Social Entrepreneurship: Training a Generation for Failure
Social Entrepreneurship: Training a Generation for Failure
Josh Cohen and Aaron Hurst
A year ago we met and shared a common insight that social entrepreneurship is the not right framing to help Generation Y meet their need to make a social impact in their careers. We are concerned that unless a new framing is created, business schools and corporations will not effectively enable this generation to make the impact on the world that we need. We have some insights and observations to share, but have not landed on the right framework. We are hoping that we can engage you in this conversation to find it.
The Situation-
- Today, Generation Y- the 60 million young adults born between 1979 and 1994- is entering and shaping the workforce.
- According to a 2008-2009 study conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton, Ernst & Young, Time Warner, and UBS, 86% of Generation Y say it’s important that their work make a positive impact on the world.
- Top business schools are responding to this desire by creating tracks for and teaching social entrepreneurship as the route for students hoping to make a difference in the world.
- Leading social entrepreneurship program Ashoka offers only 110 fellowships in the United States, and other social entrepreneurship opportunities are equally limited.
- With 100,000 MBA graduates annually, social entrepreneurship is not a scalable solution for engaging Generation Y in work that fulfills their desire to make a positive impact.
- There is a powerful and urgent opportunity for a new framework to be created.
Our Insights-
- The Self-Actualized Generation- In famed psychologist Abram Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, human needs are represented by a pyramid where one must meet the needs of each tier to move to the tier above. Today, as Generation Y enters the workforce, it is as if an entire generation of business professionals has reached the pinnacle of Maslow’s hierarchy- self-actualization. Characterized by a heightened emphasis on vitality, creativity, authenticity, playfulness, and meaningfulness – not only at home but also in the workplace- Generation Y displays a newfound self that drives its focus on social impact.
- The ME, Inc Generation- Increased emphasis on personal branding and developments in technology and social media complicate company-potential employee relationships as each individual views himself as his own personal company or “ME inc.” Members of Generation Y see themselves not only as employees, but also as volunteers, donors, investors, consumers, and individual PR agencies.
- Integrated Impact-Today’s professionals must take a more integrated approach to how they make a difference- considering their impact in all decision-making from employment to purchasing to investment.
- Personal Social Responsibility- There may be a framework that applies the concepts of CSR- corporate social responsibility- to the individual professional- a personal social responsibility or PSR.
We hope that you will help us explore the need for a new framework. Do you agree or disagree with the situation and insights we have described? Do you have additional insights? Is social entrepreneurship setting Generation Y up for failure? What framework would you suggest or what elements would a new framework need to have?
Josh Cohen
Josh Cohen is the Managing Partner of City Light Capital, a firm that he co-founded in 2004. He is currently on the Board of Rotomotion and is an Observer to the Boards of 2Tor, ImageSpan and ShotSpotter. He was formerly an Observer to the Board of Arxceo before it was acquired by JCI Group. Josh had previous venture capital experience working with a family office in St. Louis and the SV Group, a private debt fund. Prior to joining the venture community, Josh was the Director of Business Development for Mobility Electronics (NASDAQ: IGOI). While at Mobility, Josh closed several joint ventures, private investments and acquisitions on behalf of the company. He began his career as an investment banker in the technology group of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown in San Francisco. As a banker, he contributed to several public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, including WebEx Communications, Mobility Electronics and the sale of yesmail.com to CMGI.
Josh has known for a long time that private enterprise and public good are intertwined. In 1999, he created Developing Minds, a nonprofit organization focused on building and donating business products and processes to the nonprofit sector. Developing Minds has created the Time Raiser™, a time-based auction model used to recruit and reward volunteers, and structured several partnerships between for-profit technology companies and nonprofit organizations.
Aaron Hurst
Aaron Hurst has been widely recognized as a leading social entrepreneur for his work in civic engagement, nonprofit management and corporate social responsibility. Aaron founded the Taproot Foundation in 2001 to engage this country’s millions of marketing, design, strategy, and human resources professionals in pro bono work building the infrastructure of the nonprofit sector. As president of the Taproot Foundation, Aaron leads the development of the organization across the nation, as well as sets the strategy and vision behind the Foundation’s work. Under his direction, the Taproot Foundation has become the national leader in pro bono work, serving over 350 nonprofits each year and setting the agenda for the development of the field.
