Type to search, then press enter

ABOUT BUILDING UP DESIGN FIRMS WITH

ESSAYS SOCIAL ENTERPRISE PRINCIPLES
WORK WITH ME Know the feeling of being engrossed in something you nd fascinating? You want to
read more, learn all you can, and tell everyone you know about this new topic. For me,
RESOURCES it happened about nine months ago.

CONTACT I was studying for my nal architecture license exam–the ‘special’ one for those of us
who want to be licensed in California–and began to learn about the business structures

SUBSCRIBE available to set up an architecture rm. Corporation, S-Corporation, LLC, and sole
proprietorship were the options available to be a legal architectural service provider in
California. Nothing too striking about those, and as far as I could tell, they’d been done
over and over again.
ABOUT ME
At the same time I was working with a friend on establishing a design practice focused
Welcome! I'm Katie, a business
strategist for impact-driven on serving community organizations and non-pro ts, and these legal structures
designers. This blog explores weren’t quite aligning with our mission.
why, what, and how to practice
unconventional, impactful and
intentional design. Peruse the
latest posts or dig into the
archives for interviews,
practical notes, tips and tricks.
TOPICS
Luckily, we were working out of the HUB San Francisco, a collaborative workspace for
social entrepreneurs, and we were surrounded by innovative, socially-focused
organizations. This is when my new found fascination began. The more time I spent at
the HUB, the more I overheard people using new terms–b corp, bene t corp, social
entrepreneur, social enterprise, impact investing–and the more curious I became about

Activity (16) how these could be applied to the standard architectural framework and duties.

Getting Started (8)

HOW CAN AN ARCHITECTURE FIRM BE A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE?
Impact Assessment (3)
Interviews (19)
Perspective (14)
Practice (22)
Projects (2)
Reviews (6)
Site Updates (18)

All of the above terms (B Corp, bene t corp, social entrepreneur, social enterprise,
impact investing) come down to having social and environmental goals equal with
 nancial goals. I decided to go with social enterprise, mainly because of the simple,
straight forward de nition. According to Wikipedia, a social enterprise is:

an organization that applies commercial strategies to

maximize improvements in human and environmental well-
being, rather than maximizing profits for external
shareholders.

Sounds kind of familiar, right?

Architects take the oath of responsibility for the health, safety, and welfare of humans
through the structures we design and build, and through the practices we establish.
And the ‘maximizing pro t’ part? Well, we don’t do this anyway. The running joke in the
architecture eld is how underpaid we are as professionals and how we put our work
above our budgets, either by agreeing to a lower fee than what’s feasible or spending
more time than allocated just to make sure a project is completed and successful. So
inherently it appears that the architecture profession has very similar principles
as social enterprises–focusing more on the mission than the money. (And I can
only presume that similar design professions feel the same way.)

Not all architecture rms may want to go this route, (although eventually I think it will
have to be engrained just like accessible design standards and now environmental
standards like LEED and BREEAM,) so this is where  social impact and public interest
design rms can get a head start and lead the industry.

HOW DO WE BEGIN TO APPLY THIS THEORY?

Let’s take a look at three distinguishing characteristics of a social enterprise from the
Social Enterprise Alliance and see how we might apply this to a rm’s mission and
structure:

1. It directly addresses an intractable social need and serves the common good,
either through its products and services or through the number of
disadvantaged people it employs.

Returning to the health, safety, and welfare oath, we are inherently serving the
common good through the services we provide in designing and building. But now we
can take this one step further and identify the social impact and environmental
stewardship goals in our mission that will live on in the organization. Take Sharon Davis
Design’s mission as an example:

Sharon Davis Design embraces the professional ideal of

positively changing the way people live, both globally and
locally, through multidisciplinary rigor and with compassion
for the earth and humankind.

2. Its commercial activity is a strong revenue driver, whether a significant earned

income stream within a nonprofit’s mixed revenue portfolio, or a for profit
enterprise.
Service is our typical revenue driver so now it’s deciding which model ts best with
your mission. There are bene ts to establishing as a nonpro t, like Catapult Design
who saw client alignments, donor advantages, and reduced software costs. (We all
know how much we spend on software!) But a for-pro t enterprise will work equally as
well, and with the growing number of social enterprises means an increase in value-
aligned organizations in need of design service. Architecture 00:/, a London-based
strategy and design practice, balances building and research for a wide-range of clients
to deliver sustainable solutions.

3. The common good is its primary purpose, literally “baked into” the
organization’s DNA, and trumping all others.

This one might be a little harder for typical rms since sometimes we take work that we
know isn’t ideal. But by baking in the social and environmental goals into the
organization’s mission and guiding principles, we’ll be able to establish more
meaningful relationships with value-aligned clients. (I know, we all need to get paid at
some point. But read further.)

