January 15: What’s Social Entrepreneurship? Part 1: concrete examples

Agenda

• 7:15 – 7:30 Student presentations of organizations (1st half)
• 7:30 – 7:40 Discussion of organizations & research process
  • how did you find the orgs?
  • Did anything surprise you?
  • Did you find any orgs that you ended up deciding weren’t social E?
  • What qualities do these organizations have that make them socially entrepreneurial?
• 7:40-7:55 Student presentations of organizations (2nd half)
• 7:55-8:05 Discussion of organizations & research process
• 8:05-8:20 activity: I love my neighbor who…
  • general
  • social E related
• 8:20 – 8:40 discussion of article & issues it raises
  • Leah: Do you believe that focusing on solving poverty is the most effective method of fighting global warming? What unique benefits or challenges come from trying to fight two social problems at once?
  • Dania: Jones says that only those people who aren’t “low-income or marginalized” are the ones motivated to make changes in the world. He also claims that only those who revere life have the capacity to do good. To what degree is this true? Should the first problem tackled then be making everyone, even the poor, care about the world they live in?
  • Wes: What sorts of awareness campaigns (if any) are presently in place to "convince" the poor that they also have a vested interest in seeing the emergence of a green economy? Is Oakland in any way unique in its ability to capitalize on a transition to a green system? If not, presumably many other poor areas in the nation could come under the impression that such a transition will return in a major turnaround for them . . . will there really be that many new jobs to go around and satisfy everyone sufficiently?
  • Belinda: What do you think should be the public/private balance or interaction when it comes to solving ecological problems? social problems?
    • Who is responsible for solving social issues, and to what degree?
• 8:40-9:00 Video: The New Heroes: Victoria Hale & Martin Burt

Minutes

Presentations on Social Enterprises – Round 1
1. Kickstart develops technologies that allow entrepreneurs to sustain businesses. An example is technology that improves farmer productivity. Kickstart has created a process that sets up a whole industry (manufacturers, retailers, entrepreneurs, etc…). It is responsible for 10,000’s of new jobs in countries like Kenya, Mali, and Tanzania, among others.
2. PSI provides healthcare products to vendors (e.g. glasses, condoms, mosquito nets) at low rates so as to allow the venders to cater to the local ability to pay.
3. Acumen Fund takes a venture capital approach to social enterprises. They take a debt/equity position in a company with an exit of five years. One investment, for example, was made in Mosquito bed net manufacturers, who make 7 million new units each year. The fund is sustainable, generating payback, a profit margin, and social returns.
4. Architects for Humanity is the premier nonprofit for disaster relief planning through sustainable housing. The group pioneered the “Open Architecture Challenge,” a Wiki for architectural design planning. The nonprofit has enhanced the global architectural community and empowered local architects.
5. Girls for Change, based in Santa Clara, holds a “Growth Summit” that brings together 15,000 high school girls to learn how to be social change agents. Students work with professional women to implement social change on issues like abuse, the environment, or body image.
6. Google.org is a philanthropic organization that is for-profit so as to be able to fund start-ups, lobby, and treat social enterprises like normal ventures. Google.org devotes its money to three global initiatives: climate change (e.g. plug-in electric hybrid vehicles), global public health (e.g. an early response system), and economic development/poverty (access to opportunities for the developing world).
7. CitySprouts provides urban schools with gardens so as to expose urban students to health good and nutrition. The simple, small, and specialize model has the power to mold children’s minds. There are ten programs and counting.

What surprises did we come across during research?
• Education is a huge component of social entrepreneurship, whether directly or indirectly.
• There are blogs that serve as social enterprises.
• Some of the problems. For example, immigrants and refugees have trouble to get anything but minimum wage jobs in the U.S.
• The Benetech case—social entrepreneurship can fail too (as with the landmine distribution effort).
• So much of the industry is based in the Bay Area!
• Many criticize the imperialistic tendencies of the social entrepreneurship movement—“we are the solution, you are the problem,” like the one laptop per child project.

