Week 10: Entrepreneurship in Sustainability

Entrepreneurship in Sustainability

http://www.sustainable-sphere.com/2012/03/entrepreneurship-in-sustainability.html

Image- http://www.nurtureearth.in/

Social Entrepreneurship + Eco Preneurship = Sustainopreneurship

In today’s post, I am going to share about Social Entrepreneurship + Eco Preneurship = Sustainopreneurship. This is another term for Social Enterprise. The objective is to create an enterprise that caters to the need of the Social and Eco well-being of the community.

So why do we need such Entrepreneurship? This is so as man social problems have been surfacing out, e.g climate change, poverty etc. Especially when more and more conferences and meeting of the different leaders of the countries show the importance of reducing poverty in emerging economies; creating sustainable production and consumption patterns etc.

Therefore, there is a need to change public perceptions about social enterprises in Singapore. This is so as many regard such enterprises as forming the basis for a viable business instead of contributing their part to the community. Hence, there is an urgent need for the public to know the importance of social enterprises and the social impact that is needed in the world. Also, if the public recognised the effort of social enterprise, it would definitely encourage more youth and more businesses to do good and thus, form a caring culture.

Hence, despite the different perceptions formed on SEs, there has been a huge growth in interest in social enterprises over the world with more people wanting to do something more.

Week 9: 20 Successful Nonprofits Started by Students

20 Successful Nonprofits Started by Students

http://www.onlinecollege.org/2012/10/21/20-successful-nonprofits-started-students/

In today’s post, I am going to share about 3 successful stories out of the 20 successful nonprofits started by students. Impressive isn’t it? I believe many people have hotbeds of idealism, where gifted minds, too young to be jaded, dream of better futures they want to bring into being.

Entrepreneurial spirit has been widely promoted, especially in recent years. In the private sector, many have tried to do their part by contributing back to the society by setting up another department – CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). Also, many business schools have been encouraging their students in starting up their own business/social enterprise/nonprofit. Therefore, it is not surprise that innovative ventures are actively being created, fostered, and rewarded in the society now. Many youngsters have been actively involved in volunteering and other activities, e.g CIP, YEP. Below, I am going to share about 3 amazing philanthropic organizations that began as student projects and are now going on to change their communities and the world:

1.   KICKING 4 HUNGER:

Gabriel Whaley, who was on the mens’ soccer team at West Point and later transferred to the University of North Carolina, founded this charity soccer camp in 2006. Participants pay in food donations rather than money. At UNC Whaley worked with mentors from the business school to obtain 501(c)(3) status, and hopes to build his nonprofit into a national or even international concern.

2.   PROJECT PLUS ONE:

Founded by students at Brandeis and Northeastern in the Boston area, Project Plus One focuses its work on the Bairo Pite Clinic in Dili, the capital of East Timor, one of the globe’s youngest and most troubled nations. Patients here are badly afflicted by diseases that many Westerners rarely even recognize as a scourge, like tuberculosis, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis, leprosy, and HIV.

3.   SLAVERY IS REAL:

The no-nonsense name of Slavery is Real fits its mission: “raising awareness and taking action against human trafficking.” It was founded by Austin Knight, a student at the University of Kentucky, when he was just 19 years old. Being a young man, the Galahad-like Knight figured he was in a unique position to lend a voice saying “no” to the sex industry and dispelling the idea that prostitution as practiced is a victimless crime.

This is really encouraging to see so many youth out there are trying their best and putting in a lot of effort to do their part for the community and the world.

Hopefully, such spirit will be spread on to all parts of the world. I believe that all of us would want to see a world that is filled with love and peace, also the Earth will not be drained by the unlimited needs of human.  

Week 8: Measuring Social Impact

In today’s post, I will be sharing with you my view on how social enterprises measures social impact. Indeed, there are more and more SEs in the world are trying their very best to make the world a better place to live in, to increase the awareness of social value for their investors and consumers and creates a better understanding of the way social issues are perceived and addressed.

But how do we know if these social enterprises are really doing good. I believe that more and more consumers and investors would want to know how these social enterprises measure their social and community impact. But we cannot measure it using the way corporates measures profits, yet, we need to find out the ways to measure such social efforts made. Therefore, many social enterprises measure the number of people they have ‘helped’. 

