Social Entrepreneurship: What Do You Think About "Modern Do-Gooders"?
For me, opening the New York Times lately has felt a lot like Christmas morning. Two weeks ago, the New York Times Magazine “Money Issue” focused entirely on philanthropy and the recent trends in social change. Today, “Thoroughly Modern Do-Gooders,” an editorial by David Brooks, discusses social entrepreneurship and how these pioneers are on their way to forever changing the way we think about social service.
The article describes social entrepreneurship as a hybrid field; those involved have social change passions usually associated with the nonprofit sector, but they “dress like venture capitalists. They talk like them. They even think like them.” Brooks notes that these entrepreneurs are “data-driven and accountability-oriented,” motivated by “disappointments of the past decades.” Along the way, he mentions Teach For America, founded by 1991 Echoing Green Fellow Wendy Kopp, and College Summit, founded by 1997 Echoing Green Fellow J.B. Schramm, which are highly regarded as two of the quintessential organizations in the field.
Brooks’ article ends on a strong sentiment, with which I agree 100 percent. He writes, “we might as well take advantage of this explosion of social entrepreneurship. These are some of the smartest and most creative people in the country. Even if we don’t know how to reduce poverty, it’s probably worth investing in these people and letting them figure it out. They won’t stop bugging us until we do.” Nor should they! There are a multitude of people out there with innovative ideas about social change; ideas that are surely destined for success, if only people and governments would take the risk and support their work.
What do you think about the rising trend of social entrepreneurship? How will the field look in five or ten years? What must we as citizens do to help those who have ideas about social change?
March 21, 2008 - 12:21pm
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Comments
re: Social Entrepreneurship
There's no denying that the rise of social entrepreneurship has and will further change the landscape of this world for the better.
The role of citizen involvement in this may not necessarily be the best place to look. Rather, I argue that the state ought to step up and foster this type of social change and there are a variety of ways in which this can be accomplished. Through the power of the purse, they can fund more organizations that provide seed funding to potential entrepreneurs. The government can also look to establish or integrate the concept of social entrepreneurship in various school curriculums. Not only does a program of this concept foster creativity amongst youths, it will also allow for the training ground of future leaders, making "learning" a worthwhile endeavor.
Furthermore, given the advent of corporate social responsibility as the for-profit sector's "do-good" arm, specific corporations ought to adopt a Google mantra -that is, give time and create incentives for employees to innovate, and allow for those ideas to take off. Multi-billion dollar corporations can certainly fund a couple of thousand dollar endeavor. If this is successful, perhaps another hip trend can occur within the for-profit sector.
There is a scary thought, however, in Brooks' comparison of social entrepreneurship as a fashionable item. Indeed, like corporate social responsibility, this modern era of "do-good" is exploding. However, what happens when it falls out of fashion as the comparison implies? Hopefully it does not happen anytime soon.
Stories of inspiration are the foundation of this great nation, and I'm glad to be living in an era where the zeitgeist is dedicated to achieving social good.