New Charitable Business Idea - Not Communism

While seeking my MBA from a reputable business school Saint Louis University I am constantly trying to think of new business opportunities that fall in line with my beliefs (Christianity). This idea came to me on my drive home from class the other day.

I'll have to confess, it also came as part of renegotiating my family's monthly utility bills (cable and internet), which I do every once in awhile to make sure I'm getting as good a product as possible while paying the cheapest price.

Why can't a business be based around giving profits away? I know capitalism has a firm hold on America, but I can't help but think it might not be the only way. Churches seem to be a great example of this, providing a service (literally) to parishioners for a market-determined price (to keep their doors open people give a tithe, determined by that person's ability/guilt). Another example of what I'm talking about includes discounted/used clothing places such as Goodwill or Salvation Army stores.

However, most of these outfits operate on a model which requires them to be dependent upon goodwill or charity of those in a position to do so. I'm proposing that a business exists to both serve the purposes of creating a market share and gaining customers, as WELL as giving back all profits in the form of charitable donations or hand-outs to the poor.

Such a business would pay everyone working for it a reasonable amount (no golden parachutes for CEOs, no grandiose pay deals either, and no extraordinary R&D profit sharing). Engineers coming up with new ideas would get paid what engineers at their skill level were expected to get paid, as would CEOs and everyone else. This would still permit a reasonable amount of innovation to keep the company running, as well as keep profits flowing to people in need.

Being experienced with Linux and other forms of free software, I have to assume with the knowledge base in the world these days, innovation would almost be guaranteed to happen, even in a free/cheap form.

Instead of financing a business with an IPO or something similar, the business would either start out as a hobby, or else as debt, being financed by a bank. So there would be someone making money off the business created (the bank charging interest), however it would be ordinary and expected, instead of all profits going right to the pockets of greedy shareholders.

I think a business of this form would experience tremendous competitive advantages, including customer goodwill, employee goodwill, public goodwill, as well as cost savings for not overpaying for things done as expected.

I'm still trying to formulate other problems with this system, but I think it sounds alright.