Something is in the air. Something’s changing, and this change is happening at a faster and faster rate. Every country I visit I can see it. Some days it’s difficult to see because I can see all the problems and issues around me. But most of the time I’m overwhelmed by an emerging field—no a movement, maybe even a tide-changing way of thinking that is taking the world by storm.
Looking at David Bornstein’s research (“How to Change the World,” 2004), former Rockefeller Foundation President Peter Goldmark was quoted as saying, “it’s got to strike you that a quarter of a century ago outside of the United States there were very few NGOs and now there are millions of them all over the glove.” For the moment, let me refer to these groups as citizen organizations. Let’s look at a few growth patterns of this citizen group sector as cited by David 2004.
Indonesia – 20 years ago only 1 independent environmental organization; now over 2,000
Bangladesh – all development work handled by 20,000 NGOs, almost all of which were started in the past 25 years
India – over a million citizen organizations
Slovakia – more than 12,000
Formerly Communist, Central European countries – between 1988 and 1995, 100,000 citizen groups opened
France – an average of 70,000 new groups started each year in the 1990s (quadruple the 1960s rate)
Canada – since 1987, the number of registered citizens groups has grown by more than 50% to about 200,000
Brazil – underwent a 60% increase in citizen groups from 250,000 to 400,000 in the 1990s
U.S. – saw a 60% increase in IRS-registered public service groups from 464,000 to 734,000 between 1989 and 1998; 70% of registered groups are less than 30 years old
According to Bernstein some groups estimate that Brazilian has over 1 million citizen groups and U.S. has over 2 million.
Globally – the number of registered international citizen organizations increased from 6,000 to 26,000 during the 1990’s
Something is happening. I repeat; something is happening. Historically, these groups were negatively defined and still are somewhat today. We know them as nongovernmental organizations, not-for-profits, or non-profits. But over the past 20 or so years they have gained positive names such as the “independent sector,” the “third sector” (a term Bornstein favors), the “fourth sector” (term I favor over the 3rd sector), the “citizens sector,” and more.
Bornstein lists 6 reasons they are new.
1. It’s happening on a scale never seen before.
2. This is global phenomenon; the organizations encompass more global diversity and dispersion than ever before.
3. There has been an increasing shift to systemic changes and approaches and not management approaches (an example would be addressing root causes of poverty instead of simply managing it so that it is always here).
4. Citizen organizations are less burdened by regulations than the church and state and have the power to exert great pressure on governments (International Campaign to Ban Landmines, creation of the Criminal Court, the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, etc.).
5. They are changing the nature of the game, forming many different types of nuanced hybrid social-impact organizations, and forming alliances with businesses, governments, and academia as they create new markets.
6. As with any new field in which competition and innovation are key, with the opening and emergence of a “new” citizens sector, these organizations are benefiting from entrepreneurialism, high levels of competition, massive collaboration, and increased focus on performance.
The last point cannot be underscored enough. It used to be the case that efficiency and excellent management were found only in the private sector. However, with increased focus on the citizens sector and the vying for position within the field, many of these socially entrepreneurial organizations are having to prove their efficacy and increase their effectiveness. (Social entrepreneur Dan Pallotta believes you should be able to get rich doing charity work). In this growing field, remaining sluggish and conducting business as usual is not a safe stance. This is because the field is awash with active, energetic and most importantly innovative social entrepreneurs looking to push further, affect more people, and challenge the status quo. So this introduction of competition and entrepreneurialism is creative a hot bed of social innovation within the citizen sector unlike we’ve ever seen before.
Now there are a number of reasoned and theorised causes for all of these changes, and if you like I can write about some of them and explain a few I’ve seen or experienced in another update. But at the moment, I want to talk about what it means to be a social entrepreneur. It can be a confusing term, and it’s not a very easily usable or definable label.
The word “entrepreneur” entered the English language from Jean-Baptise Say to charaterise a particular economic actor that doesn’t just start a businesses but shifts economic resources from an area of lower productivity to one of higher productivity. Joseph Schumpeter says the entrepreneur is the source of creative destruction necessary for major economic change.
A social entrepreneur is therefore a transformative force, a person who doesn’t take no as an answer as she moves toward disrupting the status quo to propagate a socially beneficial idea. Social entrepreneurs tend to deal with systemic change creating mass behavior change, not able to rest until they have fully attacked the problems they address. Let’s do a quiz. It should be easy, they are mostly yes-no. :-)
