Musingplaces as B Corporations

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TechChange is an exemplar of a USA B Corporation – a legal structure often referred to as "hybrid" because it combines for-profit income structure with an altruistic mission. Its a model that public musingplaces in the world of crowdfunding might well (should?) be considering embracing.

Even though legislation varies across the USA, B corporation status generally requires a company to embed a "materially positive impact on society and the environment" into its activities:

•  Makes the company/institution responsible to shareholders and Community of Ownership and Interest for meeting its performance indicators; and
•  Generating a  fiscal profits/surplus. 

B corp status helps socially responsible corporations/institutions raise money from what can be understood as "impact investors" who want to create social change through their financial investments.

Currently there are slightly over a 1000 B Corporations world-wide. It is a social and economic experiment of great interest to the not-for-profit sector where there are cultural implications.

Musingplaces: 
It is open to museums experiment with B Corporation status, thus enabling them to attract capital from investors to:

• Improve cultural literacy and social engagement;
• Support research unlikely to be taken on by profit driven corporate entities;
• Preserve and celebrate the histories and heritage linked places; 

in addition to winning a modest financial returns to reinvest in projects. Divorced from the very often dysfunctional governances of not-for-profit corporate entities and expectations of donors musingplaces may well be better placed to achieve financial sustainability while delivering social and cultural dividends.

For instance in the USA TechChange is tackling the challenge of scale. Their founder wants the company to have a deeper social impact, and has to figure out "at what pace and with whose money." The questions being asked are should the corporation "bootstrap" itself up, expand their client base and reinvest the surpluses into growing the operation. 

Musingplaces: 

• How might such an institution attract social impact investors? 
• Indeed, what can musingplaces learn from for-profit and hybrid businesses about financing the process of scaling their operations? 
• How can they change the scope of of their aspirations in regard to scale, and change the paradigm of their fiscal structure to match?

As communities demand higher levels of transparency and accountability many public musingplaces will need to re-examine their purpose for being and their strategic planning. Elastic accountability can be expected to be a decreasing option as Communities of Ownership and Interest pay closer attention to their 'investments'.