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Article source: http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article558915.ece

The year in social enterprise: 2011

Staff reporter David Ainsworth looks back at a big year for social enterprise, including the launch of Big Society Capital, under the chairmanship of Sir Ronald Cohen

The end of the beginning

2011 was big year for me personally and for Wavelength. I turned 50 in January, an age at which you can no longer ignore the sound of time’s winged chariot. Middle aged I most definitely am but I have no intention of settling into it still less acting it! Still too much to do and fun to be had doing it all.

The power of mentoring in social entrepreneurship

Many social entrepreneurs (SE) value input and advice, not only about their “missions” but also about their businesses: how to scale, raise money, operate efficiently, improve distribution, etc. Ideally, this advice comes from someone who has “been there.” At Santa Clara University’s Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI™), we believe this mentor role is so valuable that we align one or two mentors with every SE accepted in the program. Some of our alumni have referred to the mentoring component as the “secret sauce” of the GSBI.

Central America’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2011

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship has named the Guatemalan entrepreneur Philip Wilson the winner of the 2011 Central America Social Entrepreneur of the Year award. The award recognizes the work of his company, EcoFiltro, which provides access to potable water with low environmental impact.

This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the social enterprise network, click here.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-enterprise-network/2012/jan/05/best-social-enterprise-links-5-january?newsfeed=true

This is the 4^th part of our Year in Review Series, in which we reconnect with our group of experts about the trends they forecasted for social entrepreneurship in 2011 and look forward to the year ahead. Gabriel Brodbar, the founding director of the Catherine B. Reynolds Program in Social Entrepreneurship at NYU, looks back on the year in social entrepreneurship education, and reflects on the evolution of the school’s philosophy to build a movement that takes a cross-discipline, collaborative approach to social change. #

Dowser: This is the sixth class of the Reynolds program in Social Entrepreneurship. As the sector continues to evolve, what do you think applicants are looking to get out of the program?
Brodbar: There is an overall feeling among our students that there’s a particular skill set and particular areas of knowledge that they need to acquire in order to take the next step in their changemaking careers. For many of our students, there also seems to be a strong motivating desire to get connected to a larger network of changemakers, and to have access to that community will help them develop a more nuanced multiple-lens perspective of their role. #

In our previous interview, you spoke about the cross-discipline approach to social entrepreneurship at Reynolds and the importance of fostering multiple changemaking roles. Have you seen this philosophy of cross-sector collaboration play out outside the university setting this year?
Yes, I believe there has been a move towards legitimate cross-sector relationship building in other areas of society. A few months ago, I was invited to a meeting at the White House that gathered leaders from the private sector, social entrepreneurship, philanthropy, as well as politicians to discuss cross-sector engagement in order to create more meaningful learning experiences. The idea is that you can be more effective at collaborating with other sectors if you learn how to service the needs of different groups. There was a real recognition of the value of that type of practice, and to see how universally this approach was accepted by people from all parts of the political spectrum was really encouraging. We’ve all recognized that as a society we have moved towards a greater sense of personal responsibility. There is finally an understanding that the system is broken and it’s not going to fix itself. #

What role do you think social entrepreneurship education programs like Reynolds should play in the greater development of the sector?
One of the advantages we have at this program is that we are in the unique position to help move the world of social entrepreneurship education in a particular direction. There’s no question that there’s been increased demand for these kinds of classes and programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level that continues to explode. However, we believe that if you are going to have a social entrepreneurship program, there are certain elements that you have to have. We have tried to be a model for a cross-university approach. We structured the concentration from a perspective that it should involve students from across different schools at the university working closely together. That provides the opportunity for students to understand what the landscape of the sector looks like and helps them to orient themselves about what their particular role in the movement will be. #

We want all types of students to know that their skill sets are badly needed, and we provide the cross-sector classes that are going to cultivate well-rounded students. We believe that to better prepare people to enter the space, there is a common set of skills they should be exposed to. A lot of that is about changing the way that people think about problems and problem solving. If the goal is to promote truly innovative thinking and to produce leaders who can executive innovative ideas, the linear model for education is not going to work as well as a true cross-university approach. #