SHORT QUIZ
1. Was Steve Jobs a social entrepreneur? (Is Jobs the world’s greatest philanthropist?)
2. Was Leonardo da Vinci a social entrepreneur?
3. Was George Washington Carver a social entrepreneur?
4. Was Emily Dickinson a social entrepreneur?
5. Was Henry Ford a social entrepreneur?
6. Is Barbara Bush a social entrepreneur?
7. Was Benjamin Franklin a social entrepreneur?
8. Is J. K. Rowling a social entrepreneur?
9. Is Jeremy Lin a social entrepreneur?
10. Is Vandana Shiva a social entrepreneur?
11. Was St. Francis of Assisi a social entrepreneur?
12. Name 3 social entrepreneurs today.
This is a global phenomenon, and the most creative problem-solvers are outside the US, Canada, and the UK. This is often because more creativity is required when there are fewer resources. Hundreds of schools are now offering university programs and degrees in social entrepreneurship—some in business schools, others in medical schools, still others in engineering schools. Hundreds of organizations have arisen to nurture social entrepreneurs and incubate their organizations. There are social venture capitalist organizations now. Some consider the best thing we can do is to continue to create supports and bolster up a social climate conducive for the growth of social entrepreneurs because they are creating a base of energy with which we are slowly solving some of the world’s toughest challenges. By shifting the work and attitude of businesses and creating opportunities for the involvement of citizens, the emergence of the citizens sector is changing the way problems are solved all over the globe.
Showing posts with label citizens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label citizens. Show all posts
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
POLITICKING from AMERICA II
I think some people might have been confused. My best friend told me that US involvement in international relations is not that simple. Nothing is black and white. So let me go back over the basics.
This is not a conspiracy theory at all. I’m not talking about any particular type of collusion or conspiring to do anything to take over the world or secure US domination. Now, some of our government documents openly use this language (where in the past I don’t think it would have been so open) so if one does the research, one must come to terms with that. But if there are any people conspiring it is not something that all people are tied into.
Companies have an uncanny ability to make employees fight for its own goals. What I mean is that the goal and the bottom line of a company is to make a profit. Companies then have a great ability to make the employees fight to make a profit. Companies do this by tying incentives of employees to the profit of the company so that every employee from the person who cleans the floors to the CEO is doing what it takes for the company to make a profit. Haven’t you seen this? Haven’t we all been in situations when dealing with an employee of an organization or company and we’re amazed at how emotional the employee gets about the work when in reality it doesn’t really matter at all, in the big scheme of things? Yes, sometimes the passion is due to the fact that the person is passionate about the work, but usually the person has incentive to do well in the job. And doing well usually means enhancing or growing the business of the company. And enhancing the business of the company usually means more profit. It’s quite amazing, actually. So everyone in the company is working to increase profit, like members of an impersonal entity, the movements of a large machine. And it works.
The lone goal of a traditional company is profit and increasing it.
Companies have disproportionate influence over our government. This is not an opinion or biased or conspiracy theory. It’s just true. We have politicians who are elected into office. They need large amounts of money to run for office. The only people that can sway them on how to vote or what to fight for are people who vote for them and people who can give them money so they can campaign for votes. Companies can give money. They hire lobbyists who go to politicians and sway them to do what they want and politicians listen. In fact, a single lobbyist is more powerful than a single citizen. DC people will tell you this is only because lobbyist know the system and how to get what they want, but as it stands, it is true. With increasing mergers of companies in today’s age, there is a decrease in the amount of corporate voices heard. Regardless, the message of a corporation is always the same: help me increase my profits and don’t pass laws that reduce my profits. Corporations have risen to a point of being given the benefits of citizens but don’t have the responsibilities of citizens (the tide is slowly changing as people are trying to hold them to more and more responsibility). The problem is that voting is not required by law. So MANY citizens do not vote. The least participative is the lower class. This is why you never see anyone campaigning for “lower class values” and “the poor” and winning a presidency. No, Clinton (both) campaigned for the middle class which is great but it doesn’t help “the least of these.” A single mother working multiple jobs to take care of multiple kids is unlikely to make it to the poll station to voice her opinion. So it has the affect of diluting the democracy to a point where it isn’t a democracy. The salient feature of a democracy is the multiplicity of voices and choices. But you never really have a choice of a candidate campaigning for the lower class. You never really have a choice of a candidate who is not supported by the top companies in the country. In other words, we tend to lack a multiplicity of voices; every voice is not heard. People are free to choose who they want. But we don’t have choices that represent all peoples. And to top it off, a single lobbyist has more potential and power in a senator’s office than a single citizen, on average. This is not new to anyone in DC. This is how the system works.
The lone goal of a traditional company is profit and increasing it.
Companies have disproportionate influence over our government.
The government therefore works, in many cases, to increase the profits of its companies. This comes from the logical progression. It ranges from subsidies for corn and strengthening of the insurance infrastructure to the favor of US companies for development and relief in war and peace and the opposing of nationalizing of resources of foreign countries.
That’s just math. But there is hope, it is true that Obama might be less beholden to corporate interests since he had the largest campaign with individual donors than I’ve ever seen, but he is still beholden to them as is the Congress with whom he works. But it does indicate that another way is possible. And I look forward to a day, however impossible it may be, when such a campaign is fully and only funded by individual donors.
