Catherine A. LadaDoctoral CandidateRobert Morris UniversityInformation Systems & Communications (May ‘15)

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP:SOLVING EMBEDDED “WICKED” PROBLEMS

AGENDA

• Defining and understanding social entrepreneurship (SE)

• SE theories

• “Wicked” problems & embeddedness

• Scaling & Measuring impact

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DNA OF AN SE LEADER

http://acumen.org/leaders/

Kailash Satyarthi: Grassroots campaign & company to end child labor.Ashoka Fellow2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Dr. Muhammad Yunus, founder and managing director of Grameen Bank.

1996 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

ASHOKA FELLOWS

Wendy Kopp, Founder, Teach for AmericaAshoka FellowQuality education for all

Jacqueline NovogratzSocial EntrepreneurFounder, Acumen Fund

Poverty elimination

ACUMEN FELLOWS

IMPACT OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

WHAT IS SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

• Person

• Group

• Organization

• Business

• Networked alliance

Entity

• Sustainable, long-term social change

Seeking • Double bottom line: people & profit

Result

Light 2006 (SSIR)

ORIGINS OF SE

• “Societies worldwide are urgently seeking innovative approaches to addressing persistent social problems that afflict their communities but that have not yet been satisfactorily addressed by either governments or the marketplace” (Wei-Skillern, et al., 2007, p. 1).

SECTOR ROLES

• Government: public goods; safety net;

• Capitalism: in current form, not set up to solve social problems

• NGOs: “trickle-down economics?”

• CSR: social is a sideline

• UN, World Bank: infrastructure focus

• “Social entrepreneurship represents the best of the private and public sectors, while filtering out the limiting factors”

Kickul & Lyons, 2012

GROWTH OF SE

• Scholars have linked the rise of social enterprises and entrepreneurs to several factors, including the persistence of seemingly intractable, or “wicked” social problems, the state of worldwide economies, and the growth of the World Wide Web and related technologies (Wei-Skillern, et al., 2007; Kickul& Lyons, 2012).

NONPROFIT “ROOTS”: SOCIAL ENTERPRISE SCHOOL

• A social entrepreneur is any person, in any sector, who uses earned income strategies to pursue a social objective, and a social entrepreneur differs from a traditional entrepreneur in two important ways: Traditional entrepreneurs frequently act in a socially responsible manner. . . . Secondly, traditional entrepreneurs are ultimately measured by financial results.

Boschee & McClurg (2003)

SOCIAL INNOVATION SCHOOL

• SE “not about generating earned income or even about incremental improvements in the social sector. It is about innovations that have the potential for major societal impact.”

Dees & Anderson, 2006

SE PROCESS MODEL (KICKUL & LYONS)

WICKED PROBLEMS

• Can’t be solved by the actions of any one group of actors – nonprofit, private sector, or public sector; or any one set of interventions. Solving these problems requires an “ecosystem” approach in which the individuals being helped are at the center and involved in issue resolution in addition to organizations, agencies, etc.

• Ex. Harlem Children’s Zone

EMBEDDEDNESS

• The geographic, political, economic, cultural, institutional, temporal, historical, and other factors that make up the “context,” or “ecosystem” in which the entrepreneur—commercial or social—works.

• Every social, or “wicked” problem is an embedded one; that is, situated within the context of the society it exists in.

MAPPING COMPLEX, EMBEDDED RELATIONSHIPS

• In partnership with the Foundation Center, IMM Ltd. Created an interactive “Coastal Fisheries Success Factors” map

• Model provides macro, meso, and micro level looks at these factors; can further refine by stakeholder (ex. Policy makers, conservationists, fishers, etc.)

http://fisheriesviz.issuelab.org/

EMBEDDEDNESS: EXAMINATION CAN REVEAL UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE

http://youtu.be/8k_XH-ajLo0?t=19s

“BUILDING AND GROWING A VENTURE THAT DOESN’T FIT ITS ECOSYSTEM IS LIKE TRYING TO BUILD A GOLF COURSE IN THE

MOUNTAINS OF ALASKA.”

