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Social Enterpreneurs: Who's Left Out?

Marcia Stepanek | Thursday 15th October 2009

There's a growing debate in the social enterprise world, not only about who's a social entrepreneur but about who's being left out of the club.

True, the exceptions and misconceptions abound, but the debate settles around two main points -- that unless you're a Caucasian and unless you're an MBA, it's tougher to get support for your good work trying to start a social enterprise.

Is that fair? Consider the arguments. The first point being raised by some across the sector is that MBAs seem to be preferred by social ventures and the foundations willing to fund aspiring social entrepreneurs. Employers, the argument goes, also seem to prefer MBAs, but the truth is that not everyone who can make a difference or start a social enterprise can afford business school -- nor think they should have to get an MBA in order to get funding to develop their ideas. "I have no MBA nor do I want one," says Martin Montero, the founder of Austin Social Innovation Fund. Montero tweeted me the other day in response to one of my queries about an October 15 story in the Wall Street Journal that cites the surge of interest by business school students in "socially-responsible money-making." The article also notes how business schools are being pushed to create a whole host of courses and study tracks to help MBA students sort out the best way to build companies that both make money and help to solve social problems. Montero and others, including a number of Justmeans community members who messaged me earlier this week, said the fuss over socially-minded MBAs tends to leave out a great deal of people who are not in business school but who already have been making a big difference in the sector. " We most definitely need more non-MBA social entrepreneurs," Montero wrote.

A second point I keep hearing is that the developing world is, more or less, being left out of the conversation. Justmeans community member Gerard Ww, in a comment responding to my introductory column as social enterprise editor of Justmeans, said that "no company, organization, or individuals (seems) willing to really get their hands truly dirty side-by-side with us (those people at the bottom of the pyramid) while trying to help the BoP!" Describing himself as one of the billions at the bottom of the pyramid, he said that "we are never included in the [potential] interventions; it's always the so-called academics and 'successful' business persons who dictate terms and conditions. Too few of us will ever be helped by the continued exclusion, but who else knows the conditions [at the bottom of the pyramid] better" than the people who live there?

Gerard isn't the only person posing the question. Rod Schwartz, CEO of ClearlySo, an online marketplace that aims to raise the visibility of social businesses, sparked a lively debate earlier this year when he posed on the SocialEdge blog the following question: "Are the only innovations in social entrepreneurship Anglo-Saxon?" Schwartz had asked the same question at the 2009 Skoll World Forum, which I also attended, asking fellow conferees what they thought of the fact that a majority of the speakers and panelists were Caucasian. Ashni Mohnot, who joins me as a contributing blogger at PopTech, wrote on that site this past summer that "many of the top socially entrepreneurial organizations work in international development, building products, services and social capital to improve lives at the base of the pyramid, yet they are often based in the UK or the US with founders and CEOs hailing from the Western world." She cited D.light Design, FORGE, FaceAids, and Kiva as some examples of social ventures that develop their products by native Westerners or those educated in the West. Mohnot wrote that while these social ventures "subsequently engage locals in pilots, distribution or marketing, the initial product design is often the sole realm of the US arm."

To be sure, it's not true that all social innovators have MBAs and that they're all "Anglo-Saxon" as Schwartz put it. But the debate continues over what some see as troubling trends in this new field of social enterprise.

What do you think? Do you perceive yourself to be in what Mohnot called an elite "social entrepreneur's club?" Or is the debate unfair or misinformed? Does it raise some important or long-ignored issues that should continue to be discussed on these pages and across the sector? Let us hear from you.

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Recent Comment

Jeff Mowatt | Posted: 12 November 2009

Yes, I'd say. I have several illustrations but lets take our early work on social capitalism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_capitalism

We incorporated as a profit for social purpose guarantee company in the UK in March 2004.

Consider this more than a decade later, after engaging in discussion on the subject on Social Edge for several years.

http://oxfordhub.org/oxsef

Right on our doorstep. Not just uninvited but brushed out of the picture using Oxford University as the platform for misinformation.

Considering that we published the model online free to use, it seems neither ethical nor social.

Jeff

Cindy Cheatham | Posted: 16 October 2009

funding in general tends to come from anglo-saxons and given to anglo saxons in both general entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship and it's important that there are specific efforts included in all conferences and social entrepreneurial enabling organizations to be inclusive in leadership of those organizations and in the content and program activities. From my experience in mostly VC-funded entrepreneurial-world, I'm encouraged to see much more diversity of people of color and higher participations of women. We're not there yet

Juan Carlo Pascua | Posted: 15 October 2009

I'm told MBA's are over-rated. Especially in entrepreneurship, it's supposedly passion that will make the venture succeed. I'm quoting Guy Kawasaki on that one, who I want to add also suggests if you're starting a company to stay away from MBAs.

My experience with entrepreneurship is that it's hard work and venture capitalists want to see you put in your own money. Difficult, I would suggest, if you don't have money, and you're not in the middle class. Does the discussion then become who has access to elevate into the middle class?

Marcia Stepanek | Posted: 15 October 2009

In coming weeks, I'll do some posts on how inexpensive uses of social media and mobile activism are helping to raise new awareness for BoP projects seeking funding. Anyone have some examples to share? Send them in and I'll include them in later posts in this space.

Kevin Long | Posted: 15 October 2009

I agree that the bottom of the pyramid ideas do not get enough attention. Hard to get the attention though when your day does not revolve around access to low cost promotion like social media - to both find out about funding and promoting yourself/idea.

Marcia Stepanek | Posted: 15 October 2009

Thanks, Barbara -- yes, much more work to be done, especially in rural communities!

Barbara Kazdan | Posted: 15 October 2009

Ashoka's global network of social entrepreneurs spans 60 countries, suggesting that this perception doesn't match the reality. But - in the US the field started with a more elite group that's becoming much more diverse - in ethnicity, age and gender, but has miles to go - into rural and grassroots communities.