Even though the reality is focus on the sustainability of the social enterprises and little is known to measure the worth of social enterprises. We hope that every social entrepreneur will still continue to be firm and walk towards their social mission to attain real change in the society.

Traditionally, many organizations increase their impact by focusing on expanding and setting up new sites. However, it may not be the right thing for social enterprise to do. Even though it has been typical to judge the success of social enterprise by how rapidly it has grown but this comes with challenges that might be very difficult for social enterprises that have just started. This is so as by expanding, it requires a lot of money and it may also require social enterprise to give up part of its ownership and control.

For normal businesses it is the profits that count but for social enterprises, it is the number of people they helped that count. But society has a common perception that social enterprises solve society’s “big problems” created a predisposition toward “bigger is better”. But it is more important to find good approaches or ideas to maximize the number of people that benefit. Many do not realize the importance of measuring social impact of social enterprises; this is so as they do not realize that by ‘teaching them the skill to survive in the world today would benefit more than providing them with food. Therefore, what social entrepreneurs actually need is a more useful measure of social impact that merges both the quantity (number of people) and quality (how deeply lives are transformed) of impact.

There has not been a really accurate way to define the success in the social enterprise sector thus far. Hence, I think that we should consider how social enterprises could maximize their impact through building networks, sharing knowledge and supporting others to replicate and adapt approaches. One of the ways is the network of social entrepreneurs; it is definitely one major factor that would generate more opportunities for substantial impact than a social enterprise alone can with its limited resources.

This is so as they can connect people from business groups or non-profit groups together. With the help from both sides, there will be more opportunity for social enterprises to create a social enterprise-friendly business environment which brings greater magnitude of social impact. And also, by measuring it at the network level is more accessible and easier for social entrepreneurs.

References:

The Information Daily. (2012, April 25). ‘UK Social Enterprise: Growth is not the only way to increase impact, says social enterprise research’. The Information Daily. Retrieved December 14, 2012, from http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/49417

Week 7: Individual Social Responsibility

Individual Social Responsibility

Many of us know about CSR but how many of us actually look into individual social responsibility?

Do you feel good when you need help and there are always people there to help? I believed everyone loves to be cared and received help. But have you think of helping others when need? This is when individual social responsibility comes into the picture. It is all about doing good as how you want people to treat you will determine on how you treat others, Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we help each other instead of being self-centered?

Have you ever wonder how does CSR come about? This is because many people thinks that corporates care too much about profit. Therefore some individuals decided to promote social responsibility culture in the company.

In the world today, we are conscious of the quality and the price of our product that we have brought. But have we thought about how are such products produced? Why is it so cheap with good quality? More and more news reported that many products are manufactured through child labor or other inhumane conditions.

Therefore, more and more corporates are becoming more socially responsible to recover its image as most consumers would more likely to buy products that is produce advocate a good cause but in the same time they have to meet the demand of the consumers as well.

Therefore, if each and every one of is practices good individual social responsibility, the world would have been a better place filled with love and care instead of war and poverty. Also, a person who practices individual social responsibility primarily, has a mindset to contribute to the society and therefore always endeavors to have a positive impact on the society and environment.

It is alright if you are not rich and you can contribute back to the society by volunteering and by using your skills and talents to help others. While the rich like Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft Corporation can give back to society by donating to charities, etc. Therefore, there are many ways people can each practice individual social responsibility.

One must always remember that no matter how small the difference is, with each and every one of us doing a little, we can create miracles.

George Bernard Shaw mentioned, “I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.”

So start to make a difference today! Be it how little we can do, we MAKE A DIFFERENCE. And if one starts the ball rolling others will follow. So do not look down on individual impact! It is as powerful.

In order to be the change you want to make, start with individual social responsibility and step by step you will see the difference!

Reference

Anonymous. (n.d.). What is social responsibility? Retrieved December 7, 2012, from http://www.imasocialentrepreneur.com/social-responsibility/

Week 6: How Doing Good Grows Your Business

How Doing Good Grows Your Business

Social and environmental problems are growing at a faster rate than philanthropic dollars can keep pace.