(Bloom, 2012, p. 52).

EMBEDDEDNESS

• Scaling what worked in Phoenix to end vet homelessness – building new apartments –won’t necessarily work in a more densely populated city where apartments can’t be built (and existing housing is occupied).

• And, other cities may have political barriers as well as geographic and financial barriers to scaling in the same way.

GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY CHALLENGES

• “Why have the rather simple, globally recognized solutions failed to change the post-harvest loss equation in Sub-Saharan Africa? The answer lays primarily in the fact that reducing post-harvest loss at scale is not about applying known technologies or techniques to a particular point in the agricultural production process. Rather, it requires orchestrating a concert of actions and interactions by millions of people, at multiple points in many value chains, in numerous countries.

(Bain & Co. Nov. 2014 blog post. Bringing fresh solutions to the challenge of global food security, November 2014).

SYSTEMS THINKING

• Many of these actors never come into contact with one another, despite their interdependence. However, each influences the agricultural system's ability to reduce post-harvest loss for the millions affected by it. Understanding the full system of actors, resources, interactions, and incentives at play is critical to formulating effective post-harvest loss solutions.”

(Bain & Co. Nov. 2014 blog post. Bringing fresh solutions to the challenge of global food security, November 2014).

IT’S ABOUT THE ECOSYSTEM

• Without this systems understanding, proposed ‘solutions’ often prove too narrow in scope to achieve transformative impact. In worst cases, proposed solutions fail because they do not fit the realities of a place or a market.”

(Bain & Co. Nov. 2014 blog post. Bringing fresh solutions to the challenge of global food security, November 2014).

A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE “ECOSYSTEM”THE HARLEM CHILDREN’S ZONE

• Integrated, innovative approach (systems thinking) to create a new ecosystem to reform education.

– Parents, pre-k, after-school tutoring, charter school

• Start with outcomes desired, change the systems needed to support them.

• Results-driven: metrics.http://youtu.be/Di0-xN6xc_w?t=9m46s

1000’S OF ORGANIZATIONS IN SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP ECOSYSTEM

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• How does the “embedded” systems-thinking SE approach to solving societal problems differ from the traditional nonprofit, or NGO?

• What role(s) do you think SEs and NGOs have to play in solving social issues?

• Is scaling innovative solutions to social problems is the only way significant progress will be made in lessening their impact, or perhaps eradicating them altogether?

MEASURING SOCIAL IMPACT

• There is no widely-adopted standard or framework for measuring social impact– Social Return on Investment (SROI) – Social Accounting and Audit (SAA)– Global Impact Investing Ratings System (GIIRS)– Global Impact Investment Network – Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS)– Organizationally-based:

• White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation (SICP)

• Acumen Fund• Etc.

WHAT IS SROI? FROM SROI NETWORK

• SROI is an approach to understanding and managing the value of the social, economic and environmental outcomes created by an activity or an organisation. It is based on a set of principles that are applied within a framework.

SROI IS INCLUSIONARY; IT’S A STORY

• SROI seeks to include the values of people that are often excluded from markets in the same terms as used in markets, that is money, in order to give people a voice in resource allocation decisions. SROI is a framework to structure thinking and understanding. It’s a story not a number. The story should show how you understand the value created, manage it and can prove it.

SROI Network

THE ACUMEN FUND STORY

MEASURING SOCIAL IMPACT: KEEPING IT SIMPLE

• The White House-created Social Innovation Fund (SIF) offers guidance in measuring impact on three levels:

– Preliminary evidence

– Moderate evidence

– Strong evidence

PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE

• The model has evidence based on a reasonable hypothesis and supported by credible research findings.

• Example: outcome studies that track participants through a program and measure participants’ responses at the end of the program.

Corporation for National & Community Service

MODERATE EVIDENCE

• Evidence from previous studies on the program, the designs of which can support causal conclusions (i.e., studies with high internal validity) but have limited generalizability (i.e., moderate external validity) or vice-versa - studies that only support moderate causal conclusions but have broad general applicability.

