I've heard much of the same issues, Matt. I think this boils down to a challenge around building empathy across the silos.
It would seem, the most immediate problem/question is how do social entrepreneurs even begin to discuss ways of working together with big business given this asymmetrical relationship. Experience has shown that it is almost impossible to even get them (big business) to discuss possible ways/partnerships.Could anyone suggest how through this forum we could do this? Is there also some way other than by invitation only that big business could partner with big ideas from the small social entrepreneurs?
Caroline Guyot made a good point earlier about achieving greater scale faster by partnering with corporate intrapreneurs. Is there a publicly listed network of corporate intrapreneurs that one can look at to find likely partners? I spent the last six years working in Nigeria with local companies. It was hard to find people in international corporations to work with.
From the social entrepreneur perspective, in many cases it is about finding the right partner who shares similar values. Finding the 'intrapreneur' within a company will be a more powerful alliance that struggling against a leadership vacuum inside businesses. Bringing intrapreneurs and social entrepreneurs together to co-create could be very powerful.
One challenge is that strong partnerships are typically ones with human connections and deep trust between partners. And, yet, if one partner moves on, the partnership will struggle. The question we need to solve for is how to create partnerships based on personal trust while also institutionalizing the partnership -- moving beyond the individuals.
Interesting point made by Gib Bulloch of Accenture Development Partnerships on this - that it may not help the cause of intrapreneurs to have too much profile - particularly in the early days, staying under the radar is sometimes essential to prevent 'the corporate immune system' kicking in.
Jean-Christophe Laugée, Social Innovation and Ecosystem Director, Danone was recently talking about the legal and institutional barriers of such partnerships and the need to build the field https://www.changemakers.com/co-creation/blog/google-hangout-social-business-co-creation. Definitely something that we need to work on. Showcasing best practice? Launching more pilots?
Entrepeneurs have different funding options from investors and intrapeneurs, but what about Social Entrepreneurs? For Entrepenuers it is already difficult to secure funding, specially in LATAM countries, where funding is scarce and their is a different entrepeneurial culture. How do we go about funding Social Entrepenuers in countries like Colombia?
Yes, I agree Maggie. Empathy is essential. But we think the first step is engagement, and following that, a reward for engagement that reinforces the incentive for the next engagement. People are driven to see and make connections with one another once they are engaged profitably. Before that, there is always the question of whether the investment will have a good return, and that often keeps potential partnerships from forming.
Gib, I like the approach of leveraging that you refer to. It's not new, but is still easily overlooked. We prefer to get change with our own 'strength'. There's a book based on the principles of aikido (related to judo) that illustrates this well - "Giving in to get your way" by Terry Dobson.
Hi Julian - we are just starting the early stages to help develop a network of more visible intrapreneurs through http://www.leagueofintrapreneurs.com We ran a competition last year where you can see entries for a number of intrapreneurs globally http://www.changemakers.com/intrapreneurs
We are trying to build it with the various partners involved in this conversation. We want to create 2 strong communities, but not ones that would supported separately. It's important to bring together as working to achieve similar social impact.
1st step would be to build best practice and showcase successful examples that exist out there. Which are the strong alliances that exist out there - key challenges and opportunities?
2nd step: build a strong community of peers that work across sectors.
Although a partnership may appear 'impossible' due to the institutional differences, it is possible. Tip: appeal to the emotions of a senior executive. I did this with PZ Cussons and now they are marketing one of their soaps in Nigeria specifically as a hand-wash soap to counter diarrhoea in children. A big company moved to action by a persuasive conversation with a powerful senior executive.
Don't you think that if they get a community they can relate too, this won't be a problem any more as they could be represented as lead examples for positive change and raise the company's profile at the same time?
I absolutely agree Matt. This is especially true as nonprofit start to become more corporate savvy and visionary in their work. Particularly, in becoming financial healthy and strategic in discovering revenue streams through social enterprise opportunities. Nonprofits are businesses. My hope is that one day the two are looked at as one in the same. But there is still work to be done - every socially responsible corporation has a public service or community awareness agenda and it should include a nonprofit. This is the clear mutual benefit but it must be communicated consistently as leadership changes at these corporations and the focus on giving back fades overtime.
Ponciano - that's a great point. We need to give more thought to how we can leverage this platform to help. Do you have any suggestions?
Zahid I certainly agree that the right personal connections lead to further engagement. Sponsoring open-ended (and multi-sector) networking opportunities is something we do to encourage and deepen these connections. We also encourage and try to reward the participation in our network of multiple staff members of each organization, agency or business. Often it is the marketing and PR people of each org---and not the CEOs---who make the first and best connections.
I thoroughly agree Maggie; inspiration is key to this sort of work. It is difficult enough to be successful at scale, and so one needs to feel inspired.
Hi
I believe that a great deal depends on trust and this takes time and it is key, in the area that I work the turnover of people in the corporte institution is high, so this imply start again almost every 2 years...
Institutional memory is lacking sometimes among corporates, but I find this although hard it is great when it works because in many ways our job is to engage with this sector and make them our partners and in fairtrade and ethical we are working for the long run..
I work in fairtrade fashion and ethical purchasing.
Hi all. One challenge I've witnessed is individual/personal/psychological. A social entrepreneur has been working on tough issues of poverty for many years, struggling to raise funds and recruit allies, earning a pittance, and now she is told that she could have much more impact working with highly paid, comfortable professionals wearing nice suits from a company. The kinds of questions this brings up internally within a person don't exactly send them into partnership negotiations with the utmost confidence.
Also wanted to bring up a challenge associated with the idea that social entrepreneurs can more easily take on risk. The next question is about reward. How can we structure partnerships so that the social entrepreneur reaps enough of the reward if/when a company helps to scale up her idea? Many companies assume that the social or environmental impact is enough of a reward for a social entrepreneur, but I'm not sure this is fair. We all need financial security. In addition, social entrepreneurs, like business ones, might like to have at least a proportional windfall they could invest in their next venture.