Good: to be of favorable character; to be desired or approved of; that which is morally excellent virtuous, righteous.
Bureau: a commercial agency that serves as an intermediary especially for exchanging information or coordinating activities.
I was intrigued with the name Good Bureau, but I was even more intrigued with the architect of the term as used in Romania. I tracked Ryan down when he was driving in Iowa. I had to know more.
I had already interviewed him for a blog earlier this year, but wondered how Good Bureau related to Agency Boon, a branding and marketing company in Romania. See the post on the IBEC blog here.
In summary, Good Bureau is a nonprofit organization based in Romania started in 2017.
They love helping others do good; especially Romanian leaders. They do that with three components: Capital, Connections and Community. Capital of course is funding, Connections is networking, and Community is ongoing support.
Good Bureau is not your typical nonprofit organization; they focus on both businesses and nonprofits to make a lasting impact in their country of Romania.
They have started Good Business Fund, a philanthropic impact investment fund that invests in Romanian entrepreneurs and their businesses to help them grow and make a lasting social impact.
So far, they have started two businesses, Agency Boon– a digital marketing agency and Boonforce– support for Salesforce consultancies. They’ve also been able to help a number of other businesses in Romania like a dry-cleaning business which employs people with disabilities, a clothing company employing disadvantaged women and an organic turkey farm which is funding an educational program for at-risk children.
With their business efforts, they see that their business profit, while important, is not the measure of success; the focus is on the social good – making Romania a better place.
In the future, they hope to reinvest their profits in additional businesses.
Good Bureau also helps Romanian leaders in two ways:
Good Accelerator
The Good Accelerator is a 12-month program that brings concentrated funding and support along with an invitation to join a like-minded community of emerging Romanian leaders. The intensive effort is designed to help them launch or grow a nonprofit organization to make an even greater impact in a country which is the #1 source of human trafficking victims in the European Union. Here too capital, connection and coaching is meant to accelerate social good.
Good Fund
The Good Fund is a mutual fund for social good. The fund is for philanthropic contributions that are used to provide ongoing support to Romanian charities working to address a variety of issues like helping prisoners reconnect with their children, preventing human trafficking, community development for Roma children, and solving social problems with technology.
Now when I think of Good Bureau, I think job creation … I think equity in profitable businesses … I think of the real meaning of business … I think of God’s righteousness in Romania … I think of positive change for an entire country… I think of developing leaders… I think of brokering social good. Want to learn more? Click here!
Larry Sharp, Director of Training, IBEC Ventures
larry.sharp@ibecventures.com