WHY ALIGN WITH SOCIAL ENTERPRISES?

The social enterprise movement is gaining momentum with more businesses,
governments, and non-pro ts realizing that there is still a huge gap to ll in tackling
social and environmental issues. Last week alone, the G8 Forum announced a
Taskforce for Social Impact Investing (read: money for purpose,) and Richard Branson
and Jochen Zeitz launched The B Team, a group of high-powered business leaders who
will be spearheading a conversation around the challenges of incentives, leadership,
and the bottom line while focused on ‘people, planet, and pro t.’

There are also many organizations who have long been involved in this movement,
from member groups like Social Enterprise UK, to the annual Social Capital
Markets event, to certi cation organizations like Bene t Corporation and B Lab, to
social impact investment rms like Big Society Capital and Bridges Ventures, along with
university programs and the social enterprises and entrepreneurs who are doing the
work daily.
All of these people are seeking to cultivate communities that take on social and
environmental issues–issues that designers can tackle through research, design, and
implementation. It’s a win-win for organizations needing design thinking and for
designers to use their skills for positive change. And with increasing interest will come
more investment, which means doing good work won’t have to be for free.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Social enterprises, entrepreneurs, and investors are still de ning principles, methods,
and impact, so the movement is in its adolescent stage at best. This is a perfect
opportunity for designers and architects to join the conversation, create
alignments and expand on how our skills can contribute to solving these social
and environmental issues. There are many rms already doing this (see our
resources page for our list).
But we need more. I believe that by establishing design practices as social enterprises,
the architecture and design elds will be aligned with the best social and
environmental businesses out there to solve the most pressing social and
environmental issues in our world.

I’ve been mulling this topic over for a long time, and there’s a lot to it. I’d love to hear one
insight that you want to dig into further. Write your comment below, click “post
comment,” and I’ll respond ASAP!

Image sources: Katie Crepeau, author

IN PRACTICE  
POSTED 19 JUNE 2013

17 RESPONSES TO BUILDING UP DESIGN FIRMS WITH SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

PRINCIPLES

John Crepeau says:

25 June 2013 at 3:52 AM

KT,
I just read your blog this week. WOW, you are really a pioneer and express
your thoughts and convictions so well. So proud to call you my architect
daughter!
Love, Dad

REPLY

katie says:
 25 June 2013 at 9:56 AM

Thanks so much! I’ll be posting a lot more so stay tuned in!

REPLY

Muzalier Gaussaint says:

25 June 2013 at 10:05 PM

This is a great article Katie and really enjoyed reading it! Unfortunately,
this shift is increasingly happening in the professional arena, and not in
architectural education system. Therefore, do you have any
recommendations for students that are being trained within the
traditional setting, however have interest in architecture and social
entrepreneurship, about ways that can start to supplement their
education? examples may include courses, conferences, extracurricular
etc… Thanks again

REPLY

katie says:
26 June 2013 at 11:16 AM

Muzalier, thanks for your comments! I started learning about

social entrepreneurship when I joined the HUB, a coworking
space geared towards people in the social/environmental
realm. They o ered courses for members and the public so
check to see if there is one near you (they’re worldwide in a
lot of major cities.) Some other places you could look are
Skillshare for classes that are taught both locally and online;
 hackathons around social issues, which sometimes are tech
focused but are opening up to civic hacking like the UP
Festival in SF; even MeetUp.com has social entrepreneur
groups that put on events. As for conferences, I attended
SOCAP last year and I gleaned a tremendous amount of info.
Many TEDx events and the Skoll World Forum are geared
towards social entrepreneurs too. I know this may seem
obvious, but have you checked out business schools within
universities nearby? I’ve heard that social
entrepreneur/enterprise groups are some of the most
attended at Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley. I hope this
helps! Anyone else have some suggestions?

REPLY

Muzalier Gaussaint says:

27 June 2013 at 2:15 AM

Thanks Katie! I really appreciate your help.

REPLY

Lee W. Waldrep says:

3 July 2013 at 12:27 PM

For what it is worth, NAAB added a new Student Performance Criteria in

2009 – Community and Social Responsibility: Understanding of the
architect’s responsibility to work in the public interest, to respect historic
resources, and to improve the quality of life for local and global neighbors.
At Illinois, we have a student organization called Global Architecture
Brigades — the students travel to third world countries to provide design
and construction skills; also, AIAS has Freedom by Design where students
provide design services to local charities – http://www.aias.org.

In my opinion, the students are ahead of the educators.