As the Founder and President of the Taproot Foundation, he has received the Draper Richards Foundation’s Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship and was elected into the prestigious international Ashoka Fellowship. He has received numerous awards for his vision and leadership, including the Manhattan Institute Award for Social Entrepreneurship, Social Venture Network’s Innovation Award, and Commonwealth Club’s 21st Century Award. He was also recognized by Fast Company as a 2006 Rising Star – “a social capitalist with extraordinary potential.”
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21 Comments to “Social Entrepreneurship: Training a Generation for Failure”
It’s not clear from your post why you believe that “social entrepreneurship is the not right framing to help Generation Y meet their need to make a social impact in their careers.”
Can you please elaborate?
Thank you.
Social Entrepreneurs may or may not be the correct term. You have to wonder if this “social is the same as in “social media”. Its a telling distincition because those who are looking to start and grow projects – sustainable ones with impact – do not have many role models, at least not terribly visible ones, and the institutions who profess to educate about social entrepreneurship cling to existing models and work to apply them to new situations.
I have to remind entrepreneurs who are motivated with social impact intentions that their startups/companies can be for profit. It’s not a dirty word, yet I hear time and again at events and functions that social entrepreneurs with for-profit projects are “sell-outs’. Am not about to argue the logic, but show that it exists and must be countered.
If you’re a socal entrepreneur ask yourself over and over again Why am I doing this? To enrich the life of myself and others? Or simply to make me feel better about myself? Yes, there needs to be a new framework, but it must practical not theoretic. It cannot be placed upon the individual much like the yoke upon the collar, raher, it must evolve with the changing values and mores adopted by the social entrepreneur as he/she works to scale and build out the mareketable solution.
Does anyone learn how to be an entrepreneur? Is it something one is born with? Social Conscience: nature or nurture? What are schools going to teach and how are they going to do so?
I am all ears.
To unpack the argument a bit, it seems that this article is premised on a definition of social entrepreneurship as an endeavor that requires an infusion of outside resources to succeed (thus mentioning that the Ashoka Fellowship and similar programs are limited). I’m not sure if the authors are agreeing with this definition or rather suggesting that this is Gen Y’s understanding of the concept.
In any case, successful social entrepreneurs can solve a problem AND make a profit (likely the preferred approach taught in business schools). If we take this as our premise, I’m unclear on what the concern is.
Certainly, not all social entrepreneurs will achieve profits on their first venture, just as most conventional entrepreneurs do not. Indeed, by this standard, perhaps we should say that efforts encouraging entrepreneurs like the Small Business Administration and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses initiatives are “training a generation for failure.”
Josh,
Social entrepreneurship is just one avenue for change, but will not be the driving vehicle of Gen Y to make their mark.
The problem with social entrepreneurship, generically speaking, is part inherent and part environmental. 1) Not every person has entrepreneurial talent ; 2) Social entrepreneurship too often competes (unsuccessfully) with corporate social entrepreneurship and business entrepreneurship; and 3) Generational attitudes and hierarchies are competing forces; in your illustration – Gen Y is competing against their “supervisors” and those whose investment they need – the Gen Xers and the Baby Boomers. Social entrepreneurship will be but one element of Gen Y’s influence and needs achievement.
The tool of social and behavioral change, as engineered by Gen Y is one you’ve mentioned as the complicating factor when it is one of the solutions, technology and social media. I do see evidence that Gen Y is having influence within the workforce, workplace, and marketplace, over the Boomers and Gen Xers. It is technology that is driving all generations to certain common denominators and facilitating a lot of the Gen Y mantra to influence their older/younger brethren. I see the framework, that you seek, to be driven by the platforms of social media and engagement media. The Gen Yers live and breathe via social media and current technologies; it is what they know and almost all that they have known. What will accelerate Boomers and Gen Xers to stay relevant is adoption of these new devices and means, which puts the Gen Yers in the “drivers seat.” I’d start your framework focus not on institutions like B-Schools and corporations, but the real elements of today’s change – the tools at the disposal of Gen Y.
