Transcript Document

Social Entrepreneurship
Roslyn Russell
RDU
Social Entrepreneurship
 Social entrepreneurship is the activity of establishing new business
ventures to achieve social change. The business utilises creativity
and innovation to bring social, financial, service, educational or
other community benefits.
 (Talbot, Tregilgas & Harrison, 2002)
 Social enterprises are not charities or welfare agencies. They are
private businesses established by entrepreneurs with an emphasis
on human values rather than just profit. These businesses focus on
working with and enhancing the social capital within the
community by encouraging participation, inclusion and utilising a
bottom-up approach to achieve social change
Elements of Social Enterprise
 Three core elements:
Created to provide benefits for a community
Creates opportunities so people can help themselves
as well as others
Utilises sound commercial business practices to
ensure its sustainability i.e. the business will
naturally uphold and encourage environmental
sustainability as well as ethical considerations
Characteristics of a Social Entrepreneur
 Not bound by sector norms or traditions
 Not confined by barriers that stand in the way of their
goals
 Develop new models and pioneer new approaches to
enable them to overcome obstacles
 Take innovative approaches to solve social issues
 Transform communities through strategic partnerships
Social entrepreneurs
“… a path breaker with a powerful idea, who combines visionary and
real world problem-solving creativity, has a strong ethical fibre..”
“ ..combines street pragmatism with professional skills..”
“ they see opportunities where others only see empty buildings,
unemployable people and unvalued resources”
“..Radical thinking is what makes social entrepreneurs different from
simply ‘good’ people.”
“they make markets work for people, not the other way around, and
gain strength from a wide network of alliances”
“they can ‘boundary ride’ between the various political rhetoric and
social paradigms to enthuse all sectors of society”
Where do you find social
enterprises?
 Social entrepreneurs find opportunity in most economic sectors.
The growth areas for social enterprises are identified as:
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Environmental
Housing
Health and care
Information services
Public services
Financial services
Training and business development
Manufacturing
Food and agriculture
Global context
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U.K. Community Action Network (CAN)
The Stanford Business School Social Entrepreneurship initiative
Canadian Centre for Social Entrepreneurship
Social and Enterprise Development Innovations (SEDI)
The Israeli Greenhouse for Social Entrepreneurship
International Institute of Social Entrepreneurship Management
(India)
 Inter-American Development Bank
 The Initiative on Social Enterprise – Harvard Business School
Australian Context
Social Entrepreneurship Network (SEN)
Social Ventures Australia (SVA)
Asia-Pacific Centre for Philanthropy and
Social Investments (Swinburne)
RMIT
Example: Ben and Jerry’s Ice-cream
Community Partnership Savings Accounts
 A matched savings model designed to help people build
assets
 Usually it involves two dollars matched for every dollar
saved
 Account holders take money management and asset
training classes while saving for a specific goal
 An 18 month Community Partnership Savings Accounts
 Pilot will be run by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and
ANZ and will match savings specifically for educationrelated expenses.
Examples
In Canada there is a learn$ave program that has
established Individual Development Accounts
to promote self-sufficiency among low-income
Canadians
4,875 participants
10 locations
In USA there are approximately 250 IDA
programs that are showing success
Also UK and Singapore have similar programs
Australian Program
Commences in June 2003
Will include 300 participants
Three locations – inner city, outer
suburban and regional
Lower income participants
Specific goal – education expenses for
children
Research project
Conduct an evaluation program to run
concurrently with the pilot
Aims:
To ensure appropriateness of the program
To ensure effectiveness of the program
To ensure efficiency of the program
Stages
1. Secondary data analysis
Overseas IDA program
Australian context
2. Evaluation process
Assess individual-level change
Implementation analysis
Assess the effect on organisation
How?
Action research using qualitative
techniques
Individual interviews
Participant focus groups
Staff focus groups
Quantitative measurements using bank
data
Outcomes
Reports including:
Indication of individual-level change in
participant behaviour
Patterns of drop-out rates from the program
Perceptions of participants in the program
Perceptions of staff involved
Indication of individual-level change in staff
attitudes and learning
Outcomes (cont’d)
Intermediate reports on barriers to
maintaining participations
Identify patterns in drop-out rates