This coming Sunday, June 27th, Grameen Bank, in cooperation with Columbia’s Business School will offer all day lab designed to provide an understanding of the social enterprise sector and how businesses operating in this space can impact issues on a global and national level.

As you drive from San Salvador to Suchitoto, you pass gnarled trees twisted into startling shapes, burnt swatches of field, bunkers set into the hillside, and entire churches blown apart save for the arched entrance, leaving a path of sky where the congregants once sat in prayer. But you will also pass high groves of fruit trees and untouched fields of lush grass swept sideways by the wind. Once again, the stark contrast between beauty and the ravages left by a brutal civil war is in evidence everywhere. Back home in New York, I was waiting for a friend of mine at a local restaurant. Out of the blue, a woman sitting alone, nursing a tropical drink in a shade of blue I’ve never before seen in liquid form, struck up a conversation with me. She spoke of a renowned scientist who has built a renewable energy plant in Nicaragua and wants to do the same in… guess where? El Salvador.

Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. To paraphrase Charles Dickens, These are the best of times. These are the worst of times. in the most important ways we are out of the recession. The vast majority of businesses no longer use the economy as an excuse for standing still. Most businesses now understand that they have to do something different if they don’t want to join the 200,000 businesses that went belly up in 2009. Seth Godin in his new book, Linchpin- Are you indispensable? makes a compelling argument that the only form of job security in the new economy is being someone who cannot be replaced because their contribution is unique and invaluable. While it is essential that we encourage linchpins to help build the new sustainable economy, we need a linchpin organization for them to work in and grow with. Linchpin businesses are indispensable to their customers, employees, investors, and external business partners. They promote a product or customer experience that cannot be measured in dollars. What they offer in the marketplace becomes an essential part of our lives. Think about Google, Apple, National Public Radio, The New York Times, Netflix, the compassionate and responsive primary care physician, an accountant who really knows your business. There probably are not enough Linchpin companies in our life.

The rules of business have changed forever. Change is faster and more radical than ever. Competition is greater and coming from places we never expected. Our government is in gridlock now and unless we change the rules, we will be stuck in neutral for years to come. Those of us who work in business and nonprofit organizations must lead the way to sustainable growth. We need to have a say, to make a difference. If our vote at the ballot box is not all that we want it to be we can vote in other ways. We can vote by the jobs we choose, the way we do those jobs, how and where we spend our money, and by starting and growing businesses and organizations that do well by doing good.