REPLY

katie says:
3 July 2013 at 12:53 PM

Lee, thank you for your comments and information on the

NAAB criteria and the two student organizations. This is great
to know about!

REPLY

Anne Dixon says:

14 June 2014 at 10:26 AM

Thanks Katie,
Great article. Everything you describe is what we hoped to achieve when
we set up our practice 5 years ago. We have been fortunate in having
supportive clients through di cult nancial times. But sometimes it does
feel as though we are swimming against the stream. We need to
constantly remind ourselves of our ‘mission’. it can get lost in the minutiae
of ‘getting the job done’.

REPLY
 Katie says:
19 December 2014 at 10:15 PM

Thanks for your comments and thoughts about your practice,

Anne. It’s great to hear from people who are practicing and
making ethical businesses work, as challenging as it can be.
Keep up the great work–you’re an inspiration for making it
happen.

REPLY

Renae Reynolds says:

18 December 2014 at 8:17 PM

Katie,

Thanks for this post. Great insight into the ways designers can and should
leverage their skills to increase more social equity. This is a passion of
mine and I love to read about the spread of the socially motivated
business world. There is so much to be said about the ways we can think
beyond pro t. I visited your links page, great resources. I wanted to add
my rms name to your watch list. Myself and partner Joy Davis are Co-
CEO’s of a woman operated urban design consulting rm called
Design+Culture Lab: http://www.designculturelab.com . We are a research
based social enterprise, dedicated to the positive transformation of urban
neighborhoods. We are an emergent practice coming out of the Parsons
School of Design Strategies, MA Theories of Urban Practice. We work to
shift traditional modes of city design and bring equity to often
marginalized communities. Our work has been featured on the Design
Impact blog and I would like to invite you to check us out.

I look forward to reading more from you in the future.

Best,

Renae

REPLY

Katie says:
19 December 2014 at 10:11 PM

Thanks for your thoughts, Renae! I’m happy that you found
the blog and resources page. I’ve added your rm to the list–
congrats on the launch, too! I look forward to keeping an eye
on your work.

REPLY

Olga Bracamontes says:

28 July 2015 at 9:50 PM

Hi Katie! I’m a graduate student at Arizona State University and was doing
research on rms that focus on social issues/designs, and I happened to
come across this article. I read through all of this and was fascinated by
the thought that there are architects that share the same passion that I
have. It’s articles like these that get me really excited to continue with my
career and be able to create a change and impact within my community.
We need more architects to think like you!
REPLY

Katie says:
29 July 2015 at 10:36 AM

Hi Olga – it’s great to hear from you! Happy to hear that the
article resonated with your interests, too. Do let me know if
there’s anything else you’re looking for during your research!

REPLY

Godwin says:
27 November 2016 at 6:10 AM

Hi Katie.
I’m not an architect. Not even an Intrprenuer. I work at Unilever, a large
company with a small, B-corp like objective. I have found your content
useful and sometimes relevant to what we do here in making Social,
Environmental and Business Impact.
You are no longer as niche as you may assume you are

REPLY

Katie says:
28 November 2016 at 4:22 PM

Hi Godwin, thanks for introducing yourself. I’m overjoyed to

discover a non-designer nds the content relevant! I look
forward to keeping in touch with you.

REPLY
TobyMary says:
15 December 2016 at 3:39 PM

Hey Kate . nice article and very enlightening. Im an interior designer with
deep passion for social entreprenuership too. So I’m thinking of doing that
through my design skills whereby the pro t generated by my company
(TMinterior) is given back to the community by providing comfort lifestyle
using my skill and the pro t for the masses and less privileged . My
question..what do I refer myself as? An interior designer? A social
Entreprenuer? A social designer? Would love to really hear from
you.thanks

REPLY

Katie says:
19 December 2016 at 4:52 PM

Hi! This is wonderful to hear. I would use a title that resonates

most with the people you serve–so rst decide who you’ll be
speaking with and sharing your services, and then nd out
what title would get them most excited about what you do
and also share with their friends and family. As an example,
Katherine Darnstadt uses “consultant” when working with
nonpro ts and “architect” with governments. This is also
relates to a di erent services she provides for each; but she
found that “architect” appeared to be too costly to nonpro t
board members and “consultant” was much more accepted.
So let the clients and bene ciaries help you determine this!
 REPLY

LEAVE A REPLY
COMMENT

NAME  *

EMAIL  *

WEBSITE

Post Comment
NOTIFY ME OF FOLLOW­UP COMMENTS BY EMAIL.

NOTIFY ME OF NEW POSTS BY EMAIL.

ABOUT RESOURCES CONTACT ESSAYS GO TO TOP

COPYRIGHT © 2018 DESIGN AFFECTS