by Sunit Shrestha and S. Dev Appanah

Across the globe, social entrepreneurshipis gathering momentum. More and moresocial entrepreneurs have gained recogni-tion in countries as diverse as India andthe United States and the concept itselfhas spread all the way from the ruralcommunities that Ashoka Fellows serve tothe United Nations. Yet the future impact ofthe movement lies with youth. In Asia,young people make up almost half of thepopulation. Young people have the pas-sion and energy, the strategic social posi-tioning, and the natural tendency towardsproblem-solving that is a key characteristicof the entrepreneurial

ground-clearing

process. If social entrepreneurship is tobring increased efﬁciency and innovationto conventional development, the most dy-namic young people must actively em-brace it.Social movements have this in commonwith epidemics, that in order for them tospread, they must have an average repro-duction rate of at least one. If not, the dis-ease will never become an epidemic andthe social movement will expend itself withtime. If talented young people are not at-tracted and catalysed by social entrepre-neurship, the movement could die out.This article looks at four key things that willbe necessary if young people are to em-brace social entrepreneurship: knowledge,community, ﬁnance and mentorship.

Development – an image problem

Additionally, the development profession isan obsolete brand, in a world wherebrands represent meaning and value; de-velopment as a profession ranks muchlower for young people than the privatesector or government. This is especiallytrue in developing countries where mostpeople in this ﬁeld are perceived to havetaken a vow of poverty and sacriﬁce. Thelabels

NGO

and

CSO

have negativeconnotations and the agencies they areattached to are seen as being irrationallyradical and uncompromising. Bureaucracy,egoism and inertia make the sector excep-tionally inefficient. Worse still, jobs arebadly paid. In Asia, where family influenceis still paramount, it is extremely rare forfamilies to encourage their offspring to jointhe development sector because of thelack of opportunity, low pay and little socialrecognition it offers. Ironically, then, it isextremely difficult to find capable youngpeople from developing countries who areinterested in a career in development.Social entrepreneurship might be able toremedy this. The stories of successful so-cial entrepreneurs show what developmentprofessionalism can mean. These peopleare passionate, dynamic, efficient and in-novative, and eager to make a differencein the world. Repeatedly, they have provedthat small things do matter and can be-come socially significant while generatinga fair amount of personal income. Theyprovide models that show capable youngpeople that social entrepreneurship canoffer a career that provides both social andeconomic returns.

Providing the conditions for growth

But how many capable young people takethis path? Young social entrepreneurs –and there might be any number of these –are unrecognized as yet, both locally andglobally, and there is next to no support forthis group of potential changemakers.It is young people who are both willing andable to become social entrepreneurs whowill trigger any movement, and it is the en-vironment in which they operate that will

either kill or facilitate their development.We believe there are four key elementshere: knowledge, community, ﬁnance andmentorship.

Knowledge for development

There are at least three critical kinds ofknowledge required to unleash the spirit ofsocial entrepreneurship which we believeyoung people possess:•insight into social problems•examples of social entrepreneurs, par-ticularly younger ones•knowledge of the social entrepreneur-ship processThese three categories of knowledge rein-force each other. Young people need aknowledge of the world

s problems to ig-nite their passion; they also need insightinto development issues in order to de-velop their social enterprise ideas. Forthese ideas to be sustainable, a disciplinedmethod of enterprise management is re-quired. And, perhaps most important of all,they need inspirational cases of young so-cial entrepreneurs who have made a sig-niﬁcant impact.

A handful of examples

The number of these cases remains small,but their impact on the field has beengreat. An outstanding project aimed at dis-advantaged youth isDigital Divide Data (DDD) in Cambodia. DDD, founded byyoung social entrepreneurs, creates non-profit data entry outsourcing centres thathire disadvantaged young people at wagesfar above local standards. The centres notonly provide vocational training and jobopportunities, but also scholarships foremployees to complete their education,health benefits and a safer working envi-ronment. DDD became financially sustain-able in only nine months and has to dateearned six-figure revenues.Meal Exchangewas founded by young so-cial entrepreneurs in Canada, has devel-oped an innovative programme by whichstudents are able to transform unusedmeal plan points into groceries, which theycan then deliver to local community or-ganizations and food banks. Meal Ex-change is run as a franchise, and currentlyup to 45 post-secondary and five secon-dary educational institutions across Can-ada have a Meal Exchange Chapter. It isestimated that in the year 2003 alone, over$260,000 worth of food was donated tocommunity organizations.Mitra Technology Foundationis an initia-tive in India that acts as an online volun-teer brokerage. Through its flagship pro-gramme,

