1. Those in the private sector wondering if social enterprises are a threat or an opportunity for them (and how they might alter their own practice to remain competitive).

2. Those in the voluntary sector trying to work out their medium/long-term future (whether they should engage or resist the notion of social enterprise).

3. Those in the public sector being asked to develop, support or commission work from social enterprises.

4. Those who self-define as part of the social enterprise sector, wondering how to understand themselves and describe the value of their approach to others.
For another interesting read on why we should care about what social entrepreneurship really means, please refer to “Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition” by Sally Osberg and Roger Martin.

On a related note, the anecdotal feedback I’ve received is that transitioning from the for-profit sector to the social enterprise realm presents its own set of challenges.  Firstly, the market for such talent-matching is highly ineffective; headhunting firms don’t see the financial payoff in targeting social enterprises towards their usual clientele of senior executives, and fresh MBA grads find themselves ahead of their time when knocking on the doors of social enterprises that prefer to promote managerial talent internally and recruit for only specialized skills.  Looking for a job in the social enterprise space?  Please share your feedback.

John Chambers, in front of a live audience in Bangalore, presents Cisco’s On-Stage telepresence offering with executives “beamed in” from Silicon Valley. Check out the video here.

Cisco is also running an Innovation Prize competition where the finalists will pitch their ideas through the On-Stage service. The winning team will be hired by Cisco, receive a $250k signing bonus and other goodies like internal resources and funding to take their idea to market. Updates on the competition, which is currently at the finalist stage, can be found on the I-Prize blog.

Social Entrepreneurship models have been positioned as better ways to sustain long-term social impact as compared to the operating models of “traditional NGOs” or charities (caveat: not all social issues have been successfully tackled by social entrepreneurs).  Traditional CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is seen to possess greater business value to the corporation - many skeptics see it as over-zealous self-promotion by the corporation without significant social impact - and the advent of Social Intrapreneurship is one possible avenue for corporations to realize business value while furthering itself on the social impact dimension.

A very powerful combination would be for partnerships to be forged between social intrapreneurs and social entrepreneurs, hence answering the capitalistic question of “what’s in it for the corporation?” while driving towards long-term sustainable impact.  The SustainAbility report itself contains several examples of social intrapreneurship.  It does not however provide examples of intrapreneur-entrepreneur partnerships, but that is one area that we’re actively looking to address within the Volans Connects program of Volans Ventures.

8.1lbs, 51cm … born at Singapore’s KK hospital on May 7th 1342hrs. Mummy and daddy hopes he’ll become a social entrepreneur some day.

After receiving a notice from my Swiss mover that my shipment will be arriving in Singapore next week, I was simply overjoyed. This meant that my shipment from Geneva to Singapore would have taken 4 weeks. Previously, my move from San Francisco to Geneva took me all of 4 months. For those of you looking to move out of Geneva/Switzerland, I highly recommend Balestrafic for their professionalism and punctuality (the coordinators also speak flawless English).

I quickly made arrangements for a local mover to pick up my items from the Singapore port. Two days before my items were ready for pickup at the port, my move coordinator dropped by the apartment and informed me that I had to declare the value of my goods, which could subsequently be subjected to Singapore’s Goods and Services Tax (GST). I was dumbfounded. Pay GST?? On my own worn-out sweaters, jeans and 1-year old LCD TV? Apparently there have been several cases of people sending product shipments into Singapore and declaring them as “personal effects”; after which they were somehow sold for a nice profit. I felt totally indignant. This policy was set up to catch the bad guys, how can I be subject to this same tax? I didn’t have such nefarious motives in shipping my stuff back from Geneva! Plus who would want to buy them anyway.

Having full faith that something like this could not have been missed by Singapore’s highly effective bureaucracy, I ran some Google searches on GST relief for relocations back to Singapore. Lo and behold, there is indeed such a mechanism for GST relief, and there’s even an online form for you to directly submit your application. The wonders of e-government! It took me all of 15 minutes to fill out the form, and I received my approval about 10 minutes after. After sending the approval to my local mover, they were subsequently able to clear customs and safely deliver the shipment to me. What a (GST) relief indeed!

In case you’re interested, here’s the link to the Singapore Customs website. And here’s the blurb on eligibility for the GST relief:

Under the Goods and Services Tax (Imports Relief) Order, a person transferring residence to Singapore may be granted GST relief on his used household articles and personal effects (excluding liquors, tobacco products and motor vehicles) subject to the following conditions:

• that such person (the claimant) satisfies Customs that:
  • he is changing his place of residence to Singapore;
  • he is the owner of the articles and effects imported;
  • the articles and effects have been in his possession and used for a period of not less than 3 months; and
  • the articles and effects are imported through air/sea. GST relief is not granted for consignment imported by road.
• the articles and effects are imported within 6 months of his first arrival in Singapore.
• such person gives an undertaking not to dispose of the articles and effects within 3 months from the date of importation of such articles and effects.
• multiple importations are not allowed.

