The People-Centred Economic Development, based in Gloucestershire, has been redefining profit for in human terms. Jeff Mowatt from the company spoke about the social business
Explain your business.
We’re called People-Centered Economic Development, in essence a business with a primary social objective, a social ROI. We began in 1996 with a founding paper describing a new more inclusive economic model for the information age, with the same name as our business.
What’s your background?
P-CED started in the US in 1997 following the founding paper and and by 1999 was working in Russia to source a development initiative and microfinance bank which created 10,000 small enterprises in the city of Tomsk.
We launched in the UK in 2004, deriving revenue from an ongoing software development business.
Why do your ethics play such a strong role in your business, and how does it apply to what you do?
Our revenue is deployed in activism and advocacy for human rights and poverty eradication. We believe that any economic model which includes disposability of humans either by genocide or starvation. Hence we are working in Eastern Europe to leverage investment in sustainable development.
What have you achieved with what you do?
Aside from the Tomsk initiative, since incorporation in the UK we’ve researched and submitted a ‘Marshall Plan‘ strategy paper to the US Senate which has begun to have inpact on government policy
What was harder to implement than you thought it would be?
Certainly. At first we tried a UK community broadband proposal but were unable to attract funding for a model based on a guarantee company. This was a year before the introduction of CICs which are based on similar principles, and we would have been difficult to understand. Then our founder, was excluded from the UK as a visitor. Exclusion has been an ongoing problem of many dimensions.
And yet, founder Terry Hallman resident in Ukraine for the last five years where he continues to advocate for the disenfranchised, particularly disabled children, was commended as an example of excellence in BT’s Seen and Heard awards last year.
What has been the unexpected benefit, if any, to you, your business or the community?
What we hadn’t expected was the influence on mainstream economics which came about because of the credit crisis. Now influential business leaders and politicians talk of more inclusive capitalism under various new labels which brings us a long way from publishing an idea on the web 12 years ago. Otherwise influence on the policies of two governments is something I’d not have dreamt of five years ago.
What have you learnt and what advice would you give to others thinking of starting a social enterprise?
I was reminded recently of part of the script of an old film, Inn of the Sixth Happiness.
In the film, Chinese tradition has five “happiness” wishes: wealth, longevity, good health, virtue, and a peaceful old age and death. “Each person must decide in their heart what the sixth happiness is.”
So, my answer would be to pursue that Sixth Happiness whatever is tossed in the way to divert your path.
How do you view the future?
We started off with a ideal, to replicate localised people-centered economics on a global basis. That view remains steadfast and now seems more achievable.
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