Now as Gen Y advances through their lifecycle, I only hope that they don’t succumb to the more materialistic shortcomings of their predecessors and that they don’t stop their swimming against the tide ahead of them. Case in point, while there are Boomers still hanging out in Bethel, New York, keeping the Woodstock Nation alive, for the most part outside factors altered their mantra…so we have Dennis Hopper now doing commercials for Ameriprise Financial? Let’s hope that Gen Y can swim longer and stronger than Gen X and the Baby Boomers.
While Benjamin Braddock was told to follow the plastic; my advice is to follow the handheld device.
Not at all. There is nothing broken here, Social Entreprenurialship needs a lot more support to reach full maturity.
Social Entreprenurialship has enjoyed an enormous success. If anything, we need to expand the concept, into an over reaching idea of saving our specie from self destruction, and enabling the true exploration of space.
Take one look at the state of affairs and you would see that the insights mentioned are been fulfilled:
The self actualized generation – is happening everywhere. I see it in todays corporate environments.
People wanting to be more active in social service. Corporations driving that participation with real money and real “leave of absence for social service” benefits. We just need that at all levels of enterprise.
The Me, Inc generation is happening too, and Generation Y is using vehicles like Facebook, NING, and LinkedIn, etc to create awareness and collaboration. People are capable of instant connections for all kinds of purposes.
Integrated Impact – this is perhaps the most difficult one. Here is where we can focus the most, why? because in corporations and many other kinds of social organizations, decision making is very political, “Who benefits?” has a first consideration over “do we benefit all?” and we all are condemned to see waste going rampant, billions and millions of dollars invested in the wrong projects at the wrong time. And not a word we can say. There is a need for whistleblowing before the waste happens, who would listen?, how would the whisleblower be protected?. I am not kidding, I have seen entire multimillion dollar teams acting like lemmings in projects that wasted millions of dollars on decisions which were largely political while fully conscious of the project ultimate demise. Those who know the inner sanctums of corporate workings know what I am talking about. It is also very delicate, how to handle the need for secrecy in the name of competitive advantage, and just keeping quiet because you don’t want to lose your job?.
Personal Social Responsability, I love this insight, this is probably the easiest to understand, yet might prove the hardest to implement while the individual is part of a large corporation. Because it is closely tied to Integrated Impact.
I would like to add three insights: not mine, borrowed from others, mostly carryover from the sixties but nevertheless important.
Super conciousness – we can get farther ahead as a specie, in the measure that we care for all. And we care for all, because of the recognition that we all have unique cultures, unique backgrounds and unique genetical makeups. We need for ALL to marshal the effort necessary to conquer all our basic maladies: Famine, disease, economic misery, ignorance. As we conquer those evils by perfecting our social organizations, we can then proceed to support the next insight.
Universality – we belong in the cosmos. Space exploration, contact with other intelligent species and safekeeping of our planet should be the greater agenda for all nations together, each contributing with their respective capabilities. Each with a proper accountability system.
Organizational accountability to human values – France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, is supporting an initiative where a great team of the world intelligence is setting up an enhanced accountability system for Nations. The success of nations should be measured not only in GNP growth, but also in very important measures like: Health care for their citizens, education, reduction of economic misery, etc.
Can you imagine ? what about a system like that for Corporations (and smaller business entities)? so that the performance of the for profit organizations get measured (really measured) not only by their dollar stock price but also but their “human services” stock value ?
Generation Y has great challenges, and also great tools to confront those challenges. We don’t even know what they are doing now, Generation Y is so busy, we can’t keep up with them anymore. And we need to give them all the support we can give them.
Perhaps, the ultimate modern insight would be: Accountability at all levels. Personal, for profit, not for profit, National, and ultimately: How are we doing at the planetary scale ?
The time is now, where each individual who wants can see the impact of his own contribution (or lack of) to the estate of affairs at all levels. We have the tools, lets use them, lets make it happen, lets bring in the Aquarius age. Would that be too much to ask from Generation Y ? We started it, they can continue it.
This is not a dream, if we figure out how to engage the whole planet, right there we can put an end to so much regionalist and racial hate. Instead of competing who does the nastiest things to who, we can start a competition of who does the best thing for their own people and their own piece of the responsibility in the planetary pie.
Interesting post. We know that most people are not entrepreneurs in the for-profit world. So it makes sense that not everyone will be a social entrepreneur.
So what IS the right frame that fits Gen Y more broadly?
