Coca-Cola and the enterprising social venture

You can by a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere, even in the most remote parts of developing countries, but in theses places one in five children die before their fifth birthday. This mortality rate has not changed significantly over the last three decades. This is the story of one organization working to persuade Coca-Cola to help change this.

In my last article I discussed the fledgling movement of social franchising. This post however tells the story of one nonprofit organization that is attempting to harness the power of one of the most powerful franchised businesses in the world: Coca-Cola. The project is called ColaLife and its creator is Simon Berry. ColaLife itself does not operate as a social enterprise, however its bold and ambitious campaign could have social enterprise potential for many people in the poorest areas of the world. ColaLife are working to persuade Coca-Cola to open up their huge distribution channels to deliver 'social products' to people in very remote and hard to reach areas of the world. The products would be delivered in the form of an AidPod, a design developed by ColaLife. The AidPod is a wedge-shaped pod that fits into the unused space between the necks of the bottles in a Coca-Cola crate. The AidPods would contain items such as oral rehydration salts, high-dose vitamin A, and water purification tablets - items that can mean the difference between life and death in many remote regions of Africa.

Berry, a visionary and hugely likeable social innovator, has a background in aid work. The idea for ColaLife came to Berry many years ago when he was working for an aid organization out in the field in Africa: 'If Coca-Cola can get their product out to the poorest people in the world then why could they not also help deliver aid to them?' And so the seed of ColaLife was born. Twenty years on and Berry has left his job to work full-time on ColaLife. He currently runs the organization with his partner (in life and business) Jane Berry and an intern, Dennis Tretter. Small and young as the enterprise is, they already have the support of over 15,000 people online through their strategic use of social media. ColaLife has been shortlisted for both the Buckminster Fuller prize and the Clinton fund. Most impressive though is ColaLife's impact on Coca-Cola who have now agreed to investigate aid opportunities in Africa using their distribution channels.

ColaLife is still in its infancy and so is continuously developing and refining its model. Their first objective was to start a dialogue with Coca-Cola on opening up their distribution networks to carry social products to save children's lives. This dialogue has started. Now ColaLife is concentrating its efforts on refining the system by which the distribution of AidPods will work as a sustained social enterprise, bringing social investment to the communities it works in. Using ColaLife's AidPod, local agencies will 'piggy-back' on established supply chains, offering real, affordable 'last mile' reach, SMS tracking, impactful CSR opportunities, and improved carbon footprints. Sellers of Coca Cola are franchisees and so Coca Cola are not directly responsible for their distribution.

At the heart of ColaLife is the principle of local determination. ColaLife must be implemented in a way with empowers and strengthens the local public health infrastructure. The local public health infrastructure (Government/NGOs) would decide what should go into the AidPods. This will vary from place to place and from season to season. Crucially, it is not up to Coca-Cola or ColaLife to say what goes in the AidPods. This needs to be determined by those with the long-term responsibility for public health in a particular area. Coca-Cola franchisees may be paid by aid organizations to include the AidPods in their deliveries thus adding business incentive to the distribution of AidPods.

The debate continues as to whether the Aid Pods should carry advertising helping to create revenue to sustain the social enterprise. Coca-Cola, although committed to the ideas behind ColaLife and the AidPod, have not committed to a formal partnership with ColaLife. ColaLife's next and current objective is to run an independently evaluated trial of the ColaLife concept in one location in Africa.

Photo credit: Ellie Stonely