Presentations on Social Enterprises - Round 2
1. First Fruit is a conglomeration of social enterprises that help the homeless by providing services beyond the basics. The Mayfield Center provides skills training, housing, board, and even business for trainees to get started in. Like Paul Farmer, First Fruit has invested a lot in a specific region with the goal of eventual imitation and growth.
2. Video Volunteers organizes locals into “Community Video Units” that work with local NGOs to document and spread awareness services the NGOs provide or local injustices. The films are then screened to crowds of thousands and/or distributed in the mainstream media with the effect of galvanizing citizens and governments into action. Based on India, the organization is beginning to spread to surrounding countries.
3. Benetech funded the project bookshare.org that makes publications and literary works digitally accessible to the legally blind and dyslexic. Benetech also funded the project Route66, a web-based program that helps adults with literacy, but simultaneously informs the public by basing its content on current events. Bentech is also working on a database of human rights violations testimonials to bring awareness to the wider trends of injustices.
4. Delancey Street is a residential self-help organization for former drug-addicts and ex-convicts that has yielded success stories against all odds. Most residents stay 4-5 years starting by doing maintenance, then moving up on the employment ladder. The organization receives no governmental aid, and in fact utilizes resident skills internally—the actual residence of Delancey street was built by residents. Delancey street has six locations (SF, LA, NC, NY, Stockbridge, and Mexico), and employs its residents in the business, dining, trucking, decorating and other sectors. Some have gone on to serve as contractors and lawyers.

Various Arguments Spun off of the Van Jones Interview
Is fighting poverty the best means to fight global warming?
• Poverty and global warming are inseparable; droughts due to climate change, for example, would be in poor areas and countries
• Either is greater than both: specialization makes a more lasting effect
• The green revolution will not lead to green collar jobs; in the dot come boom, poor people don’t have education for specialized jobs
• Vocational training programs could solve the problem; we just need to want to take part in it
• Jobs might be gained, but jobs might be lost as well
• Romney/McCain and Edwards/Clinton have advocated for more green collar education at community colleges

What should the private/public balance be in tackling problems?
• The government can create frameworks (e.g. research is a unique niche for government funding) but more involved governmental role/subsidizing specific industries might hinder other industries in the long term
• We need to take a comparative approach; see what other governments have done that works or doesn’t work
• The private sector is motivated by profit, so the government can/must reorient interests by providing incentives
• One car had a monopoly on the taxi industry in NY due to 50-year-old legislation. New legislation requires that taxicabs be more energy efficient by a certain year. This is a good example of the role the government should play
• The government is afraid to go into risky fields, but at least it can provide subsidies to begin exploration
• According to Paul Bromer’s New Growth Theory on development economics, innovation needs a framework. A good solution is regulations and subsidies
• The government should leave it up to the people to decide where funding should go. Sometimes the government goes after the most popular, effective remedies. For example, ethanol is actually not efficient in the US (though it is in Brazil)
• People are only willing to change environment only if they don’t have to go out of their way (e.g. energy efficient light bulbs lack the warm, fuzzy glow). Products need to be desirable (e.g. concrete slabs in Green building are ugly, need better design and aesthetics)
• Auto market in US; Toyota is both profitable and socially beneficial, now going to be number one biggest car manufacturer in the world. The private sector has potential. Should the US protect Ford and GM at the cost of Toyota hybrids just because Ford and GM are local?

Watched Uncommon Heroes on
• Paraguay
• Victoria Hale and One World Health

Assignments

choose 1:

• Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition by Sally Osberg and Roger Martin Martin

• The Meaning of 'Social Entrepreneurship' by Greg Dees

choose 1:

• Changing the World on a Shoestring: The Concept of Social Entrepreneurship by Dave Roberts and Christine Woods, The University of Auckland Business Review

• Social Capitalists by Cheryl Dahle, Fast Company Magazine

• The Entrepreneur's Revolution and You by William Drayton

further reading (optional)

• Social Entrepreneurship: Towards an Entrepreneurial Culture for Social and Economic Development by Susan Davis (34 pgs)

• Everyone A Changemaker: Social Entrepreneurship's Ultimate Goal by William Drayton, MIT's Innovation Magazine

• How to Save the World? Treat It Like a Business by Emily Eakin, The New York Times