Skoll Foundation. What do Jane Addams, Maria Montessori and Muhammad Yunus have in common? All are exemplary social entrepreneurs, leaders who have identified sustainable solutions to social problems that have fundamentally changed society. more>>
Ashoka. The job of a social entrepreneur is to recognize when a part of society is stuck and to provide new ways to get it unstuck. He or she finds what is not working and solves the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution and persuading entire societies to take new leaps. Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry. more >>
Third Sector Enterprises
- Enterprise Orientation – they are directly involved in producing goods or providing services to a market.
- Social Aims – they have explicit social aims such as job creation, training or the provision of local services. They have ethical values including a commitment to local capacity building. Their profits are principally reinvested to achieve their social objectives. Increasingly social enterprises measure their social impact.
- Social Ownership – they are autonomous organisations whose governance and ownership structures are normally based on participation by stakeholder groups (eg employees, users, clients, local community groups and social investors) or by trustees or directors who control the enterprise on behalf of a wider group of stakeholders. They are accountable to their stakeholders and the wider community for their social, environmental and economic impact. Profits can be distributed as profit sharing to stakeholders or used for the benefit of the community. more >>
David went to Bangladesh to learn about the Grameem Bank that makes loans primarily to women. He discovered that the program is working: Women are building businesses. Social entrepreneurship is important, he concludes enthusiastically. He talks about a project [guided by Fabio Rosa] to bring electricity to poor people in Brazil: single wires going to houses, grounded in the soil, low voltages.
The project is also bringing solar panels to rural areas, renting them for what people generally pay for candles, kerosene, etc. Bornstein talks about "child line" in India, now in 55 cities. It's a number you can call if you see a child in distress. It started with one woman who spent 3 years trying to get the equivalent of an 800 number for it. It's deeply affected India's child protection policies. Ideas don't break through resistance, David says. Ideas are passive. Ideas need champions. They need marketing. They need to be shepherded through the system.
David spoke at the 2005 Pop!Tech conference.
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