Running by social entrepreneurship opportunities
Anne Mahlum is a veteran marathon runner in Philadelphia. Her early morning route through some of the streets of the city took her past a homeless shelter for men, and each dark morning brought cheers when she passed the shelter.
Anne reports that one morning after she passed the shelter and received the normal cheer, she stopped in her tracks. She had run past this spot hundreds of times, but that morning was somehow different. She realized that she wanted to help these men make a better life.
“Why am I running past these guys? I’m moving my life forward every day – and these guys are standing in the same spot.”
Anne contacted the shelter and received a welcome for her desire to help. She asked for donations of new running gear and received them. The “Back On My Feet” running club hit the streets in July 2007.
Good ideas are often simple, but implementing them always has challenges. Anne and the others joining her successfully negotiated the difficulties.
At the time this story was reported on the CNN Heroes web site, 54 homeless men from three Philadelphia shelters were running alongside volunteers as a part of this project. More than 250 volunteers have stepped forward to run and perform other necessary tasks.
Anne points out that when she and the others are running, nobody can tell who is homeless and who is not. Everyone is equal when running together in this club. The homeless participants are improving their health, having new meaningful social interactions, and learning discipline and goal setting.
Read MoreSocial Entrepreneurship work in other nations
As a sociologist fascinated by the rapid changes in our world and what is called globalization, I subscribe to several journals/magazines that monitor world change. I am amazed by how an event in one tiny spot in the world can have large impact on many other parts of the world.
Foreign Policy is one of my favorite magazines analyzing our world situation, and in the most recent issue (May/June 2012), I came across a small article titled, “Get an MBA, Save the World.”
The author, Charles Kenny, suggests that getting an MBA (masters in business administration) and taking a job with a multinational corporation may be one of the best ways to improve our world. I would like to share my thoughts on this idea.
I am fine with his suggestion representing one route to improving our world. We need as many for-profit companies as possible engaging in social entrepreneurship, and socially conscious MBAs hired by multinational corporations have the potential to help the corporation assist people in need in addition to seeking profit.
Go, MBAs, go. Help your multinational corporations be highly socially conscious. We are behind you.
A problem I see in promoting the MBA degree as a prime route to changing our world is that big bureaucracy often smothers, and many multinational corporations have thick and high bureaucratic walls.
Read MoreAn important step in planning your nonprofit
I am interested in facilitating people who want to start a nonprofit to be successful in doing this. In an earlier post, I encouraged people to volunteer for maybe two years at a nonprofit similar to the one they want to start.
Another valuable activity is to study some of the successful nonprofits similar to the type of nonprofit you want to start. This was an assignment in a social entrepreneurship course I teach, and the profiles of nonprofits students produced were impressive.
So I want to encourage those of you who have a dream of starting a nonprofit to do this. Web sites of many nonprofits are impressive, with a storehouse of useful information.
In case anyone may be interested in pursuing this on your own, I asked my students to write about the following for nonprofits they selected to profile.
- Major programs
- Programs closest to my interests
- Data documenting success of programs closest to my interests
- My innovative ideas to improve existing programs
- My innovative ideas for different programs within this nonprofit
If you have the passion to help people in need by someday starting your own nonprofit, I encourage you to begin the systematic process of studying successful nonprofits in your state and across the nation.
Thank you for reading my small blog.
Best wishes. – Keith
Read MoreHybrid Type A and Type B social entrepreneurs
In my last post I suggested that two types of social entrepreneurs are those who are the Type A personality (lone wolf, strong drive) and those who are the Type B profile (team player, easy going).
I further suggested that the Type A social entrepreneur may be beneficial for starting a nonprofit but could be harmful as the leader after the organization is up and running.
I would like to add an important point, that these profiles of Type A and B personalities are “pure” models, what are sometimes called ideal types. The idea is that IF a person was purely one of these types, THEN he/she would have these characteristics. (I listed several characteristics in my last post.)
The fact is that there may be no human who is purely either Type A or B. The real world involves some people being strongly slanted in the direction of A or B, with others who have various degrees of various characteristics. Heredity is probably an important influence in one’s personality as is one’s experiences, learning.
Although it is true that a person very strongly slanted toward the Type A personality may be more functional starting a nonprofit organization than managing workers after the organization has become successful, many people who have the drive of a Type A also have the patience of a Type B.
The point I am proposing is that there are hybrid social entrepreneurs and that some of these hybrids have some of the useful characteristics of both Type A and B.
This means that some social entrepreneurs may have amazing drive and push themselves to work long hours by themselves (Type A) but still seek input from others and be comfortable proceeding more slowly when others do not move rapidly (Type B).
Read MoreDifferent types of social entrepreneurs?
There seems to be a stereotype perceived by many about entrepreneurs in general (both business entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs) that follows the general idea that entrepreneurs are lone wolves who relentlessly pursue their passion.
I confess that this captures much of my notion of an entrepreneur. The drive to succeed with a new idea often takes phenomenal effort and an unwillingness to accept the proclamations of others that “it can’t be done.”
My general acceptance of this stereotype is what makes me so fascinated by a point made by Paul Light in his book Driving Social Change (Wiley, 2011). Light speculates that there is an analogy between social entrepreneurship and Type A and B personalities.
As you may know, Type A personalities are suggested to be ambitious, controlling, competitive, impatient, and workaholics. Type B personalities are more easy going.
Light suggests the possibility that there are Type A social entrepreneurs and Type B social entrepreneurs.
Read MoreAccountability: Outcomes are usually not number of clients served
Accountability and documentation of success of nonprofit projects is crucial.
We are called on to document our project success (as well as lack of success). We need to know this for our benefit so that we can make improvements when needed.
If we don’t have explicit, measurable objectives and/or we don’t collect high quality data to test those objectives, then we don’t know if we are accomplishing what we intend to accomplish.
We must document our degree of success for grant proposals also. If we seek funding for expansion of an existing project, we must have measures showing the extent to which we have accomplished our intended purpose within the initial project.
This point is very basic, very simple, very fundamental in program management. Yet, some people who oversee projects and even nonprofits do not understand what an acceptable outcome is.
Read MoreSocial entrepreneurship training at SIAS University in China
This blog has a purpose of facilitating projects that help people in need. The primary focus is on the United States, but I am devoting a few posts to China because some of my students in China will soon be reading this blog.
They and I may be collaborating to start a social entrepreneurship blog in China in the Chinese language, but before we make that decision, some of the students will be monitoring this blog.
Hi, SIAS University students!
A colleague of mine at SIAS University (Fu Run Feng – Howard) and I have started a course at SIAS University on social entrepreneurship. (This course is unrelated to the possible sociology/social entrepreneurship major at SIAS I mentioned in an earlier post.) There are approximately 105 students enrolled in this non-required elective course.
Social entrepreneurship as an area of study is very new in China. My colleague Howard knows that social entrepreneurship is an issue discussed in a few existing university courses (in Beijing and Shanghai, for example), but he speculates that our course may be the first full university course on social entrepreneurship in the nation.
It is my understanding that some of the students will soon be starting a Social Entrepreneurship Club at SIAS University that will be open to all students. I will be watching with great interest. I am curious about how many of the 21,000 students at SIAS University will be interested in this club.
What amazing opportunities we have to make this world a better place by helping people in need. It seems to me that the best place to look for this opportunity is out our own windows.
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