Discussion about entrepreneurship

Business/ Entrepreneurship

~(/IJ----~

2.

~ 10 -

-..

THf Rf Al PROBlf M SOlVf RS SOC \AL S~EPRENfvR.<; !N AN\ftZ lcA

Edited by Ruth A. Shapiro

Today, "social entrepreneurship" describes a host of new initiatives, and often refers to approaches that are breaking from traditional philanthropic and charitable organizational behavior. Nowhere is this more true than in the United States- where, from 1995-2005, the number of non-profit organizations registered with the IRS grew by 53 percent. But what types of change have these social entrepreneurial efforts brought to the world of civil society and philanthropy? What works in today's environment? And what barriers are these new efforts breaking down as they endeavor to make the world a better place?

111e Real Problem Solvers brings together leading entrepreneurs, funders, investors, thinkers, and champions in the field to answer these questions from their own, first-person perspectives. Contributors include marquee figures, such as Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, Ashoka Founder Bill Drayton, Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder of the Acumen Fund, and Sally Osberg, CEO of the Skoll Foundation. In no other book are so many leaders presented side -by-side. Therefore, this is the idea l accessible and personal introduction to social entrepreneurship.

Ruth A. Shapiro is the Prin cipal of Keyi Strategie s. She is Social Entrepreneur in Residence at the Commonwealth Club of California. Shapiro was the founder of the Asia Bu siness Council where she is now Senior Advisor.

'The Real Problem Solvers provides singular insight into the aspirations, challenges, and opportunities of those who are at the front of the social entrepreneurial movement. This is a must-read for the leaders in organizations that seek societal impact at the ' blurred edge ' between the non-profit and for-profit worlds."

- Dominic Barton, Global Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company

Cover design: Ri ezebos Holzhau er I Ben Hopfer

Stanford Business Books An imprint of Sta nford University Press ww w.sup.org

ISBN-10: 0-8047-7441-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-8047-7441-3

9 11,Jl~l~~l~JIJIJllJIJll 1~1f1~1l1l11

TH f Rf Al PROBlfM SOlVf RS SOC\AL ~NT\2.EPRENfVR.S (/\) AN\tt2_1c.A-

Edited by Ruth A. Shaoiro

THf Rf Al PROBlfM SOlVf RS SOCIAL SNTREPRENfvKS IN AAflfre.1cA-

1 nt tHtNOED VALUE IMPERATIVE

Yu nus made a call for standardizing social entrepreneurship. He wants to put

a salary cap on what social entrepreneurs are paid. He wants to have standards

of performance for who can call him- or herself a social entrepreneur. I have

no idea how he thinks he's going to enforce any of this. But it's striking to me

because it simply reflects his perspective and his normative or moral posture

with regard to who we should be as social entrepreneurs. I think that Muham-

mad is going to be really disappointed because it just doesn't work that way.

I a lso think that we've got this whole issue of the millennial promise where

we've got these twenty-somethings who are kind of bubbling up, and much

as I h ate to say it as an early- fiftie s person, I look around and I'm bemused at

how ossified our networks, our thinking, our structures have become as we've

aged. It's just really funny because I see them bumping up against the stuff

that we created to be entrepreneurial and innovative. Guess what, kids? We're

not so entrepreneurial and innovative anymore. We're managing big budgets;

we have mortgages and kids to put through college. We want some consis-

tency and regularity in our life; twenty-somethings, not so much. I think the

impact of their leadership com ing up is going to be very profound.

What it a ll boils down to is that there's a lot of conversation around the

blurring of the sectors. It's like we're in a car, and the car is social entrepre-

neurship, and we're bombing down the road; we look out, and everything's

blurry going by us. We think the only reason it is blurry is because we're not

wearing the right glasses. But it's because we're in the wrong car. If we get out

of the car, and we stand on the bluff and look at the traffic, it's not blurry. We

can really see who's moving, what lanes t hey're in, and where they're going.

It's a very different perspective.

