A new way of thinking
Social entrepreneurs display all the characteristics of serial entrepreneurs but remain focused on transformational change.
Friday, April 15 2011 || Features || BY Mark Revington
Photography: Tony Nyberg
Capitalism and social change? It’s the new game in town, a philosophy sweeping the world. Entrepreneurs fill a need in a market through a business model. Social entrepreneurs fill a need in a market and look for transformational change. Think Ray Avery inventing medical devices that have saved the sight of millions. Or Melissa Clark-Reynolds starting Minimonos.com to change the way kids view the world.
Fast Company coined the phrase ‘the Change Generation’ for what it called the ‘risk-taking, do-gooding young entrepreneurs’ of Generation Y. They can be at the helm of a non-profit, self-sustaining organisation meeting a social need, or a business that ploughs profit back into meeting social aims. There is no ‘one size fits all’, just a desire, especially among younger entrepreneurs, to carry out transformational changes.
Younger generations are far more likely to focus on sustainability and its implications, according to a global study carried out by IBM. The global student survey asked similar questions to those posed in IBM’s global CEO study and while CEOs and students expected sustainability issues — both environmental and social — to have a large impact on organisations over the next five years, the younger generation said their leadership style would be based on caring.
Early in 2009, the Centre for Social Innovation was set up in New Zealand to provide a focal point and energy for new thinking in New Zealand around ways of effecting social change. Now CEO Justine Munro plus Fay Langdon and Paul Gilberd are in the process of setting up a School for Social Entrepreneurs to encourage new thinking in New Zealand.
The trio bring hard-headed business thinking to the business of social change and a passion to make a difference. Langdon and Munro, for example, set up Global Women, the outfit that aims to build a strong core of women at senior levels in business throughout New Zealand.
“Our values are grounded in New Zealand Inc and social justice,” says Langdon.
The Centre for Social Innovation was set up to bring about transformational change in New Zealand; to grow the new class of entrepreneurs in New Zealand. Munro and her colleagues set about an intense education process for politicians, bureaucrats and business through lobbying, workshops and by bringing in international speakers like Geoff Mulgan, the legendary British social innovator.
Mulgan’s message is that what used to be regarded as social sectors and vast sinkholes for public funds — sectors like health and education — are becoming dominant in economies following the global financial crisis.
“The recovery will not come from financial services, or cars or steel. A lot of it will come from health, from care for the elderly, from education, from environmental services, from fields which used to be thought of as social sectors but are increasingly becoming dominant parts of the economy in terms of jobs and GDP.”
Munro talks about transformative ideas — new ideas that change lives. Whether you’re an entrepreneur who parlays that into a money-making model or a non-profit model isn’t the point.