So the belief is that collaboration among various sectors will create more effective entrepreneurs and changemakers?
Yes. Another part of being an effective changemaker is that we want to help people fortify their appetite for risk and be more prepared for the failures that they are going to experience. The way the program is structured really gives students an opportunity to understand what their sense of empathy is all about. We want to boost their confidence while also keeping them grounded and be able to maintain a sense of humility. We want them to leave with a more sophisticated social and emotional intelligence and much more nuanced ideas of the sector. Change doesn’t happen as a result of one brilliant visionary, but rather it’s about recognizing that there are all these other people out there who can make your idea happen, and it’s important to engage with those people and figure out ways that everyone can contribute to change. #

What is your feeling about the more activist approach to change that has sprung up as a result of the Occupy Wall Street Movement?
Social entrepreneurship is about social change; it doesn’t matter how we get there, but we want to be able to learn and replicate and produce more people who have that ability. If you reach new solutions through social activism, or entrepreneurship, or creative community organizing, it doesn’t matter. The goal must be sustainable, scalable, and repetitive social change. #

Categories:  News and Ideas

Article source: http://dowser.org/year-in-review-gabriel-brodbar/

This is the 2^st part of our Year in Review Series, in which we reconnect with our group of experts about the trends they forecasted for social entrepreneurship in 2011 and look forward to the year ahead. Amy Clark, the U.S. Fellow Selection leader at Ashoka, reflects on her prediction about the democratization of the social entrepreneurship movement, and discusses the emergence of a new demographic of changemakers, along with the role that empathy skills play in dictating success. #

Dowser: One of the trends you predicted for 2011 was the democratization of the social entrepreneurship movement, where all types of people — beyond entrepreneurs — would contribute to change. What is your assessment of how the movement has democratized this year?
Clark: The trend toward what I had called an “evolved democracy” is a deep one, and signals a truly historical shift that we are seeing play out everywhere from the political upheavals and reforms of 2011, to the emergence of citizen-scientists, citizen-journalists, and so on. The pace of change is picking up considerably and the role of social entrepreneurs and changemakers is more important now than ever, as old institutions and business models break apart and new approaches take root in their place. The actions of the social entrepreneur community are key to shepherding these changes in ways that anticipate and respond to the immediate and long-term health of society. #

Ashoka’s interest has always been in catalyzing leading social entrepreneurs who work with the fullest possible freedom, time investment, and creativity in order to isolate guiding insights and architect systemic change. Especially in the past five years or so, we have seen more clearly that the solutions Ashoka Fellows introduce almost always open pathways for many, many people to see themselves and their roles and skills in a new light - as changemakers. When changemakers see a problem in their family life, workplace, or field, they think: what’s the best solution and how can I contribute to it? Looking down the road, I think the health of a society will be measured by the proportion of people who identify and act as changemakers at whatever scale the problem requires. #

Can you give some examples of the different types of people and professionals that you’ve seen emerge as changemakers?
We always want to seek out and connect to new groups of changemakers who have not, for any number of reasons, crossed the formal social entrepreneur path. For example, I just got back from a farming and ranching gathering hosted by a group whose aim is to energize young farmers as small business people and also as changemakers – although they didn’t use that language. In the U.S., there are few Ashoka Fellows in agriculture and historically few natural points of contact. And yet the culture of farming and ranching is inherently entrepreneurial. It’s one of many examples of new corners of the movement that we have yet to fully engage in this country. #

Also, a few social entrepreneurs in our 2011 Fellow class are brilliant at igniting “intrapreneur” talent - changemakers who work in existing institutions such as universities, companies, organizations, or government, and link into the big ideas of system-changing entrepreneurs and the demands and mandates of their institution. Social entrepreneurs partner with them and equip them with overarching ideas and many of the practical tools they need to guide change from within – to green supply chains, to organize parents, and so on. In essence, this strategy extends the reach and resources of the Fellows’ team and offers new ways of unlocking and harnessing changemaker talent that is there already. #

So, what does the role of the intrapreneur look like and how does it relate to accelerating change?
Intrapreneurs bring about an important and lasting culture change inside their institutions, so that team-based methods that value good ideas coming from anywhere begin to show results that can’t be achieved through top–down approaches and traditional forms of management. The culture they create can withstand — and even thrive — in a world where the pace of change is increasing all the time. If I’m a corporate or government leader or school principal or university dean, this is a huge asset, and a reason to recruit changemakers and enable their success. #

