Institute For The Future

Equitable Enterprise: Re-Working the Future

Catalyzing pathways to more equitable work and wealth for the next generation

Equitable enterprise. It’s an approach to creating opportunities, developing practices, and building institutions that distribute assets equitably among those who contribute value to the system. It’s a foundation for good jobs. But it’s much more. It’s broad-based effort to reverse decades-long policies and practices based on the idea that the only social responsibility of business is to increase shareholder profits. Instead, the premise of the Equitable Enterprise Initiative is that the only social responsibility of business is to maximize the community wellbeing and equitable distribution of economic returns from its activities.

Why Equitable Enterprise?

Today, we are in the midst of an economic transition reminiscent of the shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy. It is re-shaping the nature of work and jobs with fewer people engaged in formal full-time employment at companies that offer good wages and benefits, i.e. asset-building work. Instead, the number of “good” jobs has been steadily declining, widening economic polarization. Income earned through the labor market has been the primary mechanism for distributing economic resources in our economy. Increasingly, however, work and jobs are failing to provide the economic security promised to American families. Wage stagnation, the disappearance of asset-rich jobs that provide basic health or retirement benefits as well as widely distributed stock ownership, the expansion of low-wage jobs, and the growing polarization of jobs and wages are widening economic inequality.

Activities

With the support from a several foundations—including the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—the Initiative will serve as a hub for research, scenario building, public engagement, and policy innovations aimed at promoting establishment and growth of more equitable enterprises.  The scope of Equitable Enterprise activities includes the following:

• Creating New Evidence. The systematic presentation of new evidence creates feedback loops that can catalyze change. This project will gather, document, and publicize examples of many forms of equitable enterprise forms, surfacing what’s been invisible, marginalized, or forgotten and bringing it into the mainstream public discourse. The project will establish a framework for a more extensive network of researchers, philanthropic, policy, and civic leaders to collaboratively build a body of evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, about equitable forms of enterprise and their impacts on society. 

• Building New Capacities. New capacities in the form of new tools and social technologies can quickly scale small innovations to engage larger communities of change. In addition to researchers, this project will gather a diverse community of activists who are already running distributive enterprises or who can start prototyping new approaches. The research and toolkits will support a generation of equitable enterprise leaders and advocates.

• Re-Writing the Rules.New rules—or new ways of making rules—can fundamentally change the structure and behavior of complex political and social systems. The Initiative will outline new rules and policies for promoting and building equitable enterprises, including how to incentivize capital flows towards them.

• Amplifying New Narratives. The stories people tell about the world shape their daily lives, and changing these stories is the most effective way to change a complex system. The project aims to change the current narrative about the role and responsibilities of business in our society.

The project will build on IFTF’s decades-long research into the future of work and equity. As IFTF’s Executive Director, Marina Gorbis points out, “New infrastructures of work and enterprise are undermining good jobs and furthering income and wealth inequalities. On-demand platform work, racial inequalities in education and work, the decline of large public corporations, the growth of asset-poor and asset depriving jobs, financialization, and surveillance-based monitoring of workers—these are all fueling inequality of wealth and well-being, especially in communities of color.”

The Equitable Enterprise team has convened a diverse group of advisors from academia, community activists, civic leaders, innovators in business, health, educational institutions, and the public to shape the scenarios for equity.

Media Contact

If you have questions about IFTF's Equitable Enterprise Initiative contact

Executive Producer Jean Hagan | media@iftf.org

Media Toolkit

"Philanthropy Should Help Create Better Jobs, Not Just Better-Trained Workers" By Marina Gorbis (9/15/21). Chronicle of Philanthropy.