I have been following a number of attempts to engage social media participants in social change. The experience has been both enlightening and informative.
Today’s workers participate is swarms. These swarms manifest themselves most profoundly in the “me” generation. The personal or one-to-one nature of digital communication fosters a sense of control where there is none. Most disconcerting is the fact that technology-based communication requires multi-tasking skills that the human brain does not have.
This “Divided Attention” article captures the dilemma: http://chronicle.com/article/Scholars-Turn-Their-Attention/63746/ “Heavy multitaskers are often extremely confident in their abilities,” says Clifford I. Nass, a professor of psychology at Stanford University. “But there’s evidence that those people are actually worse at multitasking than most people.”
Worrying that the armies of MBAs won’t be able to solve social problems in this environment is a bit like trying to stick your finger in one hole in a crumbling Hover Damn. Our children need to be taught to learn and concentrate or we will become the voice-box for the world. Others will do, invent, and build, and we will market. The price we pay will be our reasoning capacity and our global market share.
The “me” generation is really no different than any other generation. They need to work hard, concentrate, and develop expertise outside of corporate structures. They need to focus on doing one thing at a time. As we level the playing field, we will see less need for social interventions. We will become like the countries with the happiest people. We will become a rich nation.
Best wishes,
Linda Hahner
Your title is provocative, but the text doesn’t offer it much support. If “social entrepreneurship” is a “frame” why does it matter if MBA programs or Ashoka fellowships are limited? Can’t anyone embrace a frame as part of a business ethos or personal ideology? if Generation Y is so self-motivated and “actualized” do they need to feel part of a named framework? If you’re asking how can you harness the skills and interests of Gen Y for social change, that’s a meaty topic on which there has been much discussion. Just not necessarily on the “social entrepreneurship” websites.
I’m not clear which definition of social entrepreneurship you’re using – it’s an umbrella term that has different meaning to different people. If you are talking about entrepreneurship within or the founding of a nonprofit organization, you’re right – we can’t have 100% of the population employed this way (at least not all at the same time).
However, if your definition of social entrepreneurship includes CSR and other double- or even triple-bottom line, profit-making activities (which is not even Ashoka’s traditional focus, by the way), I’m not sure you’ve made your case. Start-up capital for these enterprises is widely available, unlike seed capital for new nonprofit ventures. And social intrapreneurship within an existing company is just as important and perhaps more feasible than starting a new profitmaking venture, with all its risk and high failure rate.
Would it really be a bad thing if all MBAs sought to maximize profit AND social good — wherever they end up?
Is it possible that the profit motive for personal gain has undermined the potential of business–ordinary, everyday business–to provide meaning and value? The fundamental idea underlying all entrepreneurship is that you can take raw materials and resources and create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. This alone can be very self-actualizing, even if you never turn a profit. Once an idea or innovation gets off the ground, it requires a support structure–enter the rest of the business world.
I think one of the problems with business education in general is the focus on generation of personal wealth with no sense of what purpose(s) that wealth could serve, or what purposes the process and products could also serve. Our sense of ethics is limited to what is the “right” thing to do in a particular case, and not some greater sense of value in the idea of creating something from nothing. Our ethical standards deal with avoidance of lying and cheating instead of a greater value framework that could at the very least begin with “do no harm” and at the greatest could infuse an incredible amount of meaning by teaching people to a) respect their clients, coworkers, and environment as valuable b)use business to achieve their highest personal character, c) create goods and services for which the world has a genuine need and d) promote and encourage the further development of social structures including markets, government, civil society, and families.
I’m no expert in Google–but this seems to be the sort of approach they have historically taken with their business model. I would guess this approach brings a lot more self actualization, meaning, and value than the “do everything you can to turn as large a profit as possible” approach that seems to be the predominant business paradigm.
If the question is “find a job in social entrepreneurship” versus “make a job for myself in social entrepreneurship” probably many of the premises above are true. People still have plenty of room to make their own ventures–perhaps even starting as side projects.
Second, I believe the next generation of “social intra-praneurs” or innovative and socially conscious individuals who take jobs in leading edge organizations can in many cases offer opportunities for meaning and purpose which are consonant with the purposes of the social entrepreneur.
