Our story: Promoting ethical business with Quaker principles

The Quakers and Business Group is dedicated to promoting business ethics, equiality in business, and peace through business being done in Quaker ways. Through our initiatives and networking opportunities, we are the voice and network for the Quaker business community.

Started in the 1990s, we have a long history of supporting Quakers and others working in business. Our vision was to offer better business methods to Quaker organisations and help individual solve ethical dilemmas in their business. Through conferences, publications, and coaching and mentoring, we have helped business people be come profitable as well as ethical.

Over the years, Quakers and Business has served a diverse range of members, empowering them to make a positive impact on society and build a sustainable business for the future.

Our guiding principles for ethical business

Integrity

We prioritise honesty, transparency, and accountability in all our actions. We believe in promoting integrity in business to foster trust and credibility. This commitment helps us build a supportive network dedicated to honest business practices.

Equality and social equity

We promote diversity and equality at work through fair practices, ensuring that all our members have opportunities to succeed. We believe in social equity and aim to foster a culture of inclusivity and respect.

Community engagement

We are committed to corporate social responsibility, engaging with communities to drive positive change. Through our work, we champion the idea of social enterprise and support organisations that are run to provide benefits beyond the owners

Quakers are unusual. Their teaching makes clear that their service begins when their Meeting for Worship ends. Quaker faith does, then, embrace the other 167 hours of the week that most religions ignore. That means that for Quakers, their faith necessarily goes to work with them. And, if they are in business, that means it must impact not just on the way that they work, but the way in which they trade, and all its consequences including as a supplier, customer, employer, steward of scarce resources, and so much more.

That’s why a quarter of a century ago I was involved in helping establish the Quakers and Business Group. Modern business isn’t noted for being rooted in ethics, let alone faith, and so to engage in business practice is, as a result, a challenge to those Quakers who are called to partake in it, as some clearly are.

That’s why the Quakers and Business Group matters. It seeks to provide guidance. It struggles to find answers in a complex world, where understanding the truth as a Quaker would define it is not always easy. And it supports those who try to live by their principles in making their livelihood in this difficult way.

For centuries Quakers had a reputation as honest, principled, business people on whom people could rely. The Quaker and Business Group seeks to uphold that legacy in a world where the reputation of business is not always what it should be. That is what makes it valuable, and that is why being a member matters to all of those who try to pursue their Quaker faith in one of the most difficult areas in which to practice it.

Richard MurphyOwner, Tax Research LLP – Q&B Member

As a Quaker attender who has spent a life working in international business Quakers and Business provides an excellent forum for discussing the application of Quaker business methods in business in general. It provides an opportunity to discuss with fellow members real life situations in businesses of all sizes and kinds. The Book “Good Business – Ethics at Work” (currently being revised) is an excellent source of questions to consider and advice on addressing them. Joining Quakers and Business is a modest first step.

Mark Moody-Stuart Q&B Member

Quakerdom is a way of life, not just a way of worship. Quakers and Business is an essential component of that.

Bill WaghornQ&B Member