Letter from the Editor of the Social Venture Network Series
Let me guess. You probably picked up this book because you're looking for innovative ways that your business can become more engaged in the community (or communities) where you do business. And that's exactly what you'll find in these pages.
Gun Denhart and Laury Hammel are two of the most creative and committed entrepreneurs in Social Venture Network. Their dedication to enriching the lives of those who work and live around them, their flair for innovation, and their business savvy come through clearly in Growing Local Value. They've drawn on dozens of outstanding examples of community-minded companies—including their own—to provide you with a treasure-house of ideas you can put to work to make your own business more responsive to community needs, more rewarding for everyone who works for you—and more competitive as a result.
If you are laboring under the conventional wisdom that the only responsibility of a business is to its owners or shareholders, you'll find that view demolished in this slim volume (as in every other book in the Social Venture Network series). This is the paradox of socially responsible business: the more successfully you respond to the needs of all your stakeholders—employees, customers, suppliers, community members, and the environment as well as the people who put up the money and take most of the financial risks—the more likely it is that your company will thrive. What goes around, comes around. You'll see this time and again in the inspiring examples cited by Laury Hammel and Gun Denhart in this invaluable little handbook.
Consider the title of this book: Growing Local Value. The authors tackle this challenge head-on, arguing that companies are most successful not when they simply make money for their owners but when they truly add value to the communities where they're located, including all the constituencies that make their efforts possible. Ultimately, of course, even the largest multinational corporation operates locally. What a legendary politician said about the political process—"All politics is local"— applies equally well to the world of business. Your company or mine may do business in only one or two communities, while others operate in cities, towns, and villages spanning the globe. But the principles laid out in this insightful volume apply equally well to companies of any size, though they're based on the experience of small and midsized businesses.
The lens of the local community as Laury and Gun apply it in these pages will help you see your business in an entirely new light. You'll have the opportunity to observe your company from the outside in, as it's seen by its employees, its suppliers, its financiers, and the residents of its local community or communities. Whether or not you're prepared to undertake an extensive community-engagement program of the sort described in Growing Local Value, you'll find the insight you gain simply by looking at your company through the eyes of outsiders to be well worth the modest investment of time you make to read this book.
If you own or run a small or midsized business, if you're planning to start one, or if you're studying business as either an undergraduate or a graduate student, Growing Local Value will add a new dimension to your understanding of the dynamics of business. Truth to tell, you can't afford not to read this book.
MAL WARWICK
Berkeley, California
August 2006