I'll end where we began, with my own version of Albert Einstein's com-

ment: Try not to become a person of success, but rather, try to become a person

of deep impact and blended value. Ultimately that's what we're trying to do.

We can call it whatever we want, we can teach it however we like, but it's got

to be broad and comprehensive and a big-tent vision about what it is that we're

doing, because it is simply the means to an end, and it's the end that matters.

• THE TH I NKERS

A Conversation

1 themes that have surfaced over the course of the Shapiro: There are severa . f th demarcation between profit and

d d ' · s· the blurnng o e chapters an iscuss1on . d h 't brings about social change and in- fi th otion of scale an ow ' . nonpro t , e n I Id like to focus on these in our

d . ment and efficacy. wou novation, an measu1e . l . social innovation, and social . h ch as socia enterprise,

discussion. Wit terms su . f . t' in thinking about the role of h ·p there is quite a bit o vana ion entrepreneurs 1 , h?

d fit C an you help us to think this throug ·

money an pro · . . . . and ultimately I think that we are movmg tn a

Gergen: Money is unportan~, d e companies become socially re- h ·e findmg more an mor direction w ere you a1 fi . t 'ons recognizing the fact that

d ore nonpro t orgamza i sponsible and more an m . b"l'ty and ultimately to scale. We've

. · f \ path to sustama 1 1 earned income is a en tea , l h ' lanthropy· we have to rely on

· t h re we can t re y on P 1 ' got to get to a pom w e b f d·trerent things. I'm going to be fasci-

d 1 fons for a num er o Ill' market-base so u ' 1 . h ' s a11d partnerships between for- . h · easing re ations tp

nated to see if t ere are mer . . !most to the point of a merger or . d onprofit organizations, a

profit companies an n " fit company that wants to dramati- \e if you are a 1or-pro

acquisition. For examp ' . 1

does it make sense to take . 1 . ct in a particu ar area, cally increase your soc1a impa b f profit organizations, and begin to

fit or consolidate a num er o non ck? on a nonpro , h 't begin to generate revenues ba · . . n that and figure out a way t at I can . mvest I , but I think it's coming down the pike. It's a model that I haven t seen yet, d h n is that much more rigor needs

The other thing that really nee s to fi appe . ations with which we work, to be put into place in a lot of nonpro t orgamz

152 THE THINKERS

and they need better strategies for earned income. All of that said, that access

to capital is critical. That's the reason I was talk ing about the social innova-

tion fund ; there is a big valley of death between the friends-and-family round,

where you go hit up everybody to get a little bit of cash to start your organi-

zation, and getting any traditiona l financing. We've got to solve that valley.

We've got to put a couple of oases into the mix.

Deiglmeier: It really depends on the need you are addressing and the type of in-

tervention that would most likely work. Let's take a look at companies that have

base-of-the-pyramid products. I think that in the field right now, sometimes

there's a debate that I find somewh at paternalistic, as if, "We're just selling things

to poor people:· Why should I be able to h ave something and somebody not who

is at a lower income level? So I don't want to get into the moral debate around

consumerism at the base of the pyramid, but they are a constituency that wants

to move out of poverty. Commerce is going to play a piece of that, and I think

we can leverage that. An example right now is Unilever, the woman who runs its

soap division. If you can get people at the base of the pyramid to wash their hands more, you're having a major impact on health in those communities. I believe

from what I've read that the for-profit model for that particular intervention is the

best strategy versus a nonprofit model. Again, nonprofits can do things around an

education piece, but actually getting the product to the people at the right price

that is affordable-Unilever is in a good position to do that. There can be social

innovations at the base of the pyramid that can really improve people's lives.

I think that we're at the early stages of figuring out these new models. For-

profit social-purpose businesses still have a lot to learn, and we're goi ng to try

some things, and then we' ll also have some fai lures a long the way. Specifically

answering your question, I think that first, you really need to look at your

mission, and you need to prioritize what is important in terms of the earned-

income stream versus your social mission. For example, when we were a t Juma

Ventures, we were a nonprofit and had these fo r-profit subsid iaries. Some of

those subsidiary businesses had earned-income streams, but the mission was

such that some of those businesses lost money, and we were okay with that. We

never cou ld have existed as a for -profit entity because we made a decision that

the social mission wou ld a lways be first. So you've got to look at the mission,

and then you've got to look at wh at your capital requirements are. Jump ah ead

to think past that idea generation of how you would scale your organization or

scale your idea. That might lead you to a different decision. For us at Juma it

made the most sense to be a nonprofit with these for-profit subsid iaries.

