Law
Social Enterprises Have a Triple Bottom Line
An old stereotype separates nonprofits from for-profits in this way: nonprofits do good and for-profits make money. Legal structures demand that heads of corporations serve a single goal for their shareholders: maximizing profit. You could get sued if you let other priorities 鈥 the environment or a public mission 鈥 sully that transaction in such a way that it decreased profit.
At the same time, many nonprofits have struggled to balance meeting real community needs with a constant fund-raising cycle that leaves their longevity in the hands of sometimes fickle donors and foundations.
Over the past few decades, social enterprise has cut a path somewhere in between.
As Robert Tomasko, director of SIS鈥檚 social enterprise program explained, 鈥淪ocial enterprise makes use of private sector techniques, but for public purposes.鈥 These businesses turn a profit, but at the same time serve a social mission. Some call it a triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit.
For law students about to enter the job market, new and developing state legislation creating new social enterprise business formations 鈥 L3C鈥檚 (low-profit, limited liability companies) and benefit corporations 鈥 makes this is a prime time to prepare for an emerging legal field that combines associations, corporate, tax, and nonprofit law. As part of an effort to understand the legal implications of this emerging sector, Washington College of Law (WCL) students founded the Social Enterprise Legal Society.
A Grain of Inspiration from TED and WCL
Second year law student Karina Sigar is no stranger to social enterprise. Hailing from Indonesia, she was one of the cofounders of TEDxJakarta, a community outshoot of the popular idea-driven TED conferences. In helping organize talks for TEDxJakarta, Sigar met social entrepreneurs using business methods to bring electricity to rural villages and fight deforestation 鈥 ventures that reinvested profits to help more people and make a positive impact on the planet.
鈥淭ED sort of allows me to encounter these people who I wouldn鈥檛 meet otherwise,鈥 Sigar said.
Since the field of social enterprise itself is so new, and laws to define its scope are still being written, it鈥檚 not the sort of standard subject that appears in a law school course catalogue. Yet in Walter Effross鈥檚 business associations class, Sigar found a faculty member with an interest in social enterprise, who integrates the subject in order to show the breadth of associations law 鈥 and it鈥檚 applicability to subjects that matter deeply to WCL students.
Said Effross, 鈥淭he whole emerging concept of social enterprise really marries the social justice interests of the students and the faculty of the law school as an organization with more traditional bottom-line oriented issues.鈥 He hoped to give students a new perspective on standard business associations but also a foothold in an emerging sector. Integrating social enterprise into his associations and, this semester, corporate law class 鈥渂rings up good legal issues that are yet to be resolved, but also lots of good opportunities for jobs.鈥
In his business associations class, Effross suggested to his students that a social enterprise legal society would be a very useful organization. A number of students, including Kyle Vitek, Kevin Frisch, and Sigar, agreed and founded the group, which Effross now advises.
Thus far, plans for the society include:
- frequent, small-scale events and weekly meetings where students share research about the field
- interviewing social entrepreneurs
- planning content for their blog
- working to understand the legal realities social enterprises are beginning to face
Said Sigar, 鈥淲e鈥檙e in it, not just because we want another line to put on our r茅sum茅s, but because we love the topic and we want to talk about it on a regular basis.
The Social Enterprise Legal Society is welcoming students from across campus with an interest in social enterprise law, and SIS鈥檚 Tomasko noted that master鈥檚 students in the social enterprise program are eager to collaborate with the law school. Certainly, the weekly meetings will give students specialized knowledge, and Tomasko acknowledged that people starting social ventures will need advisors with legal and financial knowledge. 鈥淏ut the biggest contribution people with legal expertise can make to social enterprise is not helping file incorporations and tax returns, but helping create new legal and financial structures that will drive the future growth of social enterprise.鈥
To learn the early law of social enterprise is to prepare to write its future.