For returning Singaporeans and Permanent Residents of Singapore, they must have resided in a foreign country for more than 6 months to qualify for GST relief on their used household articles and personal effects.

The world’s richest entrepreneur - Bill Gates - promoted the concept of “creative capitalism” during this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos(see the session recording on YouTube).  The notion here is to leverage the immense human and financial capital of corporations to tackle the pressing issues of the day, and not to do so out of only compassion but as strategic business initiatives. For a long time now, Social Entrepreneurs have appreciated the value of enterprise in advancing social causes. The convergence of the work of these unreasonable people, and the rising tide of creative capitalism bodes well for the future of social development.

Yayasan Dian Desa (YDD), a hybrid not-for-profit started by social entrepreneur Mr Anton Sudjarwo, is focussed on churning out product and service innovations that enhance the quality of life of marginalized communities, as well as to set them on a path towards self-reliance. Since its inception, YDD has come up with a string of noteworthy innovations. Here are but a few examples:

• Cooking stove that increases heat-generating efficiency from 2% to 26%, thus reducing amount of firewood required for meal preparation. By reducing time spent collecting firewood, village communities can look into other more economically viable activities
• Working with poor fishing communities to make leather products out of stingray skins. Instead of directly employing workers, YDD trains them to become independent suppliers in this ecosystem of stingray leather fashion accessories.
• Community-based sanitation systems that mobilize community resources by educating the community to pay for proper sanitation, as well as pulling in external resources from local government or development agencies to aid in the initial development efforts.

YDD operates by assisting low-income communities in improving their living standards through participatory and self-help processes. Started in 1972, YDD currently has 308 personnel and has activities in the provinces of Yogyakarta, Central Java, East Java, Nusa Tenggara, Bali, Maluku, Aceh and East Kalimantan. Since 1995, YDD has also been active in Cambodia. Until 1985, YDD has been focussed on rural development only, and starting in 1986, the organization has started activies in urban development.

Many of YDD’s activities focus on research and development, and as such, the organization is equipped with a metal workshop for prototype development, a water quality laboratory and a multi-media division for the development of training materials. By fostering innovation excellence in appropriate technologies, YDD has been able to attract and leverage a highly diverse range of funding sources from international development agencies such as UNICEF, the World Bank, Oxfam, Canadian International Development Agency and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. YDD also has a strong track record of collaborating with local government and the private sector.

For his work on Yayasan Dian Desa, Anton has received many awards, including the Majelis Ekonomi in 1976, the Kalpataru award in 1980, the Ramon Magsaysay award in 1983 and the Simavi Institute award presented by H.M. Queen Beatrix in 1999.

Here are some examples of YDD’s work:

1. Converting the cocoons of catepillars in cashew farms, previously considered to waste products, into beautiful writing sheets that get exported to Japan.

2. Clinical incinerator developed using prior research on cooking stove project. This generates an additional income stream for YDD to pursue other forms of research while making the technology available to rural hospitals at a low price.

3. The typical Indonesian production model would have the corporation owning its entire supply chain. Social Entrepreneurs tend to break that mold by making the knowledge of production freely available, hence creating a vibrant market of suppliers, while allowing each producer (typically a small-holder) to flourish economically. Here’s the YDD training center to teaches women to produce fashion accessories out of Stingray-skin leather.

A report from CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) provides additional analysis on the evolution of Compartamos from NGO to commercial bank. It is interesting to note that CGAP provided an early stage grant to Compartamos when it was then an NGO, and in the report, CGAP analyzes and rationalizes how this grant inadvertently enriched a relatively small pool of private investors through the IPO process. At the heart of this analysis is whether Compartamos should have charged as high an interest rate as 89% (with a profit margin of 23.6%) to its borrowers. Compartamos has defended this as a strategy to fuel rapid growth in its outreach. However, it is not clear when, if at all, the aggressive profit margin would be racheted down to make borrowing more accessible. Furthermore, the increased commercial interest in the company, which now have raised expectations from the IPO, put it at odds with the original social mission of Compartamos.

Some other questions to ponder:

• How does one grow a social enterprise and not “sell out” on the social mission while scaling the organization’s work through commercially-minded partnerships?
• How do you justify “taxing” your early beneficiaries in the interest of expanding your social impact to future ones?