Specifically, one area where “social intrapreneurs” can find jobs is government. The next generations of both urban planning and small government led innovation look to be promising for the passionate and creative change maker. In the US specifically, we have a long way to go to catch up with countries like the UK (who seem to be 5 years ahead of us)–by both helping change that stymied course (not withstanding the efforts of Obama) and helping light the way for a better tomorrow in government–those in search of meaning and purpose which overlaps with a socially entrepreneurial purpose.
Third, I think the next wave of design thinkers and doers–which help fundamentally augment products as well as the way organizations behave offer another venue for social entrepreneurs to achieve and succeed.
I agree with the ‘Integrated Impact’ point. It is apparent that Gen Y believe they are an enlightened and entitled lot not prone to protocols or standing on ceremony. As a baby boomer, I think they are missing quite a bit by not being completely engaged with a generation of people who did make social change – in race, gender equality, voting rights, familial status. The concept of making a ‘positive impact’ has to have a multi-layered approach and not just for the benefit of personal fulfillment. That, in itself, is shallow. If a Gen Y takes the personal fulfillment and try to express it across social platforms then the other 75% of the population they are interacting with ‘will simply not get it.’ If they don’t get it, then they can’t help or be engaged in their cause for social involvement. You have to sell your colleagues, bosses, constituents on the idea.
I also agree with David Polakoff. The inspiration of the Gen Y is outside of the B-schools. They need practical, real-world experience with all the pitfalls of selling to a group outside their own. Social media outlets and using them as a communication tool are one-dimensional and they have no depth. You simply cannot communicate the value of anything within 140 characters. Communication is essential in how we interact with each other; and social media is not communication. It is a billboard of displaced messages without depth or finesse.
What Gen-Yers should look to do is better communicate their desires, and how they can participate in the practical application of their passions so that the greater good can benefit.
To me, social entrepreneurship is not what they are looking for. That is an experience, but not an application that they can relate to in the real world. An ‘experience’ is taking the summer off before starting college to back-pack through Europe. That experience does not make anyone any more enlightened about the world at large. It is only until they work in real world-real time work environments – whether as an employee, contractor or manager – that they can see the impact they can have on a social scale.
Why? Because the rest of the world operates on a practical, structured mindset not on a social entrepreneur mindset. The mindset in an organization needs to change. No one in the higher ranks wants to hear from the GenYer why they are not fulfilled. But, the mindset in a corporation has to change to embrace the credo of a GenYer. The meeting of the minds and mindset is what will provide a Gen Yer the opportunity to are seeking.
From a Gen Y perspective social entrepreneurship is simply entrepreneurship with greater social purpose. It will encompass the development of future industries (i.e the green economy) as well as the implementation of new business and funding models for social enterprise.
As an aspiring social entrepreneur I agree with Kate & Daisy – I don’t feel the need to be a part of a named framework – We simply want to help people and effect change and believe it can be achieved by maximising both profit & social good.
I respect your perspective that “..there is a powerful and urgent opportunity for a new framework to be created…” however I feel social entrepreneurs are ahead of the curve and that any framework will be developed in our wake.
The following links help to inform my view and aspirations as a social entrepreneur.
New Business Models
http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/business-models-beyond-profit-social-entrepreneurship-lecture-wise-etienne-eichenberger-iqbal-quadir-grameen-bank-grameen-phone
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/geoff_mulgan_post_crash_investing_in_a_better_world_1.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/katherine_fulton_you_are_the_future_of_philanthropy.html
New Funding Models
http://www.socialfinance.org.uk/services/index.php?page_ID=15
http://www.youngfoundation.org/social-innovation/tips/social-impact-bonds-and-social-value
When Josh Cohen and Aaron Hurst posit that social entrepreneurship is not and cannot be the scalable, accessible, and impactful solution to channel the energies for social change flowing through Gen Y, they did not call out social entrepreneurship as a drain on our communities or an ill-conceived proposition. That would, of course, have been disingenuous as both have built and scaled significant operations, born out of social entrepreneurship, that drive change and resources to our society’s most pressing issues. Their point was that with all the incredible drive demonstrated by Gen Y-ers, we have not yet, as a social sector, provided an adequate platform of scalable involvement that will fuel real change in a sustainable manner. They called out the fact that social entrepreneurship, as it is currently gaining stature, air time, and momentum, is not and cannot be that scalable solution.
