​Clare Swords of the Entrepreneurs Network says charity and profit should not be separate entities

Profit and charity aren’t two separate entities. Despite the third sector often being described as not-for-profit it does make a profit both financially and socially and I think we need to revisit our perceptions of charity and business.

As part of the Entrepreneurs Network I promote that message – to young people in schools, colleges and at university.

The network is itself a charity and exists to promote business to young people but that can be in the form of a social or private enterprise.

The corporate sector has to do more to become socially accepted. That’s happening. That’s not just about more socially aware ventures being created but also by existing businesses looking at their operations and realising the impact they have on communities.

Some 10 years ago the social firms weren’t widely known. I’d argue they still aren’t but they are being promoted a lot more rigorously and attracting wider reach.

That can only be good because although progress has been slow, social responsibility will be critical over the next 20 years – with companies being evaluated not just on financial profit but their social returns too.

I run a management consultancy but I’ve been in business all my life. In fact I’ve never been employed by anyone other than my dad who ran a dress hire business in Ayrshire.

From a young age I’ve always wanted to work for myself. I was never motivated by profit – I just wanted to be my own boss, possibly because I’m not very good at being told what to do, a fact which my husband never tires of reminding me.

But I’ve always been aware businesses need to be socially responsible. That’s the biggest challenge but businesses are waking up to the fact more customers are demanding some level of social responsibility. It can be hard for small-to-medium sized companies to sign up to the Living Wage, for example, so I believe there should be more help from government to make this transition possible. It might involve just a few thousand pounds but that can be lot to a small one person operation.

I firmly believe business should be obliged to target unemployed people and work harder to make them employable. Whether they are disabled, sick or lacking confidence, the private sector should be given quotas to make sure they are employing all sections of society.

That way we’d have negligible unemployment. And we’d steer away from the idea that some people just don’t want to work – a notion that has become a bit of a red herring facing society I believe.

So we need to promote business ethics more. That starts in school. We’ve been working with a number of local authorities to see if we can place more of that emphasis on the curriculum so that when students take business studies, for example, a component will be centred on corporate social responsibility.

In an ideal world charities and business wouldn’t be mutually exclusive; both would be working towards the same aims – building social capital on the back of boosting the local economy. It’s happening now with a number of good organisations like Kibble and we need to promote that message far and wide.