Axiom News: When Capitalism is Therapy
Posted 04/05/2011
Emphasizing a business’ strengths is core to the free market and capitalism, and it’s that characteristic that has great potential for creating the change social enterprises working with the marginalized aspire to, says AspenPointe Enterprises vice-president Jonathan Liebert.
“The business itself is therapeutic. The business itself is the strength,” Liebert tells Axiom News.
“Businesses aren’t lining up and saying, ‘Here’s what’s wrong with us, here are all the issues.’ Businesses are going in and saying, ‘Here’s what I can do well, here’s what I’m the best at doing, here’s my pricing, my disciplined thinking and focus.”
Liebert says he believes it’s this “natural way of how the free market works and how capitalism works” that offers a formula for success for social enterprises, particularly those seeking to open up opportunities and support the restoration of people who have disabilities and the disenfranchised through employment, as AspenPointe Enterprises does.
This strengths-based approach is in direct contrast to the typical social-service and health-care sector, which tends to target fixing broken people, directing most attention to the disability and weak points.
“The questions we’re asking are, ‘What are your strengths and who do you want to become and how can I help you get there? It’s a very, very different place and it sets people up for success,” says Liebert, adding it’s sad to see how often those with disabilities or other disadvantages can easily answer questions about their medications or incarceration experiences but get stumped when asked about their strengths and visions.
“That’s where we go to work, we say, ‘You’ve got strengths, you’ve got abilities, and that’s what I want to prepare you for. If you’re going to try to get a job, nobody that’s interviewing anybody is going to ask what’s wrong with you. They don’t care.
“It really is a matter of how can I get you to a place where you have self-confidence and you see your own potential” in order to best prepared for a job interview.
“It really reframes their thinking,” Liebert adds.
Bill Tassey brings to life the impact of the strengths-emphasizing perspective.
Eight years ago Tassey had just graduated with his masters in educational counseling when he was in a car accident, sustaining a traumatic brain injury that left him partially disabled.
After a three-month hospitalization, a year out of work, several jobs, including delivering pizzas and two-dozen interviews for school positions, Tassey hooked up with AspenPointe Enterprises, the Colorado-based organization, which supports 12 social enterprises. He has worked as an educator in one of the enterprises for the past four years.
“They didn’t see me as disabled; they saw me as an individual who could help them,” Tassey tells Axiom News, noting his life has turned completely around through this opportunity. He’s gone from delivering pizza and living in an apartment to owning a home and doing something he is deeply passionate about.
Tassey teaches youths and adults who are working to complete the General Educational Development (GED) program. He has found a kind of sweet spot for himself as his gifts and love of teaching intersect with an opportunity where he can see he’s making a difference.
“We’re able to return back to society these individuals (prepared) for getting a job, having a purpose in life again, which really instills in me more passion, knowing I can make a true difference in somebody’s life, in the roots of their life,” says Tassey.
Liebert adds the organization practices what it preaches around encouraging businesses to hire people who have a disability or are disenfranchised by also employing those in that category.
“When people come into an interview, I don’t want to know what kind of medication they’re on or what type of disability they have or what kind of issues,” he says.
“We’re asking, ‘What is your strength, what’s your ability, can you do this or that?’”
Liebert says he links the strengths-based approach directly to what he describes as the “cool” achievements of the organization, such as putting 2,000 people through the GED program over the past three years, 383 through the organization’s various training programs last year and securing 145 job placements in 2010, amongst other accomplishments.
AspenPointe Enterprises is currently exploring various methodologies for measuring its social return on investment (SROI), with a researcher on staff dedicated to creating formulas for coming up with this.
Liebert notes that tracking numbers of people served is one thing, but the bigger question is how this translates into impact in the broader community, both on a cost-savings level and on other fronts, which is crucial to attracting additional support and capital to the sector.
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