Cartoon by Hugh
According to Wikipedia, “Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society as well as in profit and return. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many are now working in the private and governmental sectors and making a real impact on society.
The main aim of a social entrepreneurship as well as social enterprise is to further social and environmental goals for a good cause. Although social entrepreneurs are often non-profits, this need not be incompatible with making a profit. Social enterprises are for ‘more-than-profit,’ using blended value business models that combine a revenue-generating business with a social-value-generating structure or component. A social entrepreneur in the 21st century will redefine entrepreneurship as we know it due to their progressive business models.”
David Bornstein is the author of How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas and Guy Kawasaki conducted an interview with him.
According to Bornstein, “Increasingly we see more and more social founders who are using a business format to achieve their objectives. So a social founder doesn’t have to run a nonprofit, and in the future you will see a lot more for-profit social entrepreneurship as well as a lot of blending of legal formats.
The difference is really in terms of what the founder seeks to maximize. What is the primary motivation behind building your organization—whatever form it takes? Are you trying to develop drugs for diseases that afflict large numbers of poor people in the developing world as Victoria Hale is doing with One World Health or are you trying to dominate the world market for sneakers or fashionable jockey shorts? For-profit entrepreneurs build all kinds of things. Social entrepreneurs are primarily motivated by an ethical imperative. They seek to respond to urgent needs. The question of why is paramount.”
When asked whether there are fundamental differences in the people who go to work for a social versus not-for-profit startup, Bornstein stated, “The big difference is that the folks who go work for a start up focusing on creating a social change are less motivated to make a lot of money since that usually isn’t the “upside.” If you are phenomenally successful, you don’t get rich—you change the world.”
He goes on to say, “That difference must somehow relate to the hierarchy of values that govern that person’s decisions—and what they feel they “need” to accomplish to be happy and feel good about themselves or, alternatively, whose esteem and admiration they are seeking.”
While researching I discovered 21 Inspiring Quotes for Social Entrepreneurs by Erik Eliason. Following are a few of my favorites.
Think about how you can change the world, and enjoy.
Social Entrepreneurship
“Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.” -Bill Drayton (Ashoka Founder)
“Social entrepreneurs have existed throughout history. St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan Order, would qualify as a social entrepreneur — having built multiple organizations that advanced pattern changes in his “field.” Similarly, Florence Nightingale created the first professional school for nurses and established standards for hygiene and hospital care that have shaped norms worldwide. What is different today is that social entrepreneurship is developing into a mainstream vocation, not only in the United States, Canada, and Europe, but increasingly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In fact, the rise of social entrepreneurship represents the leading edge of a remarkable development that has occurred across the world over the past three decades: the emergence of millions of new citizen organizations.” -David Bornstein (How to Change the World : Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas)
“I’m encouraging young people to become social business entrepreneurs and contribute to the world, rather than just making money. Making money is no fun. Contributing to and changing the world is a lot more fun.” -Muhammad Yunus
Inspiration
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt
“Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future” -Charles F. Kettering (American Engineer)
“Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” -Robert F. Kennedy
“Founded on the principles of private initiative, entrepreneurship and self-employment, underpinned by the values of democracy, equality and solidarity, the co-operative movement can help pave the way to a more just and inclusive economic order.” -Kofi Annan
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.” -Henry David Thoreau
Perseverance
“All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man has taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. All progress depends upon the unreasonable man.” -George Bernard Shaw
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle
Taking Action
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” -Albert Einstein
“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.” -Helen Keller
“Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.” -Ann Landers
“My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see.” -Muhammad Yunus
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” -Albert Einstein
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