Cooking Up a Revolution

By Mark Harris, Hope Magazine. Posted November 7, 2002.

Like many socially responsible entrepreneurs, Judy Wicks had long admired the business practices of ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's. She built her thriving White Dog Cafe on the same premise that doing right by the environment, the local community and one's human values made good business sense. So when Ben and Jerry themselves were unable to stop Unilever from buying their company out from under them in late 1999, Wicks was devastated.

"It was a real wake-up call," Wicks says of the $326 million buyout. "Here was this model of the socially responsible business movement being sold off to a giant corporation, concentrating yet more wealth and power in the hands of a few. And that's just what the socially responsible business movement has been trying to combat all along."

Ben & Jerry's wasn't the only progressive prey of the corporate takeover. In recent years, Odwalla has been bought by Coca-Cola and Cascadian Farm by General Mills, with Stonyfield Farm eventually going to Groupe Danone, the parent company of Dannon and other brands.

"Good business is not about money. It's about authentic, human relationships, with your customers, your employees, the farmers who supply you." – Judy Wicks

With the icons falling, Wicks searched unsuccessfully for new models of socially responsible business -- until progressive thinker David Korten told her to look in the mirror. It's the small, privately owned companies like hers, he said, that have the freedom to do right by the environment, their employees, and their communities because they're not legally bound to put the financial interests of shareholders above all others.

Wicks realized that it made more sense to rally the small progressive businesses like hers rather than focus on what's wrong with the big ones. She started organizing like-minded entrepreneurs in Philadelphia and beyond for a new mission: building an alternative to corporate globalization by cultivating and creating networks of "local, living economies" consisting of small businesses that serve the human and natural communities in their own back yards. By banding together, Wicks says, socially responsible companies can build a new global economy that better serves and supports all life, not just the narrow interests of corporate profits.

"I don't want to end up a serf on a corporate plantation," Wicks says. "Profit-driven corporations are gradually taking over our lives, controlling media, government, education, water and food supplies -- you name it. I feel that by organizing small businesses to provide an alternative where ownership is spread widely, I am helping to protect democratic freedom."

Wicks, who melds "food, fun, and activism" at her $5 million-a-year restaurant, already does plenty. She channels 10 percent of profits to good causes, engages customers in volunteer projects as varied as her menu, serves organic fare raised by local farmers, runs her restaurant solely on windpower, and pays all her workers a living wage -- for starters.

Voted one of the most powerful women in Philadelphia, Wicks also has chaired the Social Venture Network (SVN), a national organization of entrepreneurs, investors, and others working to create a just and sustainable world through business.

She's having a good time while she's at it. It's not profits that drive Wicks, it's people. "Good business is not about money. It's about authentic, human relationships, with your customers, your employees, the farmers who supply you," says Wicks. "A socially responsible business considers how its decisions will affect them, not just the bottom line. By staying small, I have tried to go deeper with all the relationships involved in my business -- to enjoy the human experience, which is more valuable than money."

Wicks isn't alone in her business philosophy. She recently helped launch the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia, a group of local entrepreneurs committed to supporting environmental and progressive social causes and each other. Last fall, Wicks and Laury Hammel co-founded SVN's Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), which links networks like the one in Philly with others around the country, from Maine to California. Hammel, a Boston-area health club owner and longtime champion of socially responsible business, says a groundswell is building.

"I never have to convince people we don't need anymore Wal- Marts," he says. "People realize there's a major imbalance, and we're trying to create an affirmative alternative."

Can a band of progressive Davids turn the tide against the corporate Goliaths?

Some observers think so. "Judy is proving that we don't have to assume that big box retail has to be the future," says Michael Kinsley, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute's Economic Renewal Program in Snowmass, Colorado. "Her work points to a better, more sustainable model, and shows just how it can work. And for that she should be given a Nobel Prize in economics."

For her part, Wicks adheres to a simple M.O.: "Business is beautiful when it's a vehicle for serving the common good." But to understand how she makes it real, you need to book a table at the White Dog.

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