Social Entrepreneurship is a CRITICAL lens and tool, as long as WE….
NOW is the time to ACT. ACT NOW! Do something. I need to do something.
Many of us are feeling the call to action, feeling overwhelmed by those calls, and/or trying to figure out what that call should be.
In this backdrop, I decided it was a good time to refresh myself with a concept that is rooted in the belief that, WE ALL have it in us to make a difference for the better — social entrepreneurship. Full disclosure — My refresh is through a free Acumen course on the topic [= shameless plug and Acumen offers a bunch of different and interesting courses to explore].
To me, social entrepreneurship combines creative action with an entrepreneurial mindset to solve a particular social problem.
When I was first introduced and fell in love with the idea of social entrepreneurship many moons ago, via the organization Ashoka, and its visionary founder Bill Drayton, the concept was intriguing to some but unfamiliar to most. Now there is a vibrant ecosystem that nurtures and supports social entrepreneurship and many, nuanced and interesting definitions and of course, debates about them.
Here are a few definitions:
Common elements in those definitions include: putting the social good first, pattern-breaking, empowerment, creativity, and entrepreneurship. A little buzz-word bingo but you get the idea.
Leila Janah from an organization called Samasource resonated most with me in the video when she says,
“…And I think for too long, we’ve lived in a very bifurcated world where from 9 to 5, we work on maximizing profit in the context of our traditional business. And then on evenings and weekends, we help out with the PTA and we go to church and we volunteer for our local animal shelter and we relegate all that other stuff to the world of nonprofit. And so then, we try to solve all of these problems with traditional nonprofit models that in many ways are created by the way we do business from nine to five…” She goes on to say, “And all of that space, all of that space between traditional charity and traditional business is social entrepreneurship.”
Janah and other folks in the video tend to keep their explanations broader and more open-ended. Yet, as this space has become more established and defined (as in any sector), there have also been pushes for one clear definition as this Stanford piece makes the case for. There have also been arguments for why the focus of social entrepreneurship should be less on the individual.
Yet, after going through these readings from class and overlaying it with our world today, I think it’s more important than ever that we utilize the lens of social entrepreneurship as a tool for empowerment of every individual. In other words, I think it’s important to keep our vision and framework of social entrepreneurship broad and here’s why:
If social entrepreneurship is supposed to be empowering and inclusive, there is less value and less authenticity to interpretations of it that exclude.
About a year or so ago, I had an experience with staff from an organization that I mentioned above (and used to work for), where I received feedback that my recent work experiences may not make the cut of being as much of a social entrepreneur now as I used to be! I giggled to myself and scratched my head a little. I can understand the view to bring in more folks that live and breathe social entrepreneurship, but I also wondered about the dangers of the filters and definitions that were being created. Yes, definitions help us speak a common language to have discussions, explore and share ideas. Yet they are not necessarily static, they can exclude, calcify and limit creativity. Why not simply operate from a set of core values that we can all agree on?
Self-identifying as a changemaker promotes empowerment and engagement
I just ended an amazing run working with the HHS IDEA Lab, an innovation space within the Department of Health and Human Services committed to making government work better. Many of the ninjas we worked with were doggedly seeking to disrupt old government patterns in terms of process and approach to better serve the public. They were employing an entrepreneurial spirit to tackle fundamental problems that often required more creativity and involved more constraints which can be unique to Gov. I would easily identify these folks as social entrepreneurs. I think it would be incredibly empowering and transformative for them to see themselves as social entrepreneurs too. In fact, I honestly don’t see the harm in more and more individuals identifying themselves as social entrepreneurs to truly realize an — everyone a changemaker world (to borrow an Ashoka saying). Do you? Why can’t we fake it til we make it in this case?
Social entrepreneurs JUST DO IT with deep compassion and empathy
I’m pretty certain that many of the individuals that we consider leading social entrepreneurs, Mohammed Yunus for example, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for pioneering concepts like microfinance and microcredit the world over, did not seek to solve a problem with a certain existing framework in mind. In fact, it’s probably the opposite. As in most successful entrepreneurs, they saw a problem (in this case — a social problem) and sought to tackle it with thoughtfulness, determination and creativity. So then why get caught up in the very specific “what” of social entrepreneurship? Shouldn’t we really be focused on thoughtful (with extra emphasis on thoughtful) DOING and helping others to DO and BE their best selves as well?
Offering more food for thought and conversation, than hard line truths here. I think social entrepreneurship, social business and innovation are powerful focal points and tools for civic action right now.
I just hope that we can continue to stay expansive and creative in our thinking about it.
P.S.
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