"One-third of the S&P 500 companies have founding families involved in management. And those are usually the best performers...
"One of the best strategic advantages a company can have, it turns out, is blood lines."
- BusinessWeek,
November 10, 2003
Wharton Societal Wealth Program
The Wharton Global Family Alliance supports the Wharton Societal Wealth Program and its mission to study the use of entrepreneurship as a weapon to combat social problems in a for-profit model. Philanthropic funds are a critical component to seeding such ventures.Wharton’s Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center, led by Prof. Ian MacMillan, is testing societal wealth creation theories in actual live case studies throughout the African continent and the world.
One such company is the Khaya Cookie Co, which employs local men and women from Khayelitsha in South Africa producing delicious treats that have been featured in such media outlets as Oprah magazine, Glamour and the Food Network.
In addition Prof. MacMillan's popular course for Wharton undergraduate and MBA students , Social Wealth Venturing has produced a number of companies that are following the societal wealth generation model. These include:
Terrapass: offsetting carbon emissions one vehicle at a time
Humanistic Robotics: providing less expensive, more efficient robotics to remove landmines worldwide
For more information on the Societal Wealth program visit http://www.wep.wharton.upenn.edu/research/societalWealth.html.