Corporation for National & Community Service

STRONG EVIDENCE

• Strong evidence means evidence from previous studies on the program, the designs of which can support causal conclusions (i.e., studies with high internal validity), and that, in total, include enough of the range of participants and settings to support scaling up to the state, regional, or national level.

Corporation for National & Community Service

MEASURING IMPACT:RESEARCH-BASED & COMPLEX

• The Impact Genome Project, created by Mission Measurement use “big data and genomic analysis to measure, predict, and improve the outcomes of social programs.”

• Striving to be “a systematic way to codify and quantify the factors that drive social outcomes.”

• Given complexities of embeddedness (context, the environment, different actors involved), can this approach work?

http://missionmeasurement.com/work/impact-genome

SCALING

• Need to find a way to determine which programs, interventions work, how much, why, and what resources are needed/available before attempting to scale.

• “Achieving more efficient and effective adoption of your innovation.” 92 percent of nonprofits believe that scaling impact is one of the most important activities to address the social problems they are working to solve.

Bloom, 2012; Social Impact Exchange & VerisConsulting 2013 report on Scaling

FRAMEWORKS FOR SCALING

• SCALERS Model - Bloom & Chatterji (2009)

– Use “levers” including communications, staffing, stimulating market forces, at the right time

• Examples of scaling strategies - Bradach & Grindle (2014)

– Using existing distribution networks

– Recruiting others to deliver the solution

– Etc.

Driver Action(s) or Example(s)S – Staffing Member volunteers and paid staff were used.C –Communicating

A large advertising and public relations campaign was employed.

A – Alliance-Building

Formal alliances with the major health insurance companies were formed contractually.

L – Lobbying AARP worked with its contracted alliance partners to lobby Congress.

E – Earnings Generation

AARP created a new revenue-generating service, offering health coverage to its members through a contracted alliance partner.

R – Replicating AARP applied “lessons learned” from their marketing efforts for the new service that could be applied to creating other products and services.

S – Stimulating Market Forces

The legislation motivated health insurance companies to evaluate their products and pricing, stimulating competition.

Bloom & Chatterji, 2009

SCALERS

Strategy Authors’ Example

Distribute through existing platforms.

The YMCA partnered with the National Institutes of Health on a program addressing diabetes prevention. The key to scaling the location was the fact that 60 percent of Americans live within three miles of a YMCA.

Unbundle and scale up the parts that have the greatest impact.

The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), a “national network of public charter schools” designed a fellowship to train school administrators on its leadership principles model. KIPP officials believe the principles to be the core of its social change model.

Use technology to reach a larger audience.

The authors give the example of Khan Academy, an online “classroom” which provides instructional videos on math and the sciences at no charge to anyone who wishes to take them.

Bradach & Grindle (2014)

SELECT RESOURCES• Bloom P. (2012). Scaling Your Social Venture: Becoming an Impact

Entrepreneur. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

• Bloom, P. N., & Chatterji, A. K. (2009). Scaling Social Entrepreneurial Impact. California Management Review, 51(3), 114-133.

• Bradach, J., & Grindle, A. (2014). Emerging Pathways to Transformative Scale. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 12(2), 7-11.

• Dees, J. G. (2001). The meaning of social entrepreneurship (Original draft: 1998, revised 2001)

• Dees, Anderson & Wei-Skillern, J. (2004). Scaling social impact. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2004, (24-32).

• Gibson, C., Smythe, K. Nayowith, G. & Zaff, J. (2013). To get to the good, you gotta dance with the wicked. Stanford Social Innovation Review.

• Kickul, J. & Lyons, T. (2012). Understanding Social Entrepreneurship: The Relentless Pursuit of Mission in an Ever Changing World. New York: Routledge.

• Ridley-Duff R. & Bull, M. (2011). Understanding Social Enterprise: Theory and Practice. London: SAGE.

DISCUSSION?

Thank you!