I H t 1 n 1 •~ f\. i.. 1, ~

I think we're st arting t o learn more about these structu~es'. but, as it is , . d' 'd a lly based. Looking at your m1ss10n, what are

ri ht now, they re very 111 iv1 u . g . to achieve? Who are you going to serve? Where are you gomg to

you trymg . . c r ? On a personal level, I 't J? What are your opportunities ior sea mg.

get cap1 a · e business differently definitely believe wholeheartedly that we have to engag b fh and that for-profit social purpose bu sinesses are important and can e ~ . ug~

1 t address social problems. I also believe in really strong, trad1t1ona ::~;roofits, and not everything should be for-profit. We need all of those as part of the solution.

Shapiro: Jed, is that "blended value"?

E . We have to go back continually to the touch stone of what it is t~at

merson. c I h at the pmnt ' 11 try1'ng to do I think that there are ver y iew peop e w o,

were rea Y · . l'c d "Wow . I k back over the traJ· ectory of their u e an say, '

of death are gomg to oo · l , mone I made:' They're not going to say that. Money is a -

~:~ta:l~:·: ~::ans to :n end, even for people who just use 'it as a ~arke~ for . 1 y d dominance in the business community. It s a social vehicle,

soc1a success an · h h ow a social construct. Currency is a social construct. So th~ I!~: :o:~a~o:~by- there's this objective econometric world and then theres h .

. 1 Id is i·ust wrong. We know this, but what appens is Pamby environmenta wor d 'd y, the more we get tracked, and we're forced to ec1 e. ou that , the older we get, . rofit or ublic service sectors, either go into business, or you go mto the no7 11 d~n't care wh at the real

nd there ou o. You're just off to the races. rea y . . a y g h . t . that the purpose of organizat10ns JS to try to lan guage is as long as t e pom is of ca i-

. . h 1 that they have the potential to create. The purpose p max1m1ze t e va ue . . d . arkets The nature tal is basically to drive value through orgamzat1ons an m ~ ..

f ital itself is fundamentally wh ole. It is nondivisible. It is ~ot tnple ~ott~~ ~ cap . . reat wa to track as you go, but, ultimately, if you don t rem lme, which is a g y , 1 ft 'th the finance people

h 1 e roposition into a whole, you re e w1 tegr~te t e va u p d h non rofit people looking at your sustainability looking at the numbers an t e p W need to think about all of this on a report. That's just the wrong way to go. e more integrated, h olistic basis. That's blended value.

Sh apiro: Can you give us an example of a business or project that epitomizes

"blended value"? t but I'm n ot sure that there is a t ruly comprehensive

Emerson: Not to pun ' I' with different parts. 1 I think that a lot of different people are grapp mg ,

examp e. ' h h 1 and I don't see the execution at the level ICl want to 1 still don t see t e w o e, '

l 5 4 THE TH I NKERS

~ee. Havi1~g said that, I think of Patagonia, which basically says, "We're going to mnovate m terms of sourcing and supply-chain management, and we're going

to create products that actually are recycled Coke bottles, and we're going to sell

that to consumers. And guess what? We're actually going to go put a cap on our

profit targets because we don't want to grow endlessly. That's cancer. That's not

success:' For Patagonia, they're saying, "We want to grow in a certain way. We

want to be a sustainable corporation:' So they're practicing in that way. I would

just hold them out; I'm just looking for a company that treats its people well in

a, demon~trative way that they can report out on, that sources in an ethical way. Im lookmg for some broader sense of a vision around what the firm sho uld