It also seems that the way organizations are operating now, that it’s less about having one person leading change, and more about forming organizations where everyone is committed to the mission.
Entrepreneurs define new ways of operating to get things done, and we are seeing a shift in the way entrepreneurial organizations recruit and organize talent – and even in the language used to describe our working lives. Changemakers coalesce teams around meaningful “challenges,” which is different from going to work every day because you do a “job.” They also build skill sets that allow greater fluidity and co-creation of change across networks, not just within siloed institutions. In response, Ashoka launched its first “20-20 campaign” in 2011 to source entrepreneurial talent – for Ashoka staff roles, and also more broadly for the sector and its networked aims. Talent is one of the top challenges for social entrepreneurs, and the degree to which Ashoka and partner organizations can attract, vet, and route talent to the highest-impact corners of the movement will make the critical difference. #

Speaking of identifying talent and channeling it to the right parts of the movement, Ashoka has also been a champion of cultivating what it considers to be the core skill of empathy. Can you discuss how you have seen empathy shape the sector?
We kicked off our empathy work in the United States formally in 2011 – a key area of work for us in this country and globally. In looking at the 3,000 social entrepreneurs in Ashoka’s community, we saw that empathy was a common denominator, a core skill across the community. For us, empathy is not just the ability to feel what someone else is feeling, but to act on that understanding with conviction and creativity, to problem-solve effectively while holding self-interest and the interest of others in a healthy and productive tension. It is therefore a foundational skill for social entrepreneurs and changemakers, whether you’re engaged in education or health or reforming markets. #

In the US, we’re cultivating empathy through three main approaches.  First, we’re building a community of leading social entrepreneurs whose innovations we can learn from and share. This includes finding emerging social entrepreneurs in this area. Second, we want to align with thought leaders and influencers in education who see the paradigm shift in learning and want to partner with Ashoka and Ashoka Fellows to make it happen. And finally, because the early childhood years offer a key developmental moment, we are working with schools – especially elementary schools – that are already ahead of the curve in pioneering the focus on this skill. They already ensure that empathy is modeled by teachers and parents and that children have opportunities inside and outside the classroom to practice this skill and prepare for a life of work that is very different from past centuries. #

Tags: Ashoka Fellow, empathy, entrepreneurship, social enterpriseCategories:  Interviews, News and Ideas

Article source: http://dowser.org/year-in-review-amy-clark/

The Great East Japan Earthquake underscored the importance of “kizuna,” or human bonds, in helping disaster survivors. To social entrepreneurs in Japan and the United States, it helped forge stronger interpersonal relations among the two countries’ nonprofit groups, an area often overshadowed by the political and business sectors.

Since last year, a group of Japanese-Americans with backgrounds in the nonprofit sector have collaborated with Japanese social entrepreneurs on the ground in the devastated Tohoku region.

They aim to help Japanese NPOs build up their organizations as well as fundraising strategies, while also learning from the experiences of their Japanese counterparts who are practicing innovative social business models that meet the needs of locals in the devastated areas as they rebuild their communities.

“We see this as a real partnership, a real collaboration where the American side and the Japanese side are going to get a lot from this relationship. We can help each other and we can learn from each other. And we can inspire each other,” said Kaz Maniwa, a San Francisco-based lawyer who leads the Japanese-American group.

The group consists of former participants of the Japanese American Leadership Delegation, a program sponsored by the Foreign Ministry and the Center for Global Partnership of the Japan Foundation. It was started in 2000 to build and strengthen ties between senior Japanese-American and Japanese leaders in politics, business and other fields.

But the alumni delegation was voluntarily organized by those eager to commit to working exclusively with nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations in Japan, according to Maniwa, who chairs the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California and has also worked with other NPOs.

“NGOs play a much bigger role in American society than in Japan. It’s very normal for people in America to donate to a large number of charities and to NPOs, and also to volunteer their time to organizations,” Maniwa said.

“One of the things we would like to see is an increased role of the NPOs in Japan, where people donate more money to NPOs and also to volunteer their time to their organizations.”

With this ambition, the JALD alumni group’s project began before the March 11 disasters. In May 2010, Maniwa and Tom Ikeda, another member of the group, met with Hideyuki Inoue, an associate professor at Keio University whose research focuses on social entrepreneurship and social innovation.

At their meeting, Inoue informed the Japanese-Americans that an increasing number of young Japanese were dedicating themselves to making positive changes in society by establishing nonprofits and venture businesses.

