1.6 Traits of social enterprise across the spectrum

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Social Impact Strategy: Tools for Entrepreneurs and Innovators

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University of Pennsylvania

Social Impact Strategy: Tools for Entrepreneurs and Innovators

372 notes

This course offers an introduction to social impact strategy and social entrepreneurship, including key concepts, an overview of the field, and tools to get started as a changemaker. Students will learn how to innovate and design new ideas and new organizational forms to implement those ideas. Students who take this course will be better prepared to launch social impact organizations of their own invention. By moving through four stages, Define, Design, Pilot, and Scale, students will turn their passion for changing the world into concrete plans for launching a nonprofit or for-profit venture designed to achieve a social goal. This course will allow students to systematically think through problems; develop and test an innovative solution; assess risk, competition, and performance; and spread impact in a way that is financially sustainable. Students who complete the course become eligible to apply for an in-person educational experience, called the Global Social Impact House. GSIH is a seven-day residential program that provides fellows with the tools, community and training they need to advance their ventures. Workshops are customized to the needs of fellows and explore advanced concepts in business models, design thinking and leadership. The program is also designed to help fellows build meaningful, global connections while living together in an inspirational host location. For more information on the Global Social Impact House, please visit: socialimpactstrategy.org/residential/gsih

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Introduction

Learn about the key qualities of social innovation, social enterprise, and social entrepreneurs. How do social entrepreneurs approach problem solving? How might we identify social initiatives that are truly innovative in their approach to delivering on their mission, sustaining their venture, or scaling their impact? This module introduces the topic and offers examples of initiatives you might study as cases organizations throughout the course.

0.1. What to Expect in this Course1:50

1.1 Introduction to Social Innovation6:25

1.2 Traditional approaches to public problem solving4:49

1.3 A social entrepreneur's approach to problem solving6:17

1.4 Introduction to the social enterprise and the social enterprise spectrum6:28

1.5 The Importance of the business model1:21

1.6 Traits of social enterprise across the spectrum6:10

1.7. Meet Carlos and Coco2:46

1.8. Anatomy of a Social Entrepreneur2:40

Rencontrer les enseignants

Peter Frumkin
Professor
Nonprofit Leadership Program, School of Social Policy & Practice

[MUSIC]

So what are some of the Traits of Social Enterprises as they play themselves out

across the spectrum?

Let's start with the for profit.

You tend to see Risk-taking, Innovation, Growth, a profound need for

capital and an easy access to capital and an emphasis of replication of scale.

So non-profits are constantly saying, how do we grow, how do we get bigger?

How do we extend?

Non profits, on the other hand, tend to focus on accountability, on collaboration.

On impact measurement and accountability.

They're trying to achieve results and be sensitive to there constituents.

So across these two different kind of traits,

I think there's a possibility to pull them together.

And social enterprises are trying to do both of these things in many cases.

They're trying to exhibit the characteristics of for profits enterprise.

And they're trying to exhibit some of the better traits of non-profits and

they're saying, we don't have to choose.

We can try to set up an enterprise that exhibits both of these

characteristics at both of these categories.

So think about non-profits in business, and think about these Hybrid forms

that are melding and collaborating and cutting across these forms.

And you'll start to see that these Hybrid forms are going to cross a number of

different dimensions.

From how they address clients, the type of pricing that they use,

the way the generate income, the sources of capital that they are able to draw on,

and the forms of governance that they rely on.

They're combining and cutting across NGO and business forms.

What would this look like in practice?

And what makes social entrepreneurs different from either pure business or

pure non-profits?

Let's take a look at couple of more examples to build out our

sense of what's really going on in this space.

I mentioned Husk just a moment ago.

This is a really creative social enterprise.

It's a business, but it has, at it's core, a fundamental innovation.

Which is that rice huts are being abandoned all across India.

They're rotting, why not use them as fuel for electricity and power generation?

They've set up 60 plus generators.

They have a financially sustainable model that allows them to charge customers

a low price but a price that allows them to sustain and grow the enterprise.

And they've got incredible opportunity for scale, not just in India, but

now they want to go to Africa.

But the business forum is appropriate to them because they have big

goals in terms of scale and capital needs to grow these generators.

To grow this vision of biomass electricity generation.

But think about a different example, a more public health goal.

In Africa, Ecotact is building latrines that allow

people to have safe consistently high quality shower and

toilet facilities available to them.

Where the public health risks are reduced or eliminated,

where the public can find a solution to a pressing problem which is

access to decent hygienic sanitation solutions.

It's financially sustainable, in a sense that they charge a small fee.

It's also for profit and

it's generating a revenue by having people pay when they use the facilities.

And has also I think, the potential for scale,

because it has no need for endless charitable inputs.

It can generate it's own revenue stream.

But think also about how we can improve agriculture.

Here's an example of another for-profit that says,

I want to do a work improving agriculture productivity.

I want to have a for profit but I have a fundamental social mission.

I don't want to operate on the extreme of this spectrum.

I want to operate in the middle.

I want to have both, a bottom line and a social mission.

So Driptech provides micro-irrigation systems,

that allow farmers to radically increase

the productivity of their land by using a simple hose

irrigation with laser manufactured irrigation models.

Very simple system that moves the water through these hoses which

have proliferations and allow them to irrigate very very efficiently land.

The have also played social impact, financial

sustainability is built right into the model from the start and also scale.

This is something that can be used in all different context,

not just the initial starting point where they begin in Africa.

They now are in China and other places.

But you can also imagine other types of solutions to problems that cut

across all different types of problems.

So there's a group called Global Cycle Solutions.

They're trying to use the bicycle as the harness for

all types of social value creation.

From corn shocking, to mobile phone charging, to electricity generation.

They're using bicycles to drive

the quality of life improvements in the poorest communities.

But again, it's a for profit, but it's not exclusively about the bottom line.

It's about social impact, it's about mission, it's about getting social change.

The point I want to come back to is, if you think about that spectrum,

ranging from pure non-profit to pure full-profit.

Social enterprise is trying to be somewhere in the middle.

It's trying to be sensitive like For-profits to the market and

to the need for financial sustainability.

But also like non-profits have a social conscience.

Have a social mission.

Have a social goal in mind from the get go.

[MUSIC]

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