I’d like to address some of the points that Josh and Aaron did not call out. On one hand, points about the potential disparity between energies and resources available to Social Innovation as contrasted against traditional nonprofit and community interventions and supports. From a different perspective, points about the question of scale and impact – looking at the opportunity to engage a generation of citizens who seek out opportunities to engage in support of change and progress in a way that will move the needle in a real way on social issues.
The original Social Entrepreneur of American history can be argued to have been Jane Addams of Hull House fame. Jane Addams funded the original settlement house with some of her own inheritance and later secured funding from a local real estate agent to seed her vision. In its heyday, Addams’ settlement houses provided refuge, social services, cultural activities, adult education, public kitchens, gymnasiums, and more. From the one original settlement house, Addams grew the idea into thirteen-building campus. Her model has been replicated, cited, and modeled in areas including adult education, food pantries, community centers, public housing, supportive housing, and more.
What’s my point here? That social entrepreneurship did not start with Gen X or Y. It is the legacy of community work, the history of social safety nets, and the embodiment of the intersection between community need and professional and business resources.
Why, then, all the controversy about social entrepreneurship surrounding Josh and Aaron’s post? To bring the conversation down out of the proverbial rafters, the issue, in my mind, is of scale, impact and community need. We seem to have entered an era in which social innovation is prized over social impact. ROI seems to be slipping into a fuzzy distance as we fuel and celebrate individuals who strive to make their mark and make change happen in their communities and worldwide without having necessarily paused to investigate who might already be working and innovating in the space.
In this, as in every recession, we have seen some nonprofit startups and smaller organizations fail. If you ask philanthropic leaders, you’ll likely hear that this is the natural order of things, that the philanthropic market will correct itself, just as other markets do, and cull away the entities that are less than effective and salient. What this fails to reflect, however, is the sunk cost of investment of time, energies, funds, and relationships into efforts that were never necessary, might have been easily framed in the context of a larger, more seasoned entity, or were never set up strategically to make a leveraged impact in the first place.
Generally, we MBA types are somewhat dismissive about sunk costs. We reflect that while opportunity cost is significant, with sunk costs, the ship has already sailed and there’s no use crying over spilt milk, so we should buck up, make the right financial decisions based on the landscape before us, and cut our losses whenever necessary. When we’re talking about social entrepreneurship, however, we’re talking about sunk costs that could have fueled the salaries of outreach workers to help homeless families, medical supplies for community health centers, child care teachers for the children of working poor families, and more.
What does this mean, then for social entrepreneurship writ large? It means that we have to push the field to take on the practice of applying business as well as nonprofit evaluation tools to new initiatives. We need to ask:
• Who will be helped?
• Who else serves that community or issue area?
• What is the need not being met?
• Is there a way to meet that need without starting an entirely new organization which will require infrastructure, leadership, and basic development time and costs?
• Why is this individual uniquely qualified to initiate, scope, design, and lead to solution to the problem or issue at hand?
Without asking these basic questions, and if we continue to presume that fresh ideas and innovation are the best ways for eager citizens to make a difference in their worlds, we will continue to invest in what we could easily predict will be lost sunk costs.
Nonprofits have always been started by social entrepreneurs. Jane Addams was no exception. Nonprofit and community structures and groups have been started by community members and leaders who saw a need in their community and sought to address it. Nothing has changed in that respect. What has changed is the degree to which we, as a social sector, have come to over-value these start-up activities over and above existing proven entities starving for resources and support to improve their reach and impact. Social entrepreneurship runs the risk in every instance of being focused more on the individual ego than on the altruistic. We see investments of time and funding, as well as encouragement of up and-coming professionals to focus their energies and plans towards these ventures to the exclusion of engagement in the current progress underway in their communities under the leadership of skilled and knowledgeable leaders and visionaries.
So for me the question is not whether or not social entrepreneurship has value and an importance place in our sector. It clearly does. The questions for me include the following:
1) When and how will we apply stringent vetting processes to social entrepreneurship ideas aimed at identifying those prospects with the most promise to deliver real results to the community in a sustainable and replicable manner?
2) How can we channel the creative energies currently trained almost exclusively on social entrepreneurship towards innovation and improvement of our current institutions, policies, and social structures supporting change in our communities?