Politicians used to be quite cordial in earlier times (maybe when I was kid?). In public they were political enemies, but they would share a drink and laugh after the debate was over. They knew and understood how the game works and who funded whom. But these days it seems to have increased in vitriol and personal intensity.
Africa has been ravaged by such economic imperialism. The Middle East was controlled by it. We saw last time how effects of it were felt in Latin America, but there has been a rising tide of “leftist” governments (left from our perspective) and leaders are trying to take resources into the hands of their people, rid themselves of the IMF, and keep their land free of American military bases. This is not in every Latin American country but there is a definitely a noticeable trend. Next time (because this is a little long I’ll talk about trends in Asia.
This is not a conspiracy theory at all. I’m not talking about any particular type of collusion or conspiring to do anything to take over the world or secure US domination. Now, some of our government documents openly use this language (where in the past I don’t think it would have been so open) so if one does the research, one must come to terms with that. But if there are any people conspiring it is not something that all people are tied into.
Companies have an uncanny ability to make employees fight for its own goals. What I mean is that the goal and the bottom line of a company is to make a profit. Companies then have a great ability to make the employees fight to make a profit. Companies do this by tying incentives of employees to the profit of the company so that every employee from the person who cleans the floors to the CEO is doing what it takes for the company to make a profit. Haven’t you seen this? Haven’t we all been in situations when dealing with an employee of an organization or company and we’re amazed at how emotional the employee gets about the work when in reality it doesn’t really matter at all, in the big scheme of things? Yes, sometimes the passion is due to the fact that the person is passionate about the work, but usually the person has incentive to do well in the job. And doing well usually means enhancing or growing the business of the company. And enhancing the business of the company usually means more profit. It’s quite amazing, actually. So everyone in the company is working to increase profit, like members of an impersonal entity, the movements of a large machine. And it works.
The lone goal of a traditional company is profit and increasing it.
Companies have disproportionate influence over our government. This is not an opinion or biased or conspiracy theory. It’s just true. We have politicians who are elected into office. They need large amounts of money to run for office. The only people that can sway them on how to vote or what to fight for are people who vote for them and people who can give them money so they can campaign for votes. Companies can give money. They hire lobbyists who go to politicians and sway them to do what they want and politicians listen. In fact, a single lobbyist is more powerful than a single citizen. DC people will tell you this is only because lobbyist know the system and how to get what they want, but as it stands, it is true. With increasing mergers of companies in today’s age, there is a decrease in the amount of corporate voices heard. Regardless, the message of a corporation is always the same: help me increase my profits and don’t pass laws that reduce my profits. Corporations have risen to a point of being given the benefits of citizens but don’t have the responsibilities of citizens (the tide is slowly changing as people are trying to hold them to more and more responsibility). The problem is that voting is not required by law. So MANY citizens do not vote. The least participative is the lower class. This is why you never see anyone campaigning for “lower class values” and “the poor” and winning a presidency. No, Clinton (both) campaigned for the middle class which is great but it doesn’t help “the least of these.” A single mother working multiple jobs to take care of multiple kids is unlikely to make it to the poll station to voice her opinion. So it has the affect of diluting the democracy to a point where it isn’t a democracy. The salient feature of a democracy is the multiplicity of voices and choices. But you never really have a choice of a candidate campaigning for the lower class. You never really have a choice of a candidate who is not supported by the top companies in the country. In other words, we tend to lack a multiplicity of voices; every voice is not heard. People are free to choose who they want. But we don’t have choices that represent all peoples. And to top it off, a single lobbyist has more potential and power in a senator’s office than a single citizen, on average. This is not new to anyone in DC. This is how the system works.
The lone goal of a traditional company is profit and increasing it.
Companies have disproportionate influence over our government.
The government therefore works, in many cases, to increase the profits of its companies. This comes from the logical progression. It ranges from subsidies for corn and strengthening of the insurance infrastructure to the favor of US companies for development and relief in war and peace and the opposing of nationalizing of resources of foreign countries.
That’s just math. But there is hope, it is true that Obama might be less beholden to corporate interests since he had the largest campaign with individual donors than I’ve ever seen, but he is still beholden to them as is the Congress with whom he works. But it does indicate that another way is possible. And I look forward to a day, however impossible it may be, when such a campaign is fully and only funded by individual donors.
Politicians used to be quite cordial in earlier times (maybe when I was kid?). In public they were political enemies, but they would share a drink and laugh after the debate was over. They knew and understood how the game works and who funded whom. But these days it seems to have increased in vitriol and personal intensity.
Africa has been ravaged by such economic imperialism. The Middle East was controlled by it. We saw last time how effects of it were felt in Latin America, but there has been a rising tide of “leftist” governments (left from our perspective) and leaders are trying to take resources into the hands of their people, rid themselves of the IMF, and keep their land free of American military bases. This is not in every Latin American country but there is a definitely a noticeable trend. Next time (because this is a little long I’ll talk about trends in Asia.
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