Social Entrepreneurship:A Golden Opportunity for China to Show Leadership

China is well positioned to lead

the world in creating an

environment in which social

entrepreneurship thrives and

creates maximum benefits for

society.

Will you take this opportunity

and create such an

environment?

1. The Dynamics of Societies

2. The Nature of Social

Entrepreneurship

3. How Social Entrepreneurship Helps

Societies

4. The Need for a Supportive

Environment

5. Returning to the Opportunity

Uncertainties

Shocks and Disruptions

Resulting in an evolving set of social problems and tensions that need to be addressed

Competing Demands

Constant ChangeComplexity

Unintended Consequences

Resource Constraints

Experiment and Learn

Value Resourcefulness

Adapt to Changes

Be Alert and Flexible

Encourage Collaboration

Empower Innovators

Resulting in a capacity to react in a timely and effective way to the

evolving social problems

Social entrepreneurship contributes significantly to this adaptive capacity

Late 18th century, French economist, Say:Entrepreneurs shift economic resources out of areas of lower and into areas of higher productivity and yield (Value creators)

20th century, Austrian economist, Schumpeter:The function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production (Innovators)

Professor Peter Drucker, management guru:

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity (Opportunity-oriented)

Professor Howard Stevenson, Harvard:Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled (Resourceful)

When existing conditions in a society fall short of our goals for a prosperous, harmonious, just, healthy society, this creates a social problem as well as an opportunity for progress

Social entrepreneurs create social progress by

Applying the entrepreneurial orientation

In order too move us closer to our social goals in a sustainable way

Identify and relentlessly purse opportunities to create sustainable solutions to social problems

Continuously innovate, adapt, and learn

Act boldly, not constrained by resources currently in hand, and

Hold themselves accountable for

•achieving their intended social impact and

•using resources wisely

The problems tackled are wide ranging:

•Waste Concern in Bangladesh

•VisonSpring in India and El Salvador

•Canyou Software in China

•Latino Community Credit Union in the U.S.

Some involve major corporations

•M-PESA from Vodafone and Safaricom

•BASF and Danone partnering with Grameen

Harnesses private initiative, ingenuity (including business acumen), and investment to solve social problems

Enhances the adaptive capacity of a society by decentralizing social problem solving and innovation

Serves as a valuable learning laboratory consisting of relatively low risk experiments to find what works and what does not

Provides services that create value for both government and businesses, as well as the poor or society as a whole

When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing

the problem and finding a solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off

our responsibility. Charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only

perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor.

Muhammad Yunus, social entrepreneurWinner of Nobel Peace Prize in 2006

from his book Banker to the Poor, 1999

Social entrepreneurship has been rising in popularity, but no society has fully developed a strong supportive ecosystem yet

As a result, many social entrepreneurs have difficulty scaling their innovations and impact

China has the opportunity to learn from efforts in other nations, begin fresh, and draw on the skills built in the last two decades

Social entrepreneurship can help China build the bridge from prosperity to harmony

Corporate Leaders:Look for opportunities to use your

business skills, technological know-how, operating capacities, and financial resources to improve the effectiveness of social entrepreneurs

Government Leaders:Remove barriers and create appropriate

legal structures and regulations to empower social innovation and capture lessons learned

Philanthropists and Investors: Focus your resources in a disciplined way

on supporting social entrepreneurs and capturing knowledge learned

University Professors and Leaders:Educate students to be effective social

entrepreneurs, conduct research to draw out the lessons learned, advise public and private leaders on policies and strategies, and incubate new social ventures that emerge out of the universities

Media Leaders:Cover social entrepreneurship seriously

(not just as “feel good” stories), as you would business entrepreneurship, help to identify the successes and draw lessons from the failures, highlight companies, individuals, and civil servants who are finding creative and disciplined ways to engage with and support social entrepreneurs