Features and goals

A Social Business is featured to be as follows:

• To be designed and operated to pass on all the benefits to the consumers.
• To be operated without incurring losses.
• To be operated competing with Profit Maximizing Enterprises (PMEs).

1. Profit making by an SBE shall be consistent and desirable because:

• To generate enough surplus to pay back the invested capital to the investors as early as possible.
• To generate surplus for
(i) Expansion,
(ii) Improvement of quality,
(iii) Increasing efficiency through introducing new technology,
(iv) Innovative marketing to reach the deeper layers of low-income people and disadvantaged communities and
(v) Undertake research and experimentation to improve and diversify products and services.

2. Features of Social Business Organizations (SBO)

• Innovation: The SBO belief that everyone is creditworthy
• Revolution: The SBO rejects the traditional methodology of the conventional banking
• Objective: The SBO provides banking services at the doorstep of the poor it serves
• Means of production: The SBO provides physical and non-human inputs (e.g., micro credit, machines, tools, training) to poor people
• Operant conditioning: The SBO empowers borrowers through positive reinforcement
• Asabiyyah: The SBO promotes the unity, conscience, and social cohesion among group members through social solidarity
• Syllogism: The SBO applies logical appeal to increase integration among group members
• Commodity fetishism: The SBO applies social relationships to increase social capital
• Self-employment: The SBO provides organizational support to create income-generating self-employment
• Collective consciousness: The SBO uses moral force to create two-dimensional social entrepreneurs
• Oneirology: The SBO help to create a world without poverty, illiteracy, diseases, and slum dwellers