In an interview with The Japan Times, Inoue said such young people differ from previous generations involved in social movements.

“Unlike the past social movements where participants demanded action by the government or big businesses regarding things they saw as problems, the young social entrepreneurs today move by themselves. They have innovative ideas and are eager to make a systemic change in society,” he said.

Inoue, who is also the founder of Social Venture Partners Tokyo, a network of philanthropists who contribute their business skills and expertise to develop the capacity of existing NPOs, said such young social entrepreneurs are also business-minded, and use tactics to expand their activities to other communities.

“Apparently, the policymakers and business leaders (JALD alumni met) in the past had expressed pessimistic views about Japanese society and its young, but I told them that there are really exciting and interesting changes taking place in Japan,” he said.

Inoue added that such young innovators often fail to realize that the value of their work can be appreciated in other countries as well, but they needed to broaden their views and connect with the resources overseas to broaden their activities.

Thus, Inoue had been in talks with Seattle-based nonprofit group named iLEAP: The Center for Critical Service, to develop a forum to offer both Japanese and American social entrepreneurs leadership training programs that can also become opportunities to network with their counterparts and enhance their skills and ideas.

Looking back, Inoue said the meeting with the JALD alumni and the plan to establish a forum had coincided, but the earthquake and tsunami on March 11 added urgency to their collaborations.

In July, 10 young Japanese social entrepreneurs took part in the training program offered by iLEAP. The JALD alumni also participated in one of the workshops, and this became the first opportunity for the Japanese-American group to meet with the Japanese NPO leaders to learn about the role of NPOs in Japan and the issues they face.

The following September, the JALD alumni delegation made a weeklong trip to Japan, which included visits with the NPOs they met in Seattle and that were working in the Tohoku region. The visit focused on NPOs working in Onagawa, Ishinomaki and Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture, and other areas.

“There’s such a difference in seeing the devastation with your own eyes. . . . It’s one thing to see it in pictures and TV, and to have the event explained to us in detail from people who were actually there as eyewitnesses,” Maniwa said after returning from the visit in September.

“As a group we were very moved by what we saw, and the human reaction of seeing people’s homes and lives destroyed. But I think it was really nice to see that people we met with were not bitter,” he said. “Obviously, it was a major loss, but they felt like they want to rebuild their fishing villages, they want to rebuild their farms.”

The nonprofit groups they visited included Katariba, which operates after-school study classes in Onagawa for students from elementary to high school. It also runs a bus service between their schools and temporary housing units.

The school not only gave students who were behind in their studies a chance and space to study, but also jobs to teachers whose cram schools were washed away by the tsunami.

Another young social entrepreneur they met put together a food relief distribution network on the day after the quake and demonstrated management skills.

He later started a restaurant that employs both mentally and physically disabled people. It was a new example of a hybrid of profit and nonprofit businesses, as it gave people a living wage so they could maintain their dignity, and the restaurant broke even.

“The people we met were young, dedicated Japanese who were very passionate and idealistic about what they were doing. They were focusing totally on helping other people in the area. They are not concerned with any kind of personal gain. They’re just doing it because they want to do it,” Maniwa said. “It was very inspiring to see who we felt are really future leaders of Japan. Their dedication to their people and commitment was something we love to see.”

Inoue, who coordinated the group’s visit to Tohoku, said the Japanese NPO leaders were also thankful their efforts were valued and appreciated by their counterparts in the U.S.

The experience with iLEAP’s forum in Seattle also helped them expand their horizons, and some have even come up with new strategies to connect with overseas donors, he said.

The JALD alumni said they will continue to work closely to develop the connections they have made with the Japanese NPO leaders who are to form an executive committee to plan further collaborations, including new joint projects.

“It’s a continuing story, the whole idea of building relationships between the NPOs. There’s a really deep feeling of caring for each other. We are really excited to continue working with these people,” Maniwa said.

In the meantime, a new group of Japanese nonprofit leaders will attend iLEAP’s leadership training seminar from Jan. 11 in Seattle, and some of the JALD alumni plan to participate.