More and more corporates have CSR as statistics shows that when corporations do good, they can do well -- increase the bottom line -- at the same time. Therefore, doing good helps to make the company looks good and in the same time increase their sales level, thus, many corporates are starting out or perfecting what they are already doing.

Some of the statistics that proves that company’s fair better when they are support a social cause. Here are just a couple:

·       94% of consumers would switch brands to one that supports a social cause if price and quality were about the same, according a 2011 research report by Cone Communications. That’s up from 66% in 1993.

·      Corporations that “endear” themselves to all stakeholders wildly outperform the broader stock market, according to research conducted by Rajendra Sisodia, David Wolfe and Jagdish Sheth.

Therefore, by supporting a social cause the company’s sales would increase, it strengthen brand positioning, enhance corporate image, increase the companies’ ability to attract, motivate and retain employees, and it definitely appeals to investors. It also decreases operating cost due to low turnover rates and better performance because the employees know that they are doing their job with a purpose.

With the support of social causes, the company will also practices better values, thus, improving the working environment, better employer-employees relationships, and it also benefits the community and protect the environment.

More and more companies and organizations are looking into expanding their CSR and what more they can do to involve their employees to do good. Some companies encourages their employees to volunteer or organize some projects to help the less privileged to improve their standard of living.

All in all, the world is moving towards doing good and helping one another which is definitely heart-warming.

References:

Stengel, G. (2012). How Doing Good Grows Your Business. Retrieved Novemeber 29, 2012, from Ventureneer: http://ventureneer.com/vblog/how-doing-good-grows-your-business

Week 5: Volunteerism

http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/wp-content/uploads/YE-social-entrepreneurs.jpg

Volunteerism

In this post, I will be sharing on my views about volunteering. I believed many students view volunteering as part of school curriculum. Some find no purpose in volunteering and doing CIP assign by the school. They feel that it is a waste of time while some thinks that they have to fulfill a number of CIP hours to score well and 'look good' in their report book so that they have higher chances of getting into the school of their choice in the future. 

Volunteering is hard to practice but rewarding and inspiring only when you are doing it with the right mind set. If not it would just be another ‘job’ for you.

Therefore, I would like to share my experience about volunteering.

I always feel happy to take out that extra time to share with the elderly when I first started to volunteer in an old folks home organize by my secondary school. It really cheers me up to see the happiness in the elderly whenever I am there, they just want to talk to people and like every one of us, and they don’t ask a lot, just some care and concern would make their day. The old people really love some company and love to share their own experiences; you would learn a lot just by listening to them. They are so nice and adorable.

And through volunteering you get to experience and learn how to become a better person in life. Such experiences help to executive awareness of social issues, and of the needs and characteristics of different socioeconomic groups. Also, it teaches you to care for people, be it around you or those underprivileged.

Volunteering also helps in building a person’s confidence. This is so as they will feel that they are of used and they can actually make a difference in people’s life. This will motivate them to continue to work hard and strive to contribute back in to the society.

Also, volunteering helps to build up and hone your leadership skill. This is so as been a volunteer leader is not about carrots and sticks but about persuasion and getting people to grasp and follow your vision. Therefore, you will be able to learn different ways to approach different types of people and learn to put people in the place where their ability is. You also learn how to manage good relationship with people.

Of course there are some cons to volunteering, like free time will be shorter and etc. But I assure you that the experiences you have gained is definitely a lot more than what you have given up.

Efforts have been put in by the government to promote volunteerism, for example, President’s Challenge Social Enterprise Award. This efforts increase the awareness of social issue faced by the society and would increase volunteerism among youngsters. 

All in all, volunteering should not be a chore for us but instead it should be cultivated as an interest or hobby. 

Week 4: Social Entrepreneurship

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”

 “Social entrepreneurship is all about recognizing the social problems and achieving a social change by employing entrepreneurial principles, processes and operations.” (managementstudyguide, 2012)

In this century, societies have dramatically leaned towards competitive capitalism kind of economy as you will get the financial status you want and fulfill the desires in your life. The initial intention of such business in this economy is to make and maximize profit out of it, and it promotes being “SELFISH”. It makes the poor poorer and you richer and richer!

