Photo Credit – AshokaPhotos on Flickr
The above slideshow was designed to introduce the concept of social enterprise and its importance. Despite large number of innovations, the number that actually end up helping their target are often few and face enormous challenges.
The video seen below describes a ‘changemaker’ according to Ashoka.org, an organization dedicated to social innovators around the world who are making an impact on alleviating poverty and general human development.
But what are the support structures behind such social innovations? Innovators are often focused solely on the technology solution and how to continuously improve it, which is great except that they may overlook how to create a sustainable model to support and further expand their impact.
CHANGE IN TRADITIONAL METHODS OF INNOVATION
“Over the past generation — because of historic shifts like the women’s movement, the spread of political freedoms and access to education, and the growth of middle classes in many developing countries — the world has seen a marked increase in the number of people who have the capacity to be change-makers.”[1]
The idea that more and more people can become social innovators is exciting because it opens up a huge talent pool that can be uniquely positioned to solve local problems most effectively. In the past, these problems were primarily dealt with traditional institutions – government, businesses and non-profits.
“At the same time, because of the pace of change and the information revolution, more people are aware that institutions — especially governments and businesses — are failing to address big problems in the environment, the economy and education. As Peter Drucker, the management expert, has written: “In a world buffeted by change, faced daily with new threats to survival, the only way to conserve is by innovating.” [2]
Peter Drucker’s quote creates a challenge for solutions to arise from not just these institutions but from anyone around the world who has local knowledge. That could mean a high school student, a farmer or a scientist who have had vastly different resources in the past, but the recent rise of social enterprise and it’s viability put them all on the same playing field.
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AS ‘MISSING MIDDLE’ [3]
With the traditional structure of governments, businesses and non-profits, a ‘missing middle’ is left out, which could take advantage of the strengths of these institutions but at the same time avoid the weaknesses that plague each of these:
Social enterprise is better poised to address the global poverty problems of the current century because:
Governments – Social enterprises can be more efficient than government, that are reducing allocated resources to these problems but also have political issues getting in the way of innovation.
Businesses – Companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to focus on increasing their returns and so social enterprises are able to address social concerns more generously than corporations.
Non-profits – While non-profits have the closest to ideal impact on social issues, they are still dependent on funding streams that could decline over periods. They also have the additional burden of continuously showing proof of what kind of work they are doing and impact assessments that need to be provided to their sources of funding.
WHAT IS SOCIAL ENTERPRISE?
Three characteristics distinguish a social enterprise from other types of businesses, nonprofits and government agencies:
- It directly addresses an intractable social need and serves the common good, either through its products and services or through the number of disadvantaged people it employs.
- Its commercial activity is a strong revenue driver, whether a significant earned income stream within a nonprofit’s mixed revenue portfolio, or a for profit enterprise.
- The common good is its primary purpose, literally “baked into” the organization’s DNA, and trumping all others.
HOW DOES TechnoCapital FIT INTO THIS?
“The emergence of social entrepreneurship reflects this uncertainty — as well as a major new opportunity: the fact that the capacity and motivation needed to solve problems is now widely dispersed. The question is, how do we find, elicit, nurture and harness the talents of millions of potential change-makers for the greatest good? It’s not just a question for would-be social entrepreneurs. It’s relevant for policy makers, managers, educators, parents — and ourselves.” [4]
This site hopes to explore the support that can be provided to these social innovators by combining the latest technologies that are being used in global poverty solutions but also taking a look at the different ways in which these enterprises can be started, scaled and become sustainable. I invite readers to share their experiences and hope you find this information useful!
TechnoCapital 