrepreneurs in community and business organisations who aim to build and sustain their local economy, integrating traditional offline approaches with a constructive online presence.
This version places community development where marketing appeared formerly. It underlines my offer is to community and business organisations and emphasises I work both offline and online.
This post is an introduction to the global proposition. Element 3 in the circuit questionnaire shall explore this in more detail. I have recently found more information about how to write and use them. I shall go into more depth when I get to element 3.
Do you think this works? Have you examples of your own global proposition? How has it evolved?