be. I think about, for example, Pioneer Human Services in Seattle, which runs

maybe $ 4 0 to $50 million a year in billings with Boeing and a whole host of

other companies, and it provides supported h ousing to formerly h omeless folks

in the greater Seattle area and supported employment. It's a nonprofit, but it's

got all kinds of economic value that it's capturing, and it's creating a true and

d eep ~ocial impact for a community of people basically nobody was paying attent10n to twenty years ago-or, in their case, maybe forty years ago. r think there are different examples we could explore, but I think this is p art of the

point, that the triple bottom line helps you analyze performance toward an end,

but I don't know that you ever attain the end because, if you attain the end, then

you do that in death. Does that make sense? So when I d ie, I will fully be so wh ole, and I will transcend to the blended-value heaven.

Sh apiro: Kriss, is that what you think about in terms of social innovation and the role of the corporation?

Dei~l'.11eier: When we're looking at the companies, som e of them are doing tr~d1tional corporate responsibility efforts, but I do think Walmart provides us with ~ helpfu l example. Through its supply chain, it is really driving social in- nova~1ons fo~ward, working with NGOs and partners and using technology in new, innovative ways that h ave really reduced their carbon foo tprint. I think in

particular .with Walmar t, as it's going deeper into the supply chain, it's starting

to. work with governments in countries. It h as a robust experience of working

with NGOs. You need to include those as you're thinking. What are some other

companies? I think there's Nike, which is doing some really innovative work around cradle- to-cradle thinking fo r all of its products.

S~apiro: By "~radle-to-cradle;' you are referring to the concept of total recy- clmg of matenals so that no waste is created, yes?

THE THINKERS l 5 5

Deiglemeir: Yes, Nike has been working o n it for ten years. It's at step one;

it's still in its idea-generation phase. But if a company such as Nike can start

thinking differently- like eve r y shoe would be recycled, and they'll go back

into playgrounds and start working with NGOs differently- there's huge op-

portunity for social innovation through those companies.

I have j ust returned from China. Going there, one realizes that the role

of business is too large to not aggressively work in a collaborative manner to

solve the social problem s. They have to b e a partner. I fundamentally believe

there's no other choice. There's a huge role for NGOs, and that's critically im-

portant, too; but we've got to move past this stage of"th e NGOs are good, and

business is bad " to think about how we pull together these entities differently?

Shapiro: Christopher, what is the difference between a social entrepreneurial

organization and just an effectively and well-managed nonprofit organization?

Gergen: I think the key differentiator tends to be that of innovation. If you look at Greg Dees's definition of social entrepreneurship, first and foremost you have

to be focused on creating social value. Two, you have to be relentless about

pursuing new innovative solutions to be able to take on some of the hardest

challenges. I think that if it is an effective, well-managed organization, there are

quibbles about whether you're innovative or not; if you're relentless in pursu-

ing that, then, yes, you 're a social entrepreneur. I'm not precluding, by the way,

that there are some very well-established ioo-year-old social entrepreneurial

organizations or organizations that could become more socially entrepreneur-

ial. You also are operating in resource-constrained environments, and you don't

mind going for it if you feel like you don't have th e cash to be able to p ull it off.

Then, finally, you are holding yourself accountable for results, and you've got

very clear assessments along the way. So if that effective, well- managed non-

profit organization is doing all of those things, then they're social entrepreneurs.

Shapiro: Kriss, would you say that the n ext social in novation is when the social

change becomes a new paradigm or h as brought about systemic change?

Deiglmeier: I think social innovation has the potential to lead to systemic

change, but we need to differentiate between incremental and radical social

innovation. I also don't want to leave the incremental social innovation not

getting resources and discussion, too. Yes, the ultimate goal is systemic change,

and we should all shoot for that, but sometimes you need incremental social

innovation on the route to get there. For Sally Osberg and Skoll's definition of

156 THE THINKERS

social entrepreneurship, the whole ecology changes. There are not too m any

examples of this. At some level you do a disservice to set the bar too high; that

is too unrealistic. So I think you set the vision and the goal out there, but, along

the way, it may come in blocks, it may ebb and flow, and we want to be inclusive of that, also.

