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3cc07192
Community Member

How about adding a "Social Enterprise" filter in Upwork?

I have a business with 20 employees in Spain. I've begun outsourcing through Upwork.  I would love to see Upwork add a filter to find agencies who are certified social enterprises: businesses dedicated to social or environmental objectives.

 

I found out about Upwork through Leila Janah. Her question: how best to reduce poverty. Her answer (and book): give work. Donations create dependence and can hurt local economies and create dependence. The microloans of the '90s were better but didn't bring in money from outside the local economy. In the internet age, the labor market has been transformed: anyone can now be hired from anywhere. Leila Janah's social enterprise, Samasource, works to outsource work from Silicon Valley to poor regions of the world. She soon discovered an alternate method to bring work to these regions: training people on how to offer and provide good service on platforms like Upwork. With that discovery, she created Samaschool to provide online training, whether in Uganda or in Alabama. 

 

Now, platforms are popping up around the world to make it easy for businesses to outsource from social enterprises, such as **Edited for Community Guidelines** in Australia and **Edited for Community Guidelines** in Canada. It's time for Upwork to join the wave and allow businesses to find agencies with a focus on doing good. I envision the formation of agencies whose primary objective is to get others trained to join them, in countries that are currently under-represented in Upwork. 

 

To get listed on the “Social Enterprise” filter will require some type of certification. Not a problem: **Edited for Community Guidelines** offers international certification. Right now, Upwork is a great way to spread the global wealth. As Leila Janah said, talent is equally distributed in the world, opportunity is not. With a social enterprise filter, Upwork can go a step further and help uncover this talent. I, for one, will use the filter.

2 REPLIES 2
abinadab-agbo
Community Member

This sounded too much like a sponsored post, but whatever.

Stop sounding like you're trying to fix the world's problems by hiring freelancers from poorer regions of the world.

You're aren't.

Just say you're trying to cut costs and help your bottom line.

Thanks, Abinadab. Maybe my tone was wrong. Honestly I'm not sponsoring anything. I have no connection with those social trader websites. And I know I'm personally not helping anyone. I'm just running a for-profit business. Yes, I'm trying to cut costs and help my bottom line. And now after 20 years, the business is earning a good profit, more money than I need. Now what? 

Middle-age crisis aside, is the idea good or bad?

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