Beyond Profit in context

More and more students and young professionals are interested in not only seeking to make money through their career or enterprise but also to have a positive impact on society.

Furthermore, the business community as a whole is becoming increasingly conscious about creating positive social and sustainable solutions rather than simply maximising profit. Beyond Profit was founded in May 2010 as a reaction to this growing trend.

The Mission

The overarching mission is to empower the next generation to continue to change the way business is done in the future. The theory is that through the new businesses young people create and the attitudes they take into the job market the whole ethos driving business will increasingly accept the need for social and sustainable business principles. We are already beginning to see large corporations responding to the changing attitudes of the students they are trying to recruit.

What can we do for you?

The way Beyond Profit tries to empower students is through inspiring speaker events, practical workshops and an array of useful resources and contacts tailored to each member.

We structure our activities into a Careers Stream, an Enterprise Stream and our new initiative the Rwanda Entrepreneurship Week.

Careers

The Careers stream seeks to correct the myth that earning money and doing something meaningful with your career are polar opposites. The events, workshops and resources are geared towards showing students the various options available and providing an introduction to some of the skills you will need to get involved.

Enterprise

The Enterprise stream directly seeks to create and support social entrepreneurs. Everything is geared towards helping create and support fully fledged social businesses and the entrepreneurs that run them.

Rwanda Entrepreneurship Week

Finally, the Rwanda Entrepreneurship Week is our link up with our partner project the African Innovation Prize. It is a week-long initiative that seeks to promote and support entrepreneurship in Rwanda building on the back of the African Innovation Prize business plan competition. For Beyond Profit it acts as a great opportunity for our members to get involved in a real life project that enables the participants to both learn about entrepreneurship whilst going on to pass on their experience in the summer.