Emerson: Every once in a while there's somebod y that's truly revolutionar y, but

that once in a while is like every forty years or something. So most business

strategies are incremental improvements, they'r e no t blinding innovations that

just scream s uccess. So find people in business wh o have already built the kind

of enterprise that you're trying to create, and co -opt them into your process,

and nine tim es out of ten - because you're just a little start-up or something like

that- they won't even take you seriously anyway, so you don't need to worry

that they're goi ng to rip off your great idea or go make millions at your expense.

One thing that has struck me over the years is that a lot of businesspeople

just slave away to build their enterprise and their company, and hardly any-

body ever asks them anything a bout their experience, what they've learned,

or any of this kind of stuff. You' d be shocked at what some of these fo lks will

tell you a bout how to be successful in their business. I've been floored by that.

Getting th ose people into social ventures a nd for-profits with a mission is re-

a lly critica l, I think, not only to the success of the enterprise, but to building

the broader space, which is, again, what we s hould be focused o n. All of these

enterprises, all of these investments, all these strategies-I'm h appy that ev-

erybody's fig uring o ut ways to do well and to do good, but, ultimately, we have

to take care of each other, and we have to be more committed to building the

commons as opposed to the garden. Tlrnt's really what a lo t of what I'm trying

to say is about. I a lso think it's important to just step back and recognize the

things that have been learned before and try to bring those forward and posi-

tion yourself in a way so you can hear what people a re discovering today. We

can put these together into creating whatever it is that's yet to come.

Shapiro: Do you feel that m easurement and the metrics aro und social change

and innovation have evolved? What else needs to happen in thinking about s uccess and efficacy?

Emerson: When I talk to certain practitioners, I think, "Wow, I can't believe

we're having th ese conversations, and we've come so fa r." When I read The

Chronicle of Ph ilanthropy, I'm phenomenally depressed. Ther e was r ecently

THE THINKERS 1 57

d . bout how we should J'ust give up on this whole metrics and an op-e piece a .

measurements thing because it's just a failure, and we sh ould JUSt fund from

I h t I as thinking to myself and actually posted a comment to the guy t 1e ear . w d h · who wrote it: Look, it's not a question that, gosh, metrics are ba. or avmg.no

. . ood· i"t's a question of appropriate metrics, it's a qu estion of applymg metrics 1s g , . h d · them well in the right situations. It's a question of underst~ndmg t. e omam

in which you're applying those m etrics and wh at the relat ive bar .1s for wh.at

k b t how to measure stuff It's a question of understand mg the d1f-we now a ou · . h ·~ c ence between measuring an intervention s trategy and trackmg t e pe1 or- ier to scale d the fide lity to the execution of that strategy as you go . mance an . h · 1 k of

We r eally owe it to o urselves to stop wrapping ourselves m t ts c oa

d b ·cally saying "We're h ere for the kids, so there must be righteousness an as1 • . . Th d h "Too many people confuse intent with unpact. ey some goo som ew ere. . h

1 h . st be workmg somew ere think that because they mean wel somet m g mu . here, and we're a ll good people, so of course it's work mg. If you want to spend

fifty years of your life in that kind of game, great. You have a rea lly good an~

nual report and another great picture of a kid on the cover, but. at the e~~ o

the da - I'm sorry if I'm cynica l- that's just not enough. Gett1~g a smil1~g

c y hug from a child is great, but if I've got like 20,000 k ids who d.1e 1ace or a . ' · t t

1 t

ever y day of preventable diseases in this world , one picture ,1sn t gomg o cu ~

We've got to raise the bar and be more aggressive, and we ve g~t to ~old our

selves accountable to raise the conversation to a better level. D1scuss1ons ~hat

. 1 "It ' bad " or "It's good" do nothing to advance the conversation. s1mp y say, s 1 · 1 I h en It's shameless that people a re still allowed to bring it d own to t us e.ve ' w.