3) What can we offer enthusiastic and interested Gen Y-ers to provide them with the right avenues and platforms to make a difference with their time, support, knowledge, and innovation?
4) How can the right opportunities for these Gen-Y-ers and other innovative and interested citizens be scalable and sustainable to ensure that their efforts are not fleeting or lacking in real results?
As someone who leads efforts at the Taproot Foundation, I would be remiss in not pointing out that pro bono service can and should be one of the array of answers to the questions I pose above. When we provide opportunities for driven professionals to use their valuable skills to support their communities’ needs, this is one example of a sustainable, scalable opportunity for Gen Y-ers and others. It cannot be the entire solution, however.
Before this post turns into a diatribe about the ways in which our social safety net falls short, I think I’ll stop here. I’m pleased to see that Josh and Aaron’s post has created a stir. It means we’re thinking and talking about what works, how we need to provide opportunities and support to engage our citizens in active change. The more we talk and riff on these topics, the less we’ll sit back and assume that we know the right solution and approach for every possible eventuality. It’s all about exploration and possibility.
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Megan Kashner, LCSW, MBA is an experienced nonprofit leader who brings her skills in strategic management, development, community partnerships, and organizational planning to her position as Executive Director of the Taproot Foundation’s Eastern-Central Region. With more than twenty years in direct service and leadership, Ms. Kashner has led organizations and programs dedicated to improving social service support for women and families living in poverty and at risk. Ms. Kashner has demonstrated success in her leadership of organizations and programs dedicated to improving essential supports throughout the sector. Ms. Kashner earned a BA in Public Policy and American Civilization at Brown University, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a master’s degree from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service and earned an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
I may be a heretic but isn’t every entrepreneur a “social entrepreneur”? Doesn’t every entrepreneur create jobs and therefore create social value? It seems to me that any enterprise, whether it is a for profit or a not-for-profit needs to focus on creating measurable economic value. If economic value is created, investors will fund it. Much of the discussion about social entrepreneurship seems to me to be a way to justify business models that aren’t really sustainable on an economic basis.
As we all learned in Eco 101, there is no free lunch. Social responsibility should be an ingrained value like honesty and integrity that helps to shape how we seek to create solutions.
Integrated Impact – this is perhaps the most difficult one. Here is where we can focus the most, why? because in corporations and many other kinds of social organizations, decision making is very political, “Who benefits?” has a first consideration over “do we benefit all?” and we all are condemned to see waste going rampant, billions and millions of dollars invested in the wrong projects at the wrong time. And not a word we can say. There is a need for whistleblowing before the waste happens, who would listen?, how would the whisleblower be protected?. I am not kidding, I have seen entire multimillion dollar teams acting like lemmings in projects that wasted millions of dollars on decisions which were largely political while fully conscious of the project ultimate demise. Those who know the inner sanctums of corporate workings know what I am talking about. It is also very delicate, how to handle the need for secrecy in the name of competitive advantage, and just keeping quiet because you don’t want to lose your job?.
+1
Dear Josh and Aaron:
This posting concisely summarizes a lot of issues I’ve been facing as a recent college graduate seeking a career in business-driven social impact. Namely, that there are thousands of people out there who want to “do well by doing good” and only a few hundred fellowship positions with organizations like Ashoka out there.
I like your analysis – that personal branding, personalizing social responsibility, and thinking about self-actualization as part of a career is helpful. I’ve thought a lot about these issues personally and have started a blog on social impact networking events in NYC, which is how I heard about City Light Capital – because I saw that you’re hosting the “New Mix Drinks” event this Wednesday in NYC. Will either or both of you be attending?
My additional insights:
- Plugging into existing networks vs. reinventing the wheel – Business school students, undergraduates, and anyone who takes a social entrepreneurship class seems to be pushed in the direction of starting a social enterprise. That’s great, but what about those socially minded businesspeople who aren’t going to come up with the next D.Light? There needs to be a focus on plugging into existing networks rather than only starting up one’s own enterprise. For example, I enjoy connecting people by making email introductions after I go to conferences. However, it doesn’t make sense for me to start my own “social impact networking site” since several already exist (Jumo, xigi.net, etc.). More people should learn about joining existing resources as an alternative to creating their own. The problem is that there isn’t a comprehensive database of resources, and that most people want to find information in a specific location. Towards this end, I’ve started a networking events blog (http://righteventsrightjobs.blogspot.com) and a Google Doc of great organizations that I follow (http://ht.ly/2wPB8).
