Mission, Supply Chain, and a Story

Taz and I spent the last few days wrestling with our supply chain. To achieve our social mission, our supply chain needs to meet a very stringent set of requirements. The artisans or workers need to be women working for more than fair wages (though still need to determine exactly what that means) under excellent working conditions. Our mission is to economically empower women. Our supply chain needs to ensure that we are doing just that. But just meeting our mission is not enough; we also need a story.

Though consistent work through well run factories can alleviate poverty (and some economists argue is more effective than microfinance), its story of poverty alleviation is less obvious (or perhaps less romantic) than increasing the demand of an artisan’s work. Working with factories changes our story. If we go that route, will our customers be compelled? Will our new story be simple enough to easily understand and spread? Is it truly mission-aligned?

As we work to define our supply-side model, we find ourselves wading into both development literature and marketing principles. All pieces in this business model puzzle need to fit.