. fact after twenty or thirty years of pretty deep exploration a nd d1scuss1~n,

m k nuch more about how to be effective in the application of metrics we now so 1

than these discussions would reference.

D . I . At the Center for Social Innovation, we definitely care about this e1g me1er:

k d hat we have found is that there's traditional m easurement on your wor , a n w . h I h? A .

fit and your impact has to be tailored. Are you m ea t . re you m nonpro • d l" the measure-d f ? What I think is important is that you nee to a ign . e uca ion. . . .f , . the idea-generat10n t . "th the stage of your orga111zat1on. So I you re m

::ne, ;i1ck a couple things you're going to measure. Don't kill yo~rsel.f on .some h :e evaluatio n methodology of interviews, because what you thmk is gomg to b~ our intervention is likely going to change. You need to do your b~st guess, yo:r hypothesis, do it q uickly, and then thro ugh your idea-generation stage

1 S8 THE THINKERS

y.o u get to piloting and prototyping; you n eed to move to be a little bit more rigorous and start thinking in a more systemic and d eep d ma nn er aroun mea- surement. Then, if you're really going to go to d i'ffu · d l' . . s1on an sea mg, you had better be mvest1ng heavily in m easurement.

W hat I get fr us trated with is that nobody differentiates the stage f. - · I' d o m

novat1 o n a ign e w'. th measurem ent. I sho uld n't say no one; I sho uld say a

number. o f fo~ndations and investments put ever ybod y together, and that do~s a d 1~serv1ce for what they're requesting in terms of impact. It rea lly does a d 1sserv1ce to the organizatio ns both from a resource allocatio n standpoint

a nd the ability to innovate and continua lly improve. So we ca n hop e that re-

sponse will be to alig n your measurem ent with the stage at which yo . . u a re as

an orga111 za t1o n.

S~apiro: Jed, th~oughout this series and in a lot of the li terature and when we thmk about social entrep re neurs it's almost this Lone R h . ' anger o ut t ere with his o~ her i.d ea, changing the world. The entrepreneurs, h owever, often take issue with this. m etaphor. Louise Packard, for example, ar gues that you must embed

yourself m t~e community and work with all of the groups that are a lread y in the commumty. W hat are your positions on this?

Emers~n: .A~ain, i.t's not going to surprise you. We've fa llen into this deification of the md 1v1dual m a way that's really destructive because what you do is cel-

ebrate the.social entrepreneur; you don't celebrate the tea m, you do n't celebrate

the o rga111 zation '. you do n't celebrate capacity building, you do n't celebrate a

whole h ost of .thmgs that are critical to execution . For me, p ersonally, I went

th ro~gh a pen od where I had been h ere in the Bay Area working and d oing a ll th is work. I ended up m oving to rural Color ado and doing a lo t of my work

from there. There was this point- and I can 't remem ber exactly wh at set it

~ff-~hen I s~ddenly reali zed that the pinnacle of my career had led me to live by :nyself m the woods. I thought, "Someth ing's wrong here." I went off-

track. ~ m . really thinking more and m ore that it's less abo ut innovative ideas and thmkmg and more about effective execution and ma nagement of total re-

sources toward an end, and that that's the fun damental challenge and issue that people have. The trick is that for years we were thi nking th b

h e wrong way a out w at, that ~nd was. Now we've got too m an y people with too many great ideas. They re g~mg to change everything. I don't k now how m any of you were in the Bay Area m the late i99os lead ing up to the Internet bubble, but there was the

concept of vapor ware, where basically companies had raised a fi rst ro und and

THE THINKERS 1 5 9

spent it dow n, so they had to go out an d raise it again. O ne of the ways they

did it was to say, "We've got this great second versio n coming o ut, and this is

why you shou ld give us the venture mon ey fo r the second round;' but there re-

ally wasn't anything. There were a bunch of engineers just sitting there, typing

away. I think we ki nd of have some of that, where we've got t hese ind ivid uals

with the pressure to be perceived as innovative, and we end up with people

rebranding concepts a nd ideas and practices that ten years ago were already be-

ing used and put into effect, but for some reason that concept is not as snappy

or something. Blended value, integrated value, now shared value: same fund a-

m ental ideas but just marketed and packaged in a different way for a different

audience for a different end. I think we need to just kind of pause, and, yes,

we're all ver y talented a nd innovative.