Article source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120105f2.html

Speaker Biographies:

Heather McLeod Grant is coauthor with Leslie Crutchfield of a landmark book on how nonprofits can achieve the highest impact, Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, which was named a Top Ten Book of 2007 by The Economist. Based on four years of research and in-depth study of a dozen high-impact organizations, Forces for Good outlines a new roadmap
for nonprofits to succeed on their own terms. With the rapid and global growth of the social sector, it’s more important than ever that the people who run and fund these nonprofits understand what it takes to succeed and focus their resources on the most effective agents of social change. She also teaches at Stanford University and is an advisor to the Center for Social Innovation, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, and the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

A former consultant at McKinsey Company, she currently is a senior consultant for the Monitor Institute and serves on the advisory boards of Stanford Social Innovation Review and the National Civic League. She has been published in The New York Times, The American Prospect, and Alliance, and has appeared on CNN and NPR. In her spare time, she speaks on social entrepreneurship, nonprofit leadership and strategic philanthropy focusing how to be a stronger force for good.

Peter Sims
Author of Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, Peter Sims writes that we are living in very uncertain, rapidly changing times where, unlike before, people are changing their jobs every few years. Sims emphasizes that it is crucial for our careers and the overall economy that we constantly come up with new ideas and reinvent ourselves; using “little bets” can help us see what is coming next so we can move forward and not be left behind.

According to Sims, “little bets” are “low-risk actions taken to discover, develop, and test an idea” and are the secret to the success of leaders such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to Steve Jobs. “Little bets” are “at the center of an approach to get to the right idea without getting stymied by perfectionism, risk-aversion, or excessive planning.” Not only can this innovative way of thinking advance your career, but “little bets” can have an enormous impact on education, corporations and the overall economy.

Before writing “Little Bets,” Sims was the coauthor with Bill George of True North, the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestseller.

Alexis Ringwald
What better way to test-drive solar technologies than, well, to drive them around? Smart-building entrepreneur Alexis Ringwald did just that when she co-organized the Climate Solutions Road Tour, in which she and her partners drove 2,400 miles across India in solar electric cars. It was a move, she says, designed to highlight innovations by Indian companies and to inspire others to take action.

Since returning to the States from her 2.5-year Fulbright position, Ringwald has turned that big ambition to buildings and the smart grid. At Valence Energy, which she cofounded, Ringwald creates software to help decentralize the power grid into a network of smart microgrids, or communities that consume energy produced nearby and on-site. Valence has already made major inroads in decentralizing the grid: Last year, it partnered with Cisco to build smart, energy-efficient buildings. Eventually, Ringwald hopes to take her work full-circle, bringing microgrid breakthroughs to India, where on-the-grid power can be both inefficient and unreliable.

Moderator Biography:
Martin Giles joined The Economist as a Finance Correspondent in 1988. He then moved to Paris as the newspaper’s European Business Correspondent, before returning to London as Finance Editor. Mr. Giles subsequently spent several years on the business side of The Economist Group, latterly as Managing Director of the group’s US operations. During this time he was awarded an executive MBA from The University of Chicago’s Booth Graduate School of Business. In 2008 he returned to the editorial staff of The Economist, becoming the newspaper’s management correspondent in New York. Since 2009 he has been the US Technology Correspondent in San Francisco. He has written special reports on numerous subjects during his career at The Economist, including European business, international banking, insurance and the rise of social networks. Mr. Giles is a member of the Advisory Council of The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and a trustee of the Marjorie Deane Financial Journalism Foundation.

ABOUT BREWS VIEWS

Brews and Views is the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company’s regular speakers series that tackles public issues that affect us all, from the Coastside of California to Washington, DC. Started by Lenny Mendonca, the founder of the Brewing Company and director at McKinsey Company, Brews and Views serves as both a free public forum and fundraiser for Coastside nonprofit organizations (ten percent of all dinner proceeds are donated to a local nonprofit after each event). Previous notable guests include renowned forecaster Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight at Discern Analytics; Charles Kolb, president of the Committee for Economic Development; Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton; Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle’s political reporter; and California State Assemblyman Jerry Hill.

Previous Brews Views are broadcast on the Coastside’s community television station, PCTV (channel 27) Monday evenings at 7 p.m. The December 1 Brews Views, about the craft beer industry with special guest Pete Slosberg, founder of Pete’s Wicked Ale, is available online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K0lIFjVW_A.

Article source: http://coastsider.com/site/news/brews_views_tomorrow_cutting_edge_trends_in_social_innovation/5643