Doing good or doing well?

A common misconception is that by giving someone what they need, they will have a better life or be a better person.

Have you walked past a homeless person on the street and thrown some coins down or even given them some food? Walking away did you feel like you’ve done a good deed? In doing so, you’re “doing good”, but there is alternative ways to help that are more effective.

Whilst giving the homeless your spare coins or buying them a cheeseburger so they eat for the day, might appear to be helping and ‘doing good’, gestures like these don’t elicit change in the homeless behaviour or life. These gestures only lead to short-term happiness and rewards.
To create long-term success for these individuals, they need to change their way of life. By provoking a change in behaviour we aim to effectively do well and do good.
Thus, as social entrepreneurs we recognise that in order for people to change, we must help create that change.

Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and he is set for life 

The first part of this quote, refers to people that just simply “do good”, whereas the second part relates to those who do good, by “doing well”.

At the Homeless Café, we don’t give the homeless free money or free food. Instead, we give them valuable skills to obtain future employment, we give them stability, we give them shelter, we make them work for their food, we make them work for their money, we make them work towards better lives. 

Measuring performance is based upon the change we create. The ability to operate a successful business whilst also maintaining our ability to house the homeless is a major challenge. But if we can manage to do both, then as social entrepreneurs, we have partially completed our goals. The movement our café creates is how our performance will be measured, if the homeless people we try to help, don’t turn their life around or the business doesn’t make a profit we cannot do well or do good.   

Have you got any suggestions that will help us do well?