I d on't believe any of these people who stand up a nd say, "Wow, our strat-

egy is so good," like, "Look at what we've done." I'm thinking, "What about

the other 2 billion people who are n ot touched by your 300-per son o utreach

progr am?" We are so focused on what success looks li ke, a nd I understand

that. We have got to do that- keep people excited. But, at t he end of the day,

many of these issues are still going to be here, and, if we ma ke incremental

prog ress, I'll be pretty happy. If we can just save a couple of polar bears, I'll be

pleased. Let's just say th at right now. We're all very proud of o urselves. Let's

ju st get back to work a nd execute, because t hat's rea lly t he to ugh part.

Deiglmeier : If I'm stranded o n an island, I want to be with the social entre-

preneurs because they're so resourceful. But as we look at the structure of the

world now- I'm no t saying this is a social innovation but rather an example of

why you need to work with existing orga nization s-Walmart has done mo re

for sustainability via its supply chain than m any social entre pre neu rs I know in

the environmental fi eld. So to move the social innovations forward, we have to

work with those existing organizations and pockets because they have the foot-

print, they've got the resou rces, and usually they've got the strengt h to move

things forward more quickly than that start-up organization.

Gergen: I do think that everyone has the capability of being a change-maker.

If I did n't believe that I wouldn't be doing the th ings that I'm do ing n ow. I'm working actively to try to awaken young people to the possibility of being prob-

lem solvers in their communities and trying to take things on . Now, does that

m ean that ever yone needs to be an entrepreneur? I d on't think so. We do n't

n eed another 1,100 nonprofit organizations. We n eed really sharp, innovative,

160 TH E THINK E RS

awakened, resourceful, accountable individuals out there trying to make the

world better.

Shapiro: Kriss, there's a lot of energy around social entrepreneurship and social

innovation now. As a n individual who's going to go make a difference in the

world, if you say it's going to take thirty years, and people may or may not know

that you were the cog in the wheel that moved this forward, what does that

do for the energy a nd the appeal to primarily young people to move into the

field-your students, for example?

Deiglmeier: It's hard to say, "Be a cog in the wheel, woo hoo!" Especially when

you're in Si licon Valley. But there's also the importance to talk about the truth

and the reality. I think people are starting to question a little bit about the h e-

roic social entrepreneur now, and I think that's okay to do, and it's okay to think

about systems and about execution as the driver for social innovation. The big-

ger question or solution is, Can somebody make that sexy? I sometimes feel

like the challenge we all face is that everybody wants sexy and new, but, solving

social problems, we haven't had those successes in the past. There's not that

sexy or new thing. It takes a different mind-set, a different toolbox to do that.

So, to answer you r question, I would say I don't necessarily know the a nswer.

Students, young people-you can move them to act, and if they want to do it in

a social entrepreneurial way, that's great; they're adding value. At the Center, we

were very deliberate in picking social innovatio n. It was funny, because when

I got there people were saying, "You should be the Center on Social Entrepre-

neurship:• I pushed back and said, "No, we are the Center on Social Innovation,

and here's how they're different:' If we can raise the awareness of the value that

social innovation provides and raise awareness of the benefit of working within

organizations, and you can see that impact, we can hope that will be just as sexy

as the social entrepreneur. I do know of those individual cases of the woman

who thought, "Should I be a social entrepreneur, or shou ld I go into the soap

division at Unilever?" She literally looked at the calculation and said, "I have

the potential to have a much bigger impact as an individual working within

this large corporation." So it doesn't a lways have to be new. If we can raise the

importance of the impact piece, raise the importance of the level of commun ity

and multiple individuals, I hope we can get more people to do that just as much

as they want to do the new thing.

SECTION 4

THE CHAMPIONS

Elevating the Discourse to Global Dimensions