Company culture and growth can be impacted by the kind of ethos you instill amongst your workforce. However, can this be dictated by your business model itself without impacting the kind of metrics that stakeholders might look at? Theoretically, of course. However, can it be done successfully? Well one business which proves so, is TOMS Shoes. By 2011, the profit making company has given away a million shoes.

If you haven’t heard of this company, you’re probably wondering where this is going or indeed why they’re giving away a million shoes. Well, TOMS business model is entitled ‘One for One’ – where if you buy a pair of shoes, they will donate a pair of shoes to a child in need. (Indeed TOMS comes from the word ‘Tomorrow’, a brighter future).

So if you’ve been following that model, then you have already worked out that TOMS has also sold a million shoes. Indeed, since launching in 2006, the company has grown healthily. It now employs over a 100 people and although, as a private company, it keeps it’s financial figures to itself, the growth in staff and units sold, speaks volumes. Why is this possible? These aren’t just shoes made for the sake of a good cause. This is a commercial enterprise that thrives because it makes desirable shoes and also has a fantastic story behind it. This story unites everyone involved in making it happen, the staff, the designers, the manufacturers, the buyers and the children benefiting. There is simply no confusion and because of that, the script is easy to read and everyone is working towards playing it out. If you hear anyone talk about why they wear TOMS, you can guarantee you’ll go look them up to see what they’re about yourself (You’re no doubt looking at the site right now). All this while, they spread goodness at the same time too.

Back to company culture, the CEO and Founder, Blake Mycoskie started TOMS because he wanted to create a company that could also create sustainable good, whilst making sustainable profit. How did it start? Well, in 2006, Mycoske was travelling in Argentina and found that the children has no shoes to protect their feet. He returned, formed TOMS and a year later was able to return to Argentina and donate 10,000 pairs of shoes to those villages.

As part of their business model, TOMS actively make sure their work with children isn’t a one-off. They monitor towns and villages which they visit to donate shoes too and then they make sure they return regularly to ensure shoes are replaced and things are working out okay.

It’s a top down instilled ethos and the business model, isn’t a marketing strategy. Myscoskie saw the difference that shoes can make to families who have to share shoes to walk miles for their basic needs. This was a business set-up clearly with one question in mind ‘How can we help but at the same time be a profit sustainable business?’. So that is the foundation of any social initiatives – the thought can’t be a side thought, it has to be integral. Of course, this does not require you to start again but you can create a stream within your business which is set-up in such a way. Or perhaps even a partnership is the way forward. The American Express Red credit card is a perfect example of this. As part of the Product Red initiative, the card is designed to donate 1% of any amount spent to the Global Fund, created in 2002 to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The point is, there are many ways to make your business socially responsible and yet sustainable at the same time. Food for thought?