Daproim founder, Stephen Muthee
On May 14, we posted a blog titled, “Wannabe ISSPs: Outsourcers That Embellish Their Social Impact.” Our primary mission is always to promote Impact Sourcing providers (ISSPs) that have an ongoing social impact. ISSPs doing good include Daproim Africa, an outsourcing provider that offers transcription and data-processing services at affordable rates. Our goal with the article was simply to point out that there are service providers in the industry that have begun to use Impact Sourcing language for the sole purpose of marketing. We would like to emphasize that organizations like Daproim, listed on our website, are among those providing great services to both companies and workers around the world. Below is Daproim founder Stephen Muthee’s response to our blog, which further defines the difference between for-profit and not-for-profit ISSPs, both of whom are valid providers of social impact outsourcing in the world today.
A worker at Daproim in Nairobi, Kenya
While I agree with what you have posted here, I find that your point on “Re-investment of profits into the community (education, training, infrastructure, benefits)” will be difficult to identify in a for-profit ISSP. To confirm the reinvestment of profits you would, at a minimum, have review the company’s financial statements – not many ISSP’s would be willing to allow this type of review (outside the board of directors). Which will exclude most, if not all for-profit ISSPs.
For-profit ISSP such as Daproim are resolved to deliver impact even if it reduces the profitability of the company – making us very genuine with our impact cause. To a large extent, Daproim invests its profits in education, training, infrastructure, and benefits for its staff. Our salaries on average are higher than industry average salaries and I personally give a portion of my returns to the church – which is my number one passion and motivation behind Daproim and my participation in the Impact Sourcing industry. Impact created by for-profit ISSP’s such as Daproim shouldn’t be considered any less than impact created by non-profit ISSP’s. Since there are far more private enterprises than non-profits enterprises, I’m of the school of thinking that if for-profits were encouraged to adopt more of Daproim’s model in creating impact, poverty in Africa would become a thing of the past.
While I agree that the distinction between ISSPs and BPOs are the social impact they deliver I challenge us as an industry to come up with a more inclusive way to measure the good we are doing. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter, and I believe the above argument builds upon your earlier sentiment.