Not saying that such business is bad but it is time to start thinking a little differently. I am sure many of us would want to see that everyone is living a happy life so by engaging yourself in a ‘selfish business’ is difficult to help others and it is definitely not sustainable by giving them money. Not only you are looking down on them, you are also trying to challenge their dignity. Hence, Social Entrepreneurship is definitely one of the better choices.

Do you think by giving these people just a donation of some money out of profit made in the conventional business kind, could succeed to help the society? NO, because helping people to learn how to fish is more sustainable than giving them fish. Also you learn to love and will be loved by others. That’s in our human nature. Also, it is the value you create that goes to the society which will than develop your community to become a more caring and loving place to live in. You, yourself also benefit from it as a member of the same society.

Social entrepreneurship has been experiencing a growing trend in recent years. Though it has the same characteristics like conventional business entrepreneurship, one of the major difference is on its focus and vision. Social entrepreneurship focus is to directly help people in the community and ensure great social change.

Be the Change you want to make and stick towards the vision and not get distracted by the profits and fame you have achieved.

Reference:

managementstudyguide. (2012). What is Social Entrepreneurship? Retrieved November 13, 2012, from Management Study Guide: http://www.managementstudyguide.com/social entrepreneurship.htm

Week 3: Social Enterprise Challenge

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For this week’s post, I will share about my experience in a social enterprise competition I have taken in [Citi-YMCA Social Enterprise Challenge].

Team consisting of 4 youths aged 17-25 from tertiary institutions will be invited to take part in a business case competition as part of this YFC Social Enterprise Challenge (YFCSEC). The teams will be randomly assigned a case write-up of 1 of the 10 participating Volunteer & Welfare Organizations (VWOs), and they will then present their business plan to set up a viable social enterprise for that VWO.

10 shortlisted teams from the case competition will then implement their business plan for the VWO. Each of these 10 teams will be given $6,000 as seed funding, trainings, and guided by corporate highflyers, also known as “CEO Mentors”

Initially, this competition was given to us as a school project that our teacher assigned. Due to the clashes it had with our examinations we got the choice to continue or to back out. So our team decided to continue with it since we have put in so much effort already. [Not that the other teams didn’t]

Will be sharing with you what I have learnt through this competition rather than what we have done.

There are 3 main things that I have learnt (some of which are still learning in progress) from this competition.

         1.      Time management

It is very important to have good time management skills. Some of the teams (Uni students and poly students) are also very busy with whatever things they have in hand yet they are able commit quite a significant among effort to this competition. Learning in progress.

         2.    Be Realistic

Our initial business plan is rejected by our mentor, he told us that in 15 weeks it is not possible for us to find more funding and set up a café. He shares his experiences with us and tells us that it is more important to fulfill our goals step by step instead of aiming one big goal.

I agree very much with him, it is easier and more realistic to achieve small goals as once we reached the goal it actually gives us encourage us and give us the motivation to continue heading to our ultimate goal. Lesson learnt.

         3.    Growth

I have grown a lot during this period of time, many things learnt from internship and this competition. It actually makes me to do more reflections on what I have done (what are the values and lessons I can learn from it) and in what way I can be more productive and efficient in the future. Learning in progress.

All in all, what impact me the most is the word that one of the judges told me when I went for the final presentation of the competition to showcase what we have done; she said, “I hope you have learnt valuable lessons from this competition. And I am actually very proud of you because you show responsibility by showing up today and admitting the mistakes that you have made. A very precious value in you. Well done.” 

Week 2: Why Nonprofits Should Fear Social Enterprise?

So why will social enterprise win over NPOs? Both NPOs and SEs have social mission. What makes NPOs fear SEs?

One of the main factors is that it is self-sustainable. Social enterprise can generate revenue and profit to ensure the continuity of their business and social mission. For example, SEs have a business that is running, selling products, that most of the time, in line with their social mission to create awareness of their social mission and in the same time generates revenue to ensure that the business side of it is taken care of. However, NPOs depend more of donations from public, corporates or through their fund raising activities to ensure that they have enough funding to sustain their organizations. Hence, do the NPOs focus more on getting more donations from different sources to ensure that their organizations are sustainable or do they focus more on their social mission?

