The Financial Times on the demise of Quaker businesses, included a quote from Timothy Phillips, Clerk of Quakers and Business:

"He estimates that there are fewer than 100 mostly small businesses run according to Quaker principles in the UK today. There is still a great need for a Quaker or a likeminded ethos in business,” he says, citing banking bonuses and over-leverage as contemporary commercial evils. Business with a social mission is now largely the preserve of social entrepreneurs. These rarely cite religion.

"As Cadburys we will look to Kraft to live up to our high standards".  Statement by Sir Adrian and Sir Dominic Cadbury, published in the Telegraph. 

The BBC Magazine on How did Quakers conquer the sweetshop? This achievement is all the more remarkable given the tiny numbers of Quakers. Paul Whitehouse, Treasurer of Quakers and Business, says this helps explain why there are fewer Quakers firms today.

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STATE OF PLAY

As I write, I have just returned from Q&B Management Committee meeting in Friends House and the annual conference was the previous week at Friends House. I ask myself what does it feel like (to me) attending and reflecting on the inner dynamics of the process I perceived. As it happens, I have been serving on Meeting for Sufferings and Quaker Peace and Social Witness Central Committees of the Religious Society of Friends for the past 3 years and joined Q&B’s Nominations committee during that time. I have found my service on central committees frustrating in some ways and in contrast, attending Q&B events invigorating.

We promote Quaker principles in business and the workplace, because we believe they are good in themselves.  This way, business earns a surplus and spends it - ethically.   And, charities and public bodies deliver their services with ethics at their cores, too.   Ethics means a practical, loving concern for the common good, physically, mentally, spiritually, rooted in collectively seeking the right way forward. 

We are a growing network of Quakers and others;  most of us are Quakers presently in membership and all of us are in sympathy with what Friends stand for in the world. We are ever open to the truth, wherever it is found. Some of us work in the charity and public sectors at various levels of responsibility, others in the profit making sector, where we are either self employed, own and manage our own business, or work for manufacturing or service companies.

We are widely, thinly spread across Local Quaker Meetings (there will be one in your area). The Quakers & Business (Q&B) Group is the network through which we find each other easily when we need. It also facilitites our collective voice.  We welcome all as members, not just Quakers, who are in sympathy with our aims.  You can join online here.

Q&B is a listed informal group within Britain Yearly Meeting, and a registered Charity regulated by the Charity Commission. We have members in other Yearly Meetings and are in touch with similar networks elsewhere in the world.  You can find our Constitution in the Documents section.  We have a set of business principles, and work to realise our vision, mission & priority goals, which can be seen here.

What do we do?

We publish: i) our business principles summary statement, ii) our book Good Business: Ethics at Work - Advices and Queries on Personal Standards of Conduct at Work:  available from Friends House Bookshop. A portion of the proceeds go to support Quaker Social Action.

We meet: at three events in 2010.  You can: learn relevant stuff, meet new Friends sharing your interests - and make new business friends too.  The events are:

1. The Q&B Spring Gathering including our AGM, Saturday 24 April, Redland FMH, Bristol.  Our time studying today's world economy and how to speak truth to power, so our businesses and charities may prosper.

2.  The Quakers Non-executive Directors network, 24 - 25 May at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, Birmingham, UK.  A content rich, professional networking event for all in NxD or charity Trustee roles or who would like to be.

3. The Quaker Business Conference 2010, 17 November, at Friends House.  We'll tackle: Prospering ethically in uncertain times.  Watch this space...

We now have a Quakers & Business group on Linkedin.  Join here.

Forbes have published an article by Mark Lewis suggesting that office meetings might be more effective if the participants emulated the Society of Friends.  Read it here.