About SOLVE
SOLVE is an acronym for Solutions and Opportunities through Leadership, Vigor, and Entrepreneurship. We offer mission driven products to the public and use these profits to incubate and fund inner-city social entrepreneurs. Our company is focused on benefiting our employees, the environment, and generating profit to sustain itself. When you make an investment into the SOLVE Venture Fund, 100% of it goes toward expanding social enterprises around the world. SOLVE manages the fund to ensure profits replenish—with interest—the Venture Fund and then has capacity to reinvest in new social businesses.
The values advanced by B Lab and B Corporations are ones that are important to us and also to our stakeholders. By becoming a B Corporation, we are better able to broadcast our commitment to those values and hopefully set an example of social and environmental responsibility in our community.
The SOLVE Cooperative was created to free individuals from all walks of life to pursue their social visions. We are a cooperative of for/non profit businesses committed to a system of capacity building, and in turn, allowing their own capacity to be built. Together, we use the tools of sustainable economy to connect business actors across sectors and distance, to jobs that do not adversely harm the planet nor its people, while creating the infrastructure to move the world out of poverty. Collectively, we believe people have the right of ownership over their own destiny, together we can SOLVE our World.
The Change We Seek™
Our mission is to create more social opportunities for the urban poor through the development of inner-city human and financial capital.
• While SOLVE is a L3C Corporation, our internal documents are that of a cooperative. This means that each employee is a co-owner and shares in the profits of our company. Our co-owners do not work jobs, they live a lifestyle through our company. Some of our shared beliefs are: 30% of employee membership should be comprised of disadvantaged target groups; each employee is granted a equal share of profits based upon hours worked; all employees are encouraged to start new social enterprises; all employees are encouraged to volunteer; one person one vote.
• We are creating the change we seek by only offering sustainable products on our website. In addition, we try to be as eco-conscious as possible, recycling paper, and using technology as much as possible to lower our carbon footprint. Our goal is to be 100% carbon neutral by year 5 of our company.
SOLVE
- Industry: Other
- Product/Services: SOLVE offers mission driven products to the public and uses its profits to incubate and fund inner-city social entrepreneurs.
- Location: Washington, DC
- http://www.solve.coop
Summary:
Certified: May 2009| Points Earned | % Points Available | |
|---|---|---|
| Accountability » | 9 | 86% |
| Employees » | 20.8 | 62% |
| Consumers » | 13.5 | 20% |
| Community » | 35.8 | 48% |
| Environment » | 8 | 59% |
| Composite B Score | 87.1 | 55% |
- >80 out of 200 is eligible for certification
- >60% points available = Area of excellence
Highlights:
2008 B Impact ReportEnvironment: >51% of office supplies come from recycled materials, >50% of facilities located near public transit, >5% of energy comes from renewable sources, Policy to increase energy efficiency
Employees: >15% of net profits included in profit sharing plan, >50% of individual/family health insurance premiums covered
Community: >50% of ownership in same community as 2/3 of workforce, >20% of expenditures directed toward local suppliers, >50% of customers are local, >25% of suppliers from low-income communities