Most of the time, most NPOs will focus more on getting donations instead of focusing on their initial intentions of doing good.

This article describes how social enterprise will be able to take over NPOs in the future as both are generally similar as they seek to tackle social issue faced by the world. What makes them different is that SEs is self-reliant while NPOs are more dependent on donations.

The article has mention that “For decades nonprofit leaders have been pushing corporations to embrace “corporate responsibility”” which is CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) by donating huge amount of money to the organization to build “good image of the corporate”.

Such methods are not effective anymore, as more corporates are now try to improvise their own CSR department to encourage their stuffs to come up with ideas on how to contribute back to the society instead of just donating a large sum of money to NPOs or charities.

This makes me wonder, if a corporate has a CSR department and they are focusing a significant amount of effort to contribute back to the society what difference it is from a social enterprise?

Does that mean that there is no need of NPOs? No need of SEs?

NO! One of the main reasons that more corporate are looking into CSR is because of the public’s supportiveness of NPOs and SEs. They realized that they will also need to do something about social issues in order to make sure the competitiveness is there.

Thus, I believe that many NPOs are realizing that they have to be self-sustainable in order to survive and work towards their social mission. Hence, if NPOs are adaptable to changes I think that they should not fear of been replace by social enterprise as they are slowly developing into one already.

All in all, there might be one day that social enterprise will take over NPOs!

Till we meet again!

References:

MikecassidyAZ. (2011). Why Nonprofits Should Fear Social Enterprise? Retrieved October 30, 2012, from Leadership For Good: http://leadershipforgood.com/why-nonprofits-should-fear-social-enterprise/

Week 1: Social Entrepreneurs use Startups to Change The World

Social entrepreneurship is now viewed as an important source of development and improvement in the developed countries as it helps to create social and economic values. Thus, a social enterprise is a business that not only focused on profit-making but it also aims to create positive change in the society to benefit the disadvantaged groups in the society, hence a business that is revenue-generating, not a charity.

This article is about Muhammed Yunus, a 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Grameen Bank, sparked a movement with the simple question: “If you are a socially conscious person, why don’t you run your business in a way that will help achieve social objectives?” (Farr, 2012)

Today, many young entrepreneurs are attempting to alleviate global poverty, global warming, hunger, war and many more social issues faced in the world. Many of them believe that using the knowledge taught to them, the advance technology we had and a heart to make a difference in peoples’ life; they can make the world a better place to live in.

To many of the inspired youths and adults, it’s considered the right thing to do and is viewed as being cool/respectable among their peers. Hence, there are more and more competitions and funding available for the youth to take advantage of to get a funding of up to $3000 - $10,000 as a start-up cost for their business. 

The trend is that most youths would only talk about how much they are going to do to impact the world after they graduate but most of the time do nothing about it. Hence, we are thankful that we do have a significant number of youths who step-up and are determined to make the world a better place, without sacrificing an income.

“What we’re seeing now is a movement of both investors and entrepreneurs to the massive spectrum of opportunity in between the charitable NGO’s and purely for-profit companies that solely care about their bottom line,” explained Ophir Samson, project manager at the Portland Trust. (Farr, 2012)

I believe that social enterprises are the perfect balance between the social and financial aspect. People are more conscious about the social issues that are around them, thus, they are more prone to do good and feel more towards the needy people in the society. All these, contributes to the flourishing of social enterprises and many other investors are now on board to contribute back to the society. Although I do think that there will bound to be people who call themselves a social enterprise to make profit, I still choose to believe that most of us really do want to make a change in the world no matter how little the impact maybe. It is always the domino effects that people come together to make a difference that will create miracles. Youths are definitely the hope of the future.

VentureBeat’s own Ciara Byrne says, “What’s cooler than a million dollars? Changing a million lives.” (Farr, 2012)

References:

Farr, C. (2012, February 14). Social entrepreneurs use startups to change the world. Retrieved October 28, 2012, from VentureBeat: http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/14/social-entrepreneurs-use-startups-to-change-the-world/