iVolunteer

, Mitra works withseveral other organizations across India tocreate volunteering opportunities for indi-viduals who want to make a difference. Todate several thousands of volunteers havebeen recruited.Another youth initiative is Bangkok-basedTRN, which tries to find ways of using ICTto cost-effectively empower rural communi-ties across Thailand. These young socialentrepreneurs have undertaken variouscommunity-based agro and developmenttourism programmes. Working in partner-ship with rural communities, its agro project has wedded traditional local and sci-entific knowledge to solve local problemsin relation to sustainable agriculture. Formany of the beneficiary villagers, food se-curity and real income have improved.These farmers then become the rolemodel for thousands of others.

Spreading the word

Knowledge of these and other examplesneeds to be disseminated in such a waythat it appeals to a young audience: via aLonely Planet-like guide for young socialentrepreneurs, for instance, or throughmedia like MTV and other more seriousones featuring exciting examples of young

social entrepreneurs as part of their pro-gramming.Various online and ofﬂine tools could alsobe created to help young people managetheir social enterprises. These could rangefrom subjects like business planning tocomprehensive project management.However, the greatest challenge is in per-suading young people to contribute to theknowledge component. Perhaps theycould provide the necessary input throughthings like articles, journals or weblogs.There is great potential to make social en-trepreneurship

cool

in the way that con-ventional business entrepreneurship, par-ticularly startups, is. This could help attracthighly capable youngsters into the loop.

The importance of communities

Without communities, however, even thebest knowledge base will be of limited use-fulness. David Borstein, author of How toChange the World, emphasizes that one ofthe best ways of supporting young socialentrepreneurs is to bring those with similarpassion and insight together to share andcollaborate. Through the sharing of ideas,a community is created, and through thiscommunity information passes on, be-comes critically relevant, and can lead tofuture action.Communities don

t have to be

local

in thegeographic sense any more. The internethas changed that. Now, communities canbe virtual, bringing together those withcommon interests and purposes, no matterwhat their location. In this way youth allover the world who are interested in socialentrepreneurship can share and crystallizeideas, gain support, mobilize teams, andeven collaborate online. Translatingthought into social action through commu-nities becomes exponentially rapid.Take the case ofTakingITglobal, it isprobably the world

s largest online com-munity of young people interested in globaldevelopment issues ranging from povertyto the promotion of healthcare. With morethan 54,000 members, TakingITglobal re-ceives more than 1.2 million hits daily. Itscontent and presentation attract youngpeople and reﬂect their energy and ideas.Communities drive the collective discoveryprocess. Members don

t need to know orlearn everything to solve problems ormake necessary connections. As long asthe community is diverse enough, mem-bers can ﬁnd solutions to problems bysharing their experience and knowledge. Ifa young social entrepreneur in Nigeria, forexample, needs a governmental endorse-ment to implement her enterprise effec-tively but lacks the necessary contacts, avirtual global community of other youngsocial entrepreneurs could provide herwith those contacts.

Building movements through communi-ties

Stanley Milgram

six degrees of separa-tion

theory suggests that people are con-nected by a chain of six people most of thetime: beginning from you and your imme-diate community, you can reach millions ofpeople via linkages spreading out fromyour initial contacts. For example, you andI might be separated by only three degreesof separation. You are reading this maga-zine because someone you know in thesocial investment community has recom-mended it to you. That person might knowthe editor, who might know us.The most common problem in a networkedworld is locating the necessary contacts.Community-building is one key means oftransforming the global search into a moremanageable local one, but with globalconnections (for instance, ﬁguring out whoamong your immediate community offriends has access to another set of credi-ble connections that could link you to, say,a donor agency or those with similar expe-rience in addressing social issues).