Social Entrepreneurship

In South Africa, a business entrepreneur invents and installs a merry-go-round that, when spun by children, pumps enough water for a village of 2,500.

In Uganda, two young entrepreneurs from San Francisco develop a revolutionary model for microlending, using the Internet to connect borrowers with lenders, person to person – a venture that has grown from one small village in Africa to eleven countries around the world.

In Peru, two CSU students launch their own social enterprise, PowerMundo, to deliver multiple renewable energy products, such as solar lights and hand-crank radios, to people living at the base of the pyramid, between $2-4 dollars per day.

In Fort Collins, a group of entrepreneurs at Envirfit develop and disseminate products and services that address major environmental problems in the developing world, and end up on the cover of this month’s Popular Science.

Entrepreneurs change the face of business; social entrepreneurs change society. Social entrepreneurs create solutions to social problems that leap beyond charity, and encourage the development of systematic solutions that help eradicate poverty, enhance educational opportunities, provide better health care and champion social justice. David Brooks calls them the new do-gooder: “They dress like venture capitalists. They talk like them. They even think like them…they are data driven and accountability-oriented…the highest status symbol in their circle is a Rand study showing their program yields statistically significant results.”

In its simplest terms, social entrepreneurs use business methods and entrepreneurial innovation to solve social problems. According to the Small Business Administration’s 2007 Report to the President, social entrepreneurship is the practice of responding to market failures with transformative, financially sustainable innovations aimed at solving social problems.

ITNAmerica created a new option for seniors: providing rides in private cars available 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, with “door-through-door” service, using a combination of paid and volunteer drivers. Payments must be made for every ride, but no money exchanges hands in the vehicle. Seniors fund their personal transportation accounts in advance and receive a monthly statement in the mail. Volunteer drivers make up about 40-60 % of the driving team. Costs are manageable; many volunteers over 60 years of age contribute their own volunteer driving time, building up credits for their own future use of the services. Family members volunteer time and make in-kind contributions to their relatives who are using the service. Seniors may trade their personal vehicles when they are no longer able to use them and apply the liquidated equity to fund their personal transportation account. ITNAmerica created its own software to plan and track membership accounts, rides and distances, maximizing efficiency of routes. This social entrepreneurial program is an efficient model that ultimately funds itself through nominal fees and leveraged private resources.

Other social entrepreneurial programs in the U.S. include--City Year a multi-city organization that unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service, giving them skills and opportunities to change the world; New Leaders for New Schools provides a pathway for current and former educators to become outstanding principals of urban public schools; Benetech, an innovative technology firm, has moved from its own technology innovation for scanning documents to funding other technological social enterprises. Louisiana has a new Office of Social Entrepreneurship. North Carolina recently established a Low-Profit, Limited Liability Partnership Company legal business entity (L3C) where a private enterprise can function for social or educational purposes.

Kevin Jones and his partners at Good Capital, a San Francisco venture capital firm, say if you're looking for investment money during these tough economic times, then the way to go is with a business venture that's socially responsible. “There is a wave of new investing where people are not wanting it just to be about their money, but also to be about their impact in the world…From healthcare to consumer products, fair trade kinds of things, financial services - a whole lot of things, and there's ways to make money and do good."

Recently, the Fort Collins Regional Library District, CSU Libraries teamed up with Skoll Foundation, PBS/FRONTLINE and the American Library Association to engage the Northern Colorado general public, students, academics and professionals in a discussion with leaders in business, humanitarian aid, academia and social activism on the concept of social entrepreneurship as a way to create meaningful solutions to our local social problems. Fort Collins Regional Library District and CSU Libraries have been and will continue to offer programs to introduce groups and organizations to the basic concepts, ideas and themes of social entrepreneurship. We have also put together public library and academic library online guides about social entrepreneurship (http://library.fcgov.com/adult/business.) PBS/FRONTLINE ‘s video, Social Entrepreneur Series and Community Engagement, is available for check out at the Fort Collins Regional Library.

The local public library is the perfect location as a center for social entrepreneurs to learn about case studies, projects around the world, possible capital infusion, grants, foundations and more. I'll keep you informed on the social network we're setting up.

Take care and have a nice Thanksgiving!