This post arose thanks to ongoing collaboration between myself and Anne Petersen of Global Philanthropy Alliance (GPA), whom I met last year at Opportunity Collaboration. Bo Wang, with the assistance of Ryan Veneri–both GPA interns–performed original research and drafting for this post. Great work, guys.
What is Social Entrepreneurship?
More people today have the freedom, time, wealth, health, exposure, social mobility, and confidence to become social entrepreneurs. As David Bornstein puts it, “social entrepreneurs are individuals seeking meaningful work to build, join, advocate for, or support organizations that are more innovative, more responsive, and operationally superior to the traditional social structures. They have new ideas to address major problems, shifting economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.”
Social entrepreneurship, simply put then, is entrepreneurship with a for-impact focus using for-profit models.
Why Social Entrepreneurship Needs its Own Platform
Because social entrepreneurship is forging new territory somewhere between non-profit missions and for-profit models, the movement has unique needs in the areas of empowerment, funding, and accountability. The rules of engagement are different and constantly evolving. Social entrepreneurship brings together many different entities, from individual funders to large foundations, from farmers in rural Africa to urban teens in New York.
Providing social entrepreneurs the support they need to succeed is an important task for the modern age, and many web platforms have been launched to do just that. Here we’ll take a look at what services such platforms need to have, as well as review the best websites providing the service.
In advocating a separate, fully-focused platform I am not decrying more general platforms that already exist and are serving needs (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter come to mind). In fact, the platform for social entrepreneurs would need to act much like these in user experience, as well as integrate deeply with them, if it is to have full reach.
Two Design Considerations: Youth-first, Mobile-first
Global Philanthropy Alliance works under the strong conviction that reaching youth first with a platform for entrepreneurship should be a primary design consideration. Accordingly, thanks to the state of technology globally, designing the system to be mobile accessible (both from smartphones and via novel use of SMS on regular phones) is also of utmost important.
A youth-first, mobile-first design approach ensures that the social entrepreneurs who need the system the most–youth–get access to it in a format that they can use the most–mobile. Such a starting point can then lead to a wider base of users of the platform.
The Five Key Services of an Integrated Web Platform for Social Entrepreneurship
To empower social entrepreneurs around the world, many web platforms exist today to provide services for these talented individuals. Different web platforms have different features that offer distinctive services, but what constitutes an effective, integrated web platform? The five major functions of the web platforms are:
- Networking. From collaborating with other entrepreneurs to helping track the goals of their new business, integrated tools are pivotal to ensuring the platform provides everything an entrepreneur needs to succeed without having to exit the system.
- Training. Especially in the developing world, the ambition for entrepreneurship is there, but knowledge about best approaches to business is not. Whether formal modules or knowledge center FAQs, high quality materials are an important starting point.
- Funding. Providing entrepreneurs a streamlined way to vet their ideas and get funding for the good ones is essential. A great funding service will increase transparency and accelerate world change.
- Mentoring. With knowledge and funding in tow, social entrepreneurs benefit most from seasoned professionals—both in their geographic area and even abroad.
- Management. Launching a new venture requires the ability to set goals and milestones, coordinate people, and share information. Management tools within the platform will allow the network to learn from both successes and failures, ultimately cycling back to networking and improved ideas.
Now let’s take a look at existing and emerging platforms that provide the best solutions for each of these needs.
1. Social Networking for Entrepreneurs
Various social entrepreneur web platforms function as a donation site with basic information about their projects and resources, which is similar to GPA’s current website. This might be restricted by the limited membership required to use some of these services. Two sites featured in the report that stood out were Acumen Fund and Adsila.
Example 1: Acumen Fund
In additional to traditional charity, Acumen Fund seeks market-based approaches to help the poor using “patient capital,” a long tern investment maximizing social rather than financial returns. Acumen has an interactive site, with free resources, articles and an online community to share information and network with potential business partners and mentors.
Example 2: Adsila
Adsila claims to be the world’s first “virtual incubator” for early-stage development and support of social entrepreneurs. It is designed to reduce physical and other barriers, and to provide training, financial, mentorship, and network support to enable social entrepreneurs to create large-scale social impact. Although the site is still under construction, once it’s fully developed, it should become an impressive web platform empowering the needs of social entrepreneurs.
