Earlier this year, Forbes magazine published its first ever list of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs – folks who use business to solve social issues. On Forbes’ Impact 30 list is a 50-year-old optometrist named Jordan Kassalow who recognized as a student the potential of not only helping people in underserved areas of India and El Salvador to see but also helping them gain economic empowerment. Kassalow talked to Healthcare Finance News Associate Editor Stephanie Bouchard about being a business person and being socially responsible.
Q: Please give us a brief background on your nonprofit organization, VisionSpring, and why you decided to follow this particular path instead of staying in practice.
A: It goes back to my days when I was a student. I joined a student organization that brought eye care services to underserved populations. . . . My very first patient was a seven-year-old boy. He was from the school for the blind. According to him and his family and the community, he was a blind person. We took a look in his eyes and recognized in fact he wasn’t blind. That he was just profoundly myopic. . . . I was the lucky person who got to put those glasses on his face and saw him transform from a blind child to a sighted child right in front of me. It was one of those moments where it became clear what success might look like. If I could keep doing that, and having more moments like that, I would be a successful person.
Q: What is a social entrepreneur and what makes you one of them?
A: I think a social entrepreneur is somebody who addresses business problems or actually addresses market failures and social problems through a business perspective and business practices. Basically it takes the heart of a nonprofit to try to solve a problem but it takes the head and discipline of a business to use business mechanics to solve that problem.
Q: I’m sure you’re aware of all the disjointedness in the healthcare system right now, trying to take down high costs. How do you as a business person also still be a socially responsible person?
A: There’s no question that it’s more complicated having a double bottom line than a single bottom line as a business operator. If you have a for-profit or a nonprofit company you have one metric that you have to deal with, whether it’s profit or impact, it becomes easier. But when you have two or more than it becomes a little bit more difficult. …What I would say to these business executives is that even though it is more difficult, don’t go away from the goal of trying to have multiple bottom lines because it does reflect your higher self in many ways. You can do both but it takes a lot more thought and effort and intentionality. It just doesn’t happen on its own. There are some built in natural tensions between the two and you just have to decide where those tensions lie and understand them and accept them and prioritize for them.
Q: Is there anything else that you think is important to this conversation?
A: I think the field of social entrepreneurship would be a really good tool for people (in healthcare) to look at because that’s exactly what we’re all trying to do. We’re all trying to serve and fill a need. We’re all trying to have impact in a positive way in the world but we’re also trying to do it with a business lens to recognize that if we’re really going to scale what we’re going to scale we can’t rely on philanthropy – we have to make markets work.