Mars

In late October, 20 businesses gathered at the LinkedIn campus in Mountain View, California for a unique boot camp. While there, they received social media and growth advice from Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn CEO; Jennifer Piepszak, CEO of business banking at JPMorganChase; and Marcus Lemonis of CNBC’s The Profit, among other experts. These 20 businesses were recipients of Chase’s Mission Main Street Grants®, a program that awards grants to spur business growth. This is the second of a series of articles from that event.

For some entrepreneurs, the bottom-line comes in three parts: people, planet and profits. The three Ps—sometimes called the “triple bottom line”—is an accounting framework in which a company’s success is measured not just by its financials, but also by the positive social and environmental impact it makes on the world. Balancing the three Ps requires a careful focus on the company’s mission and an understanding on how the three interact with one another.

Understanding the “Triple Bottom Line”

Diana Ambauen-Meade started her organic chicken feed company, Scratch and Peck Feeds, in Bellingham, Washington, because she could not find healthy-enough food for her own animals. She immediately discovered an untapped niche.”I started my company with my husband and son, who had just graduated from business school,” Ambauen-Meade says. “He enlightened me about the philosophy of the triple bottom line, and we latched onto it immediately. “The planet element is inherent in the product, which is made from organic material that is free of GMOs (genetically modified organisms). In addition, the company pays extra for biodegradable packaging that aligns with their mission.

Ambauen-Meade says that 23 employees receive a good living wage, health benefits, a retirement plan as well as a clean, safe and happy workplace. The people aspect of her mission also extends to suppliers. Rather than buy products on the commodity market, Ambauen-Meade has a fair trade policy, dealing with independent stores that are more aligned with her mission.

The company has enjoyed double-digit year-over-year growth largely by word-of-mouth, but all decisions are made based on the three Ps, with the social/environmental impact as a primary measure of success. She tells entrepreneurs who want their business to have a social mission, “It’s important that you dial it in as early as you can in your growth, so it becomes part of your thought culture and thought process. You need to focus on the three pillars as equally as possible, and not get mired in one.”

Finding—and Acting On—Your Mission

Vimala Rajendran was dialed into her social mission early. She provides farm-to-fork Asian cuisine in Chapel Hill, NC at her Vimala’s Curryblossom Café. Her threefold mission is: balancing profit, social mission and employee well-being. Rajendran, then a single mother of three without a job, began selling pay-what-you-can community dinners cooked and served at her home. A big part of her success comes from community building. She goes to local farmers’ markets to connect with others and to spread word of her restaurant. “Local food is important because local food is fresher,” she says. “The food is tastier and more nutritious. Buying local also benefits the local economy tremendously.” And the community has responded: She launched the business by raising $80,000 from community members. And what caused many to invest was an attitude that is summed up by a sign next to the hours of business: “Nobody turned away due to lack of money. Food is a human right. When Vimala cooks, everybody eats.”

She says with a three-pronged mission, the different elements sometimes work in concert, and sometimes in competition. “Our profits would be higher if we gave a low wage to employees,” she says. “However, then employee morale would go down, and they would shuffle in and out, which would hurt the business.”

Anytime she does a cost analysis for her restaurant, Rajendran works through the three aspects of her mission. “I’m the ideas person, and I am creative and impulsive and want to see all my dreams implemented,” she says. Her restaurant is five years old, and, like many early entrepreneurs, all the profits still go back into the business. “We are constantly making improvements, such as opening a catering business and looking for ways to drive more business at lunch time,” she says. “We always look to improve the bottom line—all three of our bottom lines.”

Implementing a three P strategy requires that a company determine the best way to measure its impact on people and the environment. It must then create a framework in which those two elements and profits are incorporated into decision-making, so that the three bottom lines are kept in balance.

Verses 16 and 17 of the passage that the speaker here is the Apostle Paul. He had been caught in this rhetoric with some Jews and devout persons whose background the Bible is silent and provides no elaboration [Verse 17]. According to Verse 18, there were also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. While the Jews follow Judaism as their religion and uphold belief in a coming Messiah, their religion traditionally emphasizes ethical conduct and the treatment of others as one would for one’s self.

Jewish law is based on the Torah, which essentially s the Five Books of Moses. On the contrary, the Epicureans were rivaled by the Stoics. The Stoics upheld a philosophy that life was about living in harmony with Nature. They encouraged self- control and saw courage as a means of monopolizing harmful emotions. Again, while the Jewish religion has thrived over the years, the Epicurean and Stoic philosophies faded out around the Third Century. It was wealth these deleting religious and philosophical backgrounds that the Apostle Paul had to address his audiences.

Theirs was both a religious and heathen culture which one could identify more as a Gentile environment that knew nothing about the new faith the Apostle was trying to portray. Hence, his attempt to present what he believed in was met with hostility. To them it was a new teaching that they considered strange ideas as stated in Verse 18. It is obvious that, although a heathen society, it was equally religious as would be found in every human society. They knew about gods. In Verse 18, it is reported that, some of the people confronting the Apostle said that he seemed to be advocating foreign gods.

Paul was definitely aware of their false religious beliefs. He capitalized on this when he addressed them. For when he was brought before the Reappears he told the people of Athens that he could see that they were very religious. He mentioned in Verses 23, 24 that as he walked around and looked carefully at their objects of worship, he even found an altar with the inscription. That to the Apostle meant that they were not ignorant of the very things they worshipped. Cleverly, he informed them that it was exactly what he was going to proclaim to them.

Having opened up like this, it was apparent that the Apostle caught their attention and then charged on with his presentation of the Gospel. Essentially, the Apostle wanted to let them know that there was no hope of salvation for them In the gods In whom they had chosen to put their trust. Those were Just false gods that had no power to deliver them. In the end, the Apostle’s persuasion became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysus, a member of the Reappears, also a woman named Dammars, and a number of others.