- Location based networks – People tend to like meeting other people nearby. I’ve volunteered as an online community administrator for Acumen Fund’s online community, and although it’s cool to meet someone halfway across the world with a similar interest, the fact that I’ll probably never meet that random person is a mild deterrent to starting – and maintaining – a professional relationship. This is as true of finding friends to hang out with on a Saturday as it is of applying to jobs via LinkedIn in a specific city. I foresee more activity happening in location-based enterprises that aren’t solely about entertainment/restaurants/finding friends. Maybe Foursquare will have a badge for “social entrepreneur mayor of Queens” in 3-5 years.
- Impact measurement / metrics – It is very difficult to quantify impact in the citizen or nonprofit sector without a common yardstick of dollars, watt-hours, or FASB rules. Organizations like the Global Impact Investing Network (with IRIS) and the Robin Hood Foundation (which uses quality-adjusted life years and discounted NPV lifetime income) are making strides towards a common yardstick for quantifying their impact, but so far, one “best practice” in measuring impact is not widely recognized.
- Financial Returns – Part of the reason why there are so few jobs in social entrepreneurship is that the revenues to support hiring people aren’t there. Social ventures seem to be like nonprofits in wanting talented people to volunteer their time for several months with no guarantee of a return on time invested, in terms of a job with financial benefits anywhere near comparable to the business sector. Social ventures with both financial and social/environmental returns are also more difficult to find, since they tend to be young and small by definition. I think that there is no “Vault guide to careers in social entrepreneurship” because there aren’t enough jobs to warrant a profitable publication of such a book.
Lastly, I’d like to applaud City Light Ventures for finding and investing in startups with a double or triple bottom line impact – we need more people like you!
Please let me know what you think of my analysis. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Katharine Bierce
University of Chicago Class of 2010
Phi Beta Kappa
kbierce (at) gmail dot com
Can we see it first?
We’ve been teaching social entepreneurship to Gen Y for a couple of years now, and the youth blow me away with what they do! Over the school year, our organization works with high schools to teach their classrooms how to apply business concepts to solving social issues. In particular, we focus on suicide prevention. High schoolers spend a year building a sustainable, innovative, profit-making and effective product or service to end suicide in their communities. And it’s working! The schools compete with each other in a social business plan competition to win seed funding for their business, then spend a semester actually implementing the plan. We don’t just teach them how to start a social enterprise… We help them actually do it. That’s where the lifelong learning happens.
This year’s winners came up with the idea of YABY – Youth Against Bullying Youth. After going through a root cause analysis in their school, they determined that bullying causes suicide. Their solution is YABY – a logo character who informs teenagers about signs of suicide with the goal of getting people to take an active role in suicide prevention by taking a stand against bullying. In order to be able to buy a “YABY-ified” item, one will have to watch the educational DVD about suicide and bullying prevention. After watching the short film, youth will sign a “Commitment to Values” where they will promise to make choices centered around acceptance, love and respect. Once this is done, the person is “YABY-certified” and may wear or display the YABY logo. These products will include T-shirts, sweat pants, key chains and calendars. Cothing will be embellished with YABY, along with inspirational quotes and the 1-800-273-TALK suicide prevention hotline. When a youth who is in distress (i.e., being bullied or feeling depressed or suicidal) sees someone with the YABY logo, they will know that person is safe and can talk with them. The YABY-certified person will have been trained to know how to talk with the distressed person and will have resources to refer them to, whether it’s the school therapist or the suicide prevention hotline or the many other resources available to teens.
On top of all of that, they figured out they will have a 45% gross profit margin and will need to sell 55 units to break even.
We are in the process of figuring out how to scale this program state-wide. The kids are hungry for this information, and when given the opportunity, they step up to the plate! They know generations before them are leaving them with huge social issues to solve. And they’re getting ready to do it!
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with a few pics to drive the message home a little bit, but instead of that, this is magnificent blog. A great read. I will certainly be back.
Useful website. Thanks for sharing.