Sustaining Social Enterprises: A Partner Story

In Indonesia, more than 28 million residents live below the national poverty line, and another 40 percent of the population are vulnerable to falling below that line.1

Fortunately, people living in poverty in this island country have a friend: Yayasan Usaha Mulia, or YUM , a nonprofit organization that has been working to improve the quality of life for the impoverished and destitute in this part of the world for over 40 years. 

And as of November 2017, YUM has added three new friends of its own: a three-person 3M team that spent 10 days in the country helping YUM evaluate and enhance its approach to social enterprises.

The team – Dawn Muyres, Liz Brodd and Phuong Nguyen – was supported by the 3M Impact program, which gives employees an opportunity to lend their business skills, experience and energy to local nonprofit organizations, social enterprises and government agencies in markets where the need is great and the work is relevant to 3M’s businesses.

In the case of YUM, the need was for a set of tools that could be used to assess the viability and performance of social enterprises, which provide additional funding streams for the organization’s work with the poor.

Says Vanessa Reksodipoetro, executive director of YUM, “YUM currently has three social enterprises that were established in 2011 to generate income that the organization can use to fund projects in our working areas. With no background in business, these enterprises have been running purely out of instinct and good will. We thought it was time to bring in professionals who understood business so they could help us assess their viability and potential.”

Evidently, the decision paid dividends.

“Straight from day one, they were prepared with tools that they tried out with us to make sure they were what we needed, and that we fully understood how to use them,” says Vanessa. “The team members also went through our processes and financials to help us be more accurate and efficient. In the end, this will help us further improve our social enterprises and earn more profit from them, which will go back to the different social projects that YUM manages in West Java and Central Kalimantan.

“In just 10 days, it’s not easy to get to know the project, study it thoroughly and give recommendations and solutions. But the 3M Impact team we had was so enthusiastic, so generous and so patient with us that it made the work easy and fun to do. I think we got amazing help from them.”