Is optimism infectious?

Walking into Cameron Sinclair’s office in San Francisco’s South of Market District, the first thing one notices is a whiteboard calendar mapping out worldwide travels. Executive director of Architecture for Humanity, Sinclair is, at any given time, as likely to be in Canada or Cambodia as in his San Francisco home base.

While the global economy is inching through a recession, Sinclair tripled his staff in 2009 and his 10-year-old nonprofit is looking to double its $5 million budget in the next decade.

With projects ranging from earthquake reconstruction in Haiti to centers that use soccer as a tool for education and social change in Africa, AFH aims to use architecture and design to solve humanitarian crises. More than a humanitarian organization, it’s a network of 40,000 professionals that work collectively using open source designs, collaboration and a high level of ingenuity to improve the lives of as many as 60,000 people annually.

Sustainable Industries managed to catch Sinclair during a mid-summer stop in San Francisco for a conversation about entrepreneurship, taking risks, growing a business sustainably, and how the lessons he’s learned in the nonprofit world translate to other business types and models.

SI: You’ve referred to the Open Architecture Network as “free innovation.” Beyond architecture and design, what are some areas where you see open-source solutions as having the potential to make a real impact?

CS: What’s nice about the Open Architecture Network is that we begin to find other people who are interested in open-source in their own realm [such as biotech]. I know materials people that are looking at open-source materials and figuring out new ways to use those materials in new markets. So, it’s really it’s about opening new markets.

SI: Most businesses are designed to bring in the biggest returns. What advice would you give to business leaders outside the nonprofit world who are trying to redesign their business models to include environmental and social returns?

CS: The open innovation model is really about R&D. When R&D gets stifled by conservative or cautious shareholders, how are you supposed to advance your company? You end up being a one-trick pony. … If you want your business to keep innovating, you should look at your R&D sector as a place where you allow your internal designers to play and come up with fun ideas that wouldn’t get done in the normal process. Try to collaborate with other companies and companies outside their business. 

In terms of environmental returns, look at the long tail of your work. Maybe there’s a percentage of your business that’s looking at high-risk, low returns, but also high environmental impact. So right now it may not be a profit-making situation, but in 20 years when we have very scarce resources, it suddenly becomes low-risk and high-return.

People look at right now. Shareholders look at right now. The fact is, in 20 years we can’t predict [what will happen]. So I always think, as a business, you should look at your R&D as a place to experiment for 10, 20, 30 years.

SI: How do you translate the values of Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit, to the for-profit world?

CS:The big myth is that nonprofits don’t act like businesses. We’re a nonprofit and our mission is humanitarian, but we run it like a for-profit. We have a fee-for-service business model. … The strategy in which we work is transferable. … I think in a business methodology it’s what’s known as a distributed network system. We’re a huge believer in not only sharing innovation, but in distributed methodologies of working. … The most sustainable product is one that’s harvested locally. … That’s kind of how we work as a business. All of our architects are local, we source materials locally, [local people actually] build the buildings. But we run [the organization from] here.

SI: It seems to make you more nimble.

CS: Yeah, and I think as a larger business, you can be more nimble. … When you’re a new startup, I think you can’t use the old model of working any more. You have to look at what makes sense for you. What is your profit model?