RSA Conference Exhibitor List 2024 - Exhibitors Data
social Entrepreneurship
1.
2. Social entrepreneurship is the activity of establishing
new business ventures to achieve social change. The
business utilises creativity and innovation to bring
social, financial, service, educational or other
community benefits.
Social enterprises are not charities or welfare agencies.
They are private businesses established by entrepreneurs
with an emphasis on human values rather than just profit.
These businesses focus on working with and enhancing the
social capital within the community by encouraging
participation, inclusion and utilising a bottom-up approach
to achieve social change.
3. Three core elements:
I. Created to provide benefits for a community.
II. Creates opportunities so people can help themselves
as well as others.
III. Utilises sound commercial business practices to
ensure its sustainability i.e. the business will
naturally uphold and encourage environmental
sustainability as well as ethical considerations.
4. Ambitious:
Social entrepreneurs tackle major social issues,
from increasing the college enrollment rate of lowincome students to fighting poverty. They operate
in all kinds of organizations: innovative nonprofits,
social-purpose ventures, and hybrid organizations
that mix elements of nonprofit and for-profit
organizations.
Mission driven:
Generating social value —not wealth—is the
central criterion of a successful social
entrepreneur. While wealth creation may be part
of the process, it is not an end in itself. Promoting
systemic social change is the real objective.
5. Strategic:
Like business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs see and
act upon what others miss: opportunities to improve
systems, create solutions and invent new approaches that
create social value. And like the best business
entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs are intensely focused
and hard-driving in their pursuit of a social vision.
Resourceful:
Because social entrepreneurs operate within a social
context rather than the business world, they have limited
access to capital and traditional market support systems.
As a result, social entrepreneurs must be skilled at
mobilizing human, financial and political resources.
Results oriented:
Social entrepreneurs are driven to produce measurable
returns. These results transform existing realities, open up
new pathways for the marginalized and disadvantaged, and
unlock society’s potential to effect social change
6.
7. Social and environmental problems may be what motivate
social entrepreneurs but they don’t focus people on the
“problem.” Instead, they engage others and create
excitement around new solutions, usually in the form of a
product or service. They talk “value propositions” not
mission statements.
Elnor Rozenrot of Innosight Ventures said in the very first
interview that 90% of successful ventures start out with the
wrong business plan. The ones that succeed, therefore,
must alter course. “It takes a combination of hardheadedness, humility, and courage to stop and say, ‘This
isn’t working’ or ‘Our assumptions were wrong,’ particularly
when your funding is contingent on carrying out a
preauthorized plan. However, the entrepreneur’s
inclination to self-correct stems from the attachment to a
goal rather than to a particular approach or plan”
8. Social entrepreneurs know exactly how their solution
benefits people or the environment and they measure
their success by their impact, not by their good
intention.
They know the difference between outputs (which
measure your effort) and outcomes (which measure
the impact of your effort). They measure outcomes so
they can know and show the real difference they’re
making.
“There is no limit to what you can achieve if you don’t
care who gets the credit. One of the best examples is as
following
9. David Kuria of Kenya, Founder of IkoToilet. Kuria built
hygienic and affordable toilets for the 1 million
slumdwellers of Kibera (a district of Nairobi, Kenya)
but found that government regulations would make it
difficult to expand his efforts. So he put the City
Council of Nairobi’s logo on all Ikotoilets he
constructed, which made people feel like the
government was responding to their needs. The
government was happy to take the credit and became
very supportive of Kuria’s Ikotoilet, lifting barriers for
expansion.
10. Whereas businesses find systematic ways to generate
profit, social entrepreneurs find systematic ways to create
change. They find formulas for change (also known as
change models) that can be repeatable and scalable. This
allows them to focus on the essentials and bring change to
as many people as possible.
They know solutions does not lead automatically to
outcome, so you need to establish and validate the change
models.
The word “entrepreneur” comes from French, originally
meaning “to take into one’s own hands.” Excellent social
entrepreneurs, therefore, do not depend on traditional
avenues for creating social impact (e.g. government,
religious institutions) and blaze their own paths for
creating impact.
11. Social entrepreneurs know social change is complex
and much more difficult than getting people to buy
your can of soda. It often requires behavior and/or
system change. To achieve that type of impact, you
need understanding, empathy and collaboration.
Social entrepreneurs succeed when they include
others in the design, production, distribution and
evaluation of their solutions.
12. The vast majority of social entrepreneurs have to bootstrap
their way to success. So you don’t start with “business
plans.” You start by creatively leveraging your assets, which
include people, skills, resources, organizations and
networks. When you can demonstrate some success or
achieve impact with what you already have, you can then
convince others to help you scale.
“one of the primary functions of the social entrepreneur is
to serve as a kind of social alchemist: to create new social
compounds; to gather people’s ideas, experiences, skills,
and resources in configurations that society is not naturally
aligned to produce”
13. Small change is easy. Big change is hard. To have
meaningful impact on a problem, you need long-term
thinking. That means thinking about how solutions
can last, how ventures can sustain, and how outcomes
can scale. This is what differentiates short-term
projects from long-lasting ventures.
14. Highly-successful Social entrepreneurs aren’t fueled by
a drive to become famous or build a fortune, but a
desire to restore justice in society, to address social
problems. And this motivation comes down to a clear
sense of what is right and what is wrong. This “ethical
impetus” is not only evident in the work of successful
social entrepreneurs, but also in how they live their
lives.
15. Amul – Founded in 1946, Amul was established initially as
a reaction to unfair milk trade practices in India, inspiring
local and marginalized farmers to form cooperatives
independent from trade cartels. With the notable help of
Tribhuvandas Patel and Verghese Kurien, the Amul
cooperative model became so successful that it was
eventually replicated all over India in 1965.
Amul has since:
Produced excellent value for money food products for
customers
Created a lucrative source of income for local dairy farmers
in India
16. U.K. Community Action Network (CAN)
The Stanford Business School Social Entrepreneurship
initiative
Canadian Centre for Social Entrepreneurship
Social and Enterprise Development Innovations
(SEDI)
The Israeli Greenhouse for Social Entrepreneurship
International Institute of Social Entrepreneurship
Management (India)
Inter-American Development Bank
The Initiative on Social Enterprise – Harvard Business
School
17. Characteristics of a Social Entrepreneur are
Not bound by sector norms or traditions
Not confined by barriers that stand in the way of their
goals
Develop new models and pioneer new approaches to
enable them to overcome obstacles
Take innovative approaches to solve social issues
Transform communities through strategic
partnerships
18. Persons who value compassion, justice, equality,
and liberty
Innovators
Achievement oriented
Independent
Inner-directed
Tolerant of risk
Tolerant of ambiguity
19. “… a path breaker with a powerful idea, who combines
visionary and real world problem-solving creativity,
has a strong ethical fibre..”
“ ..combines street pragmatism with professional skills..”
“ they see opportunities where others only see empty
buildings, unemployable people and unvalued
resources”
“..Radical thinking is what makes social entrepreneurs
different from simply ‘good’ people.”
“they make markets work for people, not the other way
around, and gain strength from a wide network of
alliances”
“they can ‘boundary ride’ between the various political
rhetoric and social paradigms to enthuse all sectors of
society”
20. Social entrepreneurship is about
1. Develop solutions
2. Measures outcome
3. Establish change Models
4. Practice inclusion
5. Leverage the assets
6. Think long term
