Social Entrepreneurship in Asia Takes Off

It’s not just the Joy – it’s the Jobskills.

I just got off the phone with Andrea Krause, the leader of The Foundation for Youth Social Entrepreneurship (FYSE). It’s a regional social entrepreneurship organization, one of the first of its kind.  It speaks not only of their desire to do good, but also to develop the young individual’s skills, potential and even job training and preparedness in Asia.

In the United States, we focus on social entrepreneurship more from a ‘passion perspective.’  We want to follow our dreams, and we want to follow them early.  Our dreams entail making an impact — a big impact — so that we positively affect the world, and, bring increased meaning to our everyday lives.   Following social entrepreneurship in our country definitely conjoins  purpose and passion, which provides a higher level of engagement in our community.  It’s almost as if we are seeking a deeper connection to giving, to being, to joy.

In Asia, social entrepreneurship is viewed a bit differently. The purpose of FYSE is most certainly to empower, encourage and incite social entrepreneurs to know they can make a difference.  FYSE wants to increase awareness about social entrepreneurship all across the region.

In addition, there is another equally important driver: Simply put, it’s jobs.

Many of the Asian countries don’t have enough jobs for younger people.  In the Asia-Pacific area, almost 50% of the younger set age 15-24 are without work.  And this is not a new trend. In 2005, 39.2 million youth were unemployed, a statistically gross figure but 5 years ago.

So FYSE instituted Paragon Fellowships, providing mentoring, workshops, discussions, peer interactions, tools and podcasts to help these aspiring social entrepreneurs jumpstart and maintain their visions. It’s the hope of taking the leap — being bold without job prospects, and creating your own venture.   Now the caveat is you must have a compelling vision and the true sticktoitiveness to realize it.  Fear of no job prospects does not = social entrepreneurship.

The regional differences are fascinating.  China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand have much greater receptivity to social entrepreneurship.  South Korea and Japan are less so. In Japan, the ritual is more that students are scanned by visiting companies their last year of university. If they aren’t picked up, often the student will stay in school.  Leaving school without a job is a precarious position offering little if no possibility for job prospecting.

Cheers to FYSE for encouraging the innovation, courage, inspiration and tools to foster social entrepreneurship in the region.  May we see social entrepreneurship continue to thrive and grow.

Modeling the Ideal Business

I’ve been enjoying some wonderful discussions on Social Edge, a website sponsored by the Skoll Foundation, where a number of social entrepreneurs share their thoughts and discuss ideas.  Lindsay Clinton posted an article titled “The Social and Commercial Two-Step” in December which has sparked a lively conversation.  Her initial post discussed whether social and commercial goals can be combined in a single enterprise, and whether it’s a viable model to include both a for-profit side and a non-profit side.  I responded with a few thoughts on the difference between fundraising and generating revenue, concluding, “ideally I’d like to be a nonprofit that primarily funds itself through corporate services.”

Lindsay replied to my comment, asking if I’ve explored this model I describe.  I posted the following response that I’d like to share with you:

Lindsay, thank you for your message. That’s exactly where we’re headed as social entrepreneurs. For me, it’s one of my most significant definitions of social entrepreneurship and here are a few others:

*Nonprofit or forprofit with socially conscious product
*Can have free service, but generates revenue

In UniversalGiving’s case our public service is free — anyone can volunteer or donate, and we don’t take a cut on the donation. It’s not a part of our business model. Then, we package up our service for companies and their CSR programs. Companies pay us for this service which helps increase employee giving and volunteer rates, increases employee retention and attraction; increases their global brand.

Some nonprofits, true, may  not have easy ways to generate revenue.  Sometimes they can only offer a free service.  However, I hope effective brainstorming encourages them to see both how their value can be free, and monetized. Some for-profits don’t have a free service, obviously; but they, too, can be encouraged to offer both. We need to think in terms of “layered services.”

The Balance of Business and Service

Last March, I posted on this blog about a contribution I had written for the book, The People’s New Deal: Creating a New Civilization through Social Entrepreneurship, edited by Patrick U. Petit and Marianne Obermueller.  I’m pleased to announce that the book has since been published, and is available for purchase.

My essay is titled “The Balance of Business and Service.”  You can read the writing I posted previously, in three sections.  In Part One, I discuss what inspired me to become a social entrepreneur.  In Part Two, I talk about what led me to found UniversalGiving, and some key components of our service.  In Part Three, I examine how social entrepreneurship has evolved, and share my key questions to ask and top factors of good social entrepreneurs.

I hope you enjoy reading.  I’m so pleased and honored to have been a part of this project.

Pathway to Social Entrepreneurship

Early days on thinking on social entrepreneurship, at a coffee cafe. This is before I knew about the term.   Business… as socially responsible from the beginning.  As I look at the last statement I wrote: “Business should never come above sacrificing the individual.”   This is true.  However, it is important to generate profit.  It’s just that in achieving profit, it shouldn’t ever hurt the individual.

World Trust: You’re Okay, but Everyone Else Isn’t

Last Thursday was one of those days which I loved.  It’s where I was pushed to an entirely different level of awareness, allowing me to be a more sensitive person and leader.

I was having lunch with the head of the Mitchell Kapor Foundation, with Cedric, Tiffany and Carmen.*  They are such lovely people, and doing such important work. Rather than viewing themselves as simply giving out money, they see themselves as partners, advisers and encouragers to community leaders.  They are very active in helping local leaders and organizations achieve their goals in the community – an entirely new brand of leadership in the foundation realm. 

We started discussing larger reasons for what we are doing.   One of the motivating factors for me is the concept of World Trust.

The reason I bring this up is that I am not sure we can create “World Peace.”   How do you “create” World Peace?  How do you make it happen?  Do you demonstrate for peace?  I am not sure we can.

So we have to move to a longer term view.  In UniversalGiving’s and my quest to break down barriers, we’re trying to get people to give and volunteer of their time and themselves.  The purpose is to connect in greater understanding to someone else.  When you give of your time or your resources, you are sharing yourself and opening yourself up.  People then open to you…time is given… meals shared…joint goals of building a home or a well are reached…lives are impacted…views are changed.   Relationships start, open and begin to build…

Through relationships, people relate to the person rather than color, ethnicity, religion, race.   Stereotypes become secondary.  You care about the person and relate to them.   In this way we can work on building long-term relationships, which lead to World Trust.  Relationships and World Trust, then, can naturally lead to World Peace. But we can’t ‘create’ or ‘make’ World Peace happen.

Beautiful, I hope.  Yet Cedric opened me up further: “Pamela, that can happen. But someone also might say, ‘Well you’re okay, but you are the exception.”

It shocked me. It was unfortunately true, in many cases.   We have to be aware about how much effort it takes to truly aright these perceptions, often with repeated examples and experiences until the barriers are truly, genuinely broken down.

I still hope that giving can lead to connections, to understanding, to relationships, to World Trust, to World Peace.  If it isn’t true, I am still going to devote my life working towards it.

But Cedric brought to light a greater sensitivity.   It will help me be a better person and leader. I’ll hopefully be more sensitive about the challenges we face in bringing about World Trust, and keep trying all the same.

*Cedric Brown (Director), Tiffany Price (Grantee Advocate), Carmen Rojas, Ph.D. (Grants Officer)