2. Training for Social Entrepreneurs
Most of the business training modules found online could be accessed freely. Due to the research being conducted in the US, the search engines seem to focus more on information appropriate for American users. As a result, information found was more applicable to the Western world instead of our grantees in Africa, but types of business that thrive in third world settings tend to be different than the businesses addressed by these sites. Finally, some sites do offer some kind of networking or mentoring features with an online community. Examples of business training web platforms reviewed include:
Example 1: StartupNation
StartupNation provides step-by-step guides for business topics such as “open for business”, “grow your own business,” and “managing your money.” Although the site is primarily geared towards businesses in North America, access to the website’s media is free, and the site has an extensive search engine that allows one to easily find articles pertaining to his or her specific situation. The community section of the website is a good place for professionals to interact and share ideas.
Example 2: Micro Enterprise Training
This module provides easy-to-read training guides on topics such as running micro-enterprise, financial planning, and marketing. Besides to being free of charge, the website offers a wide variety of content with a translation feature that allows the content to be translated into several different languages.
3. Funding for Social Entrepreneurs
A majority of funding sites in existence are made for donors who contribute small amounts of money to charities of their choice. These sites allow nonprofit organizations or social entrepreneurs to register as a charity, so the organization could receive donations using the platforms. On the other hand, a few sites act like investment sites with investors getting their investment back, with social and financial return. Furthermore, a couple of sites offer training on top of the funding features. Examples of a funding platform include:
Example 1: Kiva
Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the Internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunities around the world. Kiva serves as a middleman in the process by delivering 100% of these funds on a net billing basis, excluding the interest eared while being held in a Kiva user loan account, which is contributed to fund Kiva’s operations.
Example 2: GlobalGiving
GlobalGiving connects donors to the causes and countries they care the most. Using the platform, donors could select projects they want to support, make a tax-deductible contribution, and get regular progress updates so they can see how their gifts are making a difference. On top of fundraising feature, GlobalGiving also provides business-training webinars such as strategy planning 101.
4. Mentoring for Social Entrepreneurs
There are multiple online mentoring websites, with some charging a premium using their services. Some organizations offer local mentorship, instead of mentoring over the Internet. It was hard to judge which local organizations were the most effective due to limited information on these websites, which function simply like an informational site instead of interactive platforms. A few sites also feature online training workshops. Examples of mentoring platforms reviewed include:
Example 1: Score
Score offers online training workshops on top of local seminars, allowing users outside of America to utilize online workshops, templates and tools for business development. A registered user could contact accredited mentors who are volunteers available to answer business questions. Additionally, there is also a blog with helpful articles posted by users and a vault full of templates and workbooks.
Example 2: Umbono
Partnering with Google, Umbono is a South African based program preparing entrepreneurs to develop their own business. For the duration of the 6 months Umbono Program, teams will have regular access to the extensive network of business and technology experts, including Google experts, venture capitalists and angel investors. However, the program is only held in South Africa, and there might be other additional requirements to enroll in this program.
5. Management for Social Entrepreneurs
Every venture has goals and success criteria that help gauge success or failure. Failing “early and often” as an entrepreneur is all-important to growth and future success, and a system for managing projects in a way that allows young social entrepreneurs–and their mentors–to gauge progress is pivotal to accomplish full transparency.
Example 1: Basecamp
Though it is not billed as a tool for social entrepreneurs per sé, this subscription-based service allows teams to collaborate fully transparently with a central communication hub, setting milestones, goals, and todo lists out in the open for all project members to see. The tool is general enough to be industry-agnostic, an important feature of agricultural and technological ventures alike. The main detractor of Basecamp is that it does not integrate seamlessly with two-way text messaging, a key for those in the developing world.
Example 2: Google Docs
Google Docs is a general way for anyone to centralize ideas and plans in multiple formats, then share those living documents with key stakeholders. Many organizations use spreadsheets over custom-built management tools to great success, and the ease of use and price point (free) of Google Docs makes it a strong proposition for managing new businesses.
Is There One Perfect Web Platform for Social Entrepreneurs?
The short answer is, “Not yet.”
As we can see from the examples discussed, there are many great tools that satisfy some of the core services of an integrated web platform for social entrepreneurs—but none that could be called “The LinkedIn of Social Entrepreneurship” or “The Facebook for the Social Entrepreneurship Movement.”
There does not seem to be a platform that simply integrates all four of the core services (Networking, Training, Funding, Mentoring, Managing) into a single, youth-first, mobile-first platform, as Facebook has done for personal relationships, or LinkedIn has done for business relationships.
Together, Global Philanthropy Alliance and HiDef are designing just such an integrated approach. If you’re interested in learning more about it or telling us about your platform not mentioned here, please do so in the comments or find us @hidef and @AfricaSocEntrep on Twitter.
We also welcome your feedback here regarding platforms you’ve championed or used to meet the needs of young social entrepreneurs.
