Businesses can support in many ways, here are 2 options to start with:
Option 1: By their core business – identifying societal challenges that connect with their core business and developing the products and services that can address them
Option 2: By working with their community’s challenges – collaborators, their families, providers, neighbours, municipalities, government…
• Ex. Can identify which societal challenges their leadership and/or collaborators value the most. Sometimes it is even “hidden” in the culture of the company…
• ex 2. Can identify a societal challenge that their community is facing deeply – ex. Wildfires
My preference goes to option 1 is via the core business, but it’s not always easy. And sometimes in includes a mix of both avenue or companies start with 2 and then later move forward to option 1.
Looking within
Another area where businesses can support social innovation is via their procurement and supply chain approach. Businesses can identify areas where they can buy goods and services from social businesses and even find opportunities to collaborate with them to generate new social innovation opportunities and ideas.
Businesses can encourage and support social innovation through various approaches, which can bring several benefits: Some are incentivizing social innovation, collaborating, fostering an inclusive approach, and supporting employee-driven initiatives.
What do I mean, firstly, a business can provide incentives such as grants, funding, or awards to employees, entrepreneurs, or external partners who come up with innovative solutions to social challenges. This can motivate individuals and teams to actively engage in social innovation efforts. It will also harness the creativity and passion of employees, leading to innovative solutions that align with the company’s values and goals.
Connect Innovation & ESG goals to core business activity as opposed to treating them as silos.
Based on my experience at YBI, a global network of expert organisations in some 50 countries supporting underserved young people to turn their ideas into successful businesses, I will share relevant examples insights and our work in this space.
At YBI, we believe in the power of young entrepreneurs to be a force for good and address some of the greatest social, environmental and economic challenges of our time. Across our global network, we see young entrepreneurs build businesses with a social or environmental mission, combining profit with purpose. Young entrepreneurs have a critical role to play as they are creating businesses of the future.
Young entrepreneurs’ desire to solve social and environmental issues through their businesses is also evidenced in our latest report ‘Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs: What they think, how they work, and what sets them apart’, Which looks at the differences between entrepreneurial behaviours of those over and under 35. Based on a survey of over 1,000 adult UK business owners, directors, and self-employed people, the report found that:
- 41% of young entrepreneurs say their business focuses on promoting diversity and social good, even if that comes at the expense of profit
- 39% of young entrepreneurs say their business’s primary aim is to solve a social or environmental problem
- 51% of young entrepreneurs choose suppliers which do good for society, even if they cost more or they have to compromise in some other way
Culture of innovation: Businesses can create a work environment that encourages creativity, risk-taking and experimentation. This can be achieved through training and development programs, team-building activities, and rewarding innovative ideas.
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Collaborating with external stakeholders, such as social enterprises, non-profits, and government agencies, can help businesses whose expertise lies elsewhere, identify social problems, and contribute to solutions. This can lead to new products, services or business models that meet social needs and generate economic value.
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Provide resources and support: Businesses can allocate resources, such as time, funding, and expertise, to support social innovation initiatives – whether that be external or internal.
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Measure and communicate impact of their social innovation initiatives to stakeholders, including employees, customers, and investors. This can help build credibility and attract new business opportunities. Moreover, showcasing the impact on a public scale can set a role-model for businesses aspiring to innovate.
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integrating social innovation into business strategies and operations. This may come in the form of setting sustainability targets, adopting ethical and responsible practices, and investing in social impact initiatives.
Businesses need to inhabit liberatory principles such as community networking, inidivudal & group autonomy, and a self directed approach to innovation. If businesses are serious about social innovation they should allow their staff and local groups to work collaboratively together with minimal oversight.
By solving problems with community groups businesses can gain insights that drive innovation.
Social innovation is made in the community and so businesses need to be apart of the community, but only through a sustainable, mutually benefitial and collaborative approaches
YBI is doing a number of things to support social innovation in businesses, including:
Social Impact is a core component of YBI’s strategy
YBI has social impact embedded as a key pillar of our organizational strategy. We want youth entrepreneurship to be recognized as a force for good and we aim to inspire more inclusive, responsible youth-led businesses focused on solving social, economic and environmental problems. This strategic aim has focus areas of:
- Empowering young people – to create new products and services that address critical social challenges, and by supporting our members to build capacity and capability to better serve and advance the goals of social and green entrepreneurs
- Build next generation of inclusive and responsible business leaders – support introduction of responsible practices in their businesses
- Unlock the potential of ESG for youth-led business - by working with corporations to realise the global ESG agenda through partnerships with young entrepreneurs
Empower employees gain new experiences and learnings and use them to drive positive change in their roles & foster innovation.
YBI is investing in social impact capability and programmes
YBI has a full time Social and Green Entrepreneurship Lead with over a decade of experience in launching, strengthening and scaling up purpose-driven businesses globally. This role has a dedicated responsibility of leading the network’s efforts to support young entrepreneurs to develop and scale effective social and green solutions.
Businesses can also promote diversity and inclusivity in their social innovation efforts by involving individuals from different backgrounds, perspectives, and expertise. This can lead to more comprehensive and inclusive solutions that address the diverse needs of communities.
Benefits include:
- Improved reputation and resulting attraction of investors/stakeholders.
- Differentiation to competitors
- Increased costumer loyalty
- Higher employee motivation, engagement, stability, and talent pool
- Reduced costs
- Improved risk management
- Positive impact on society; national and global
- Long-term value creation
As well as investing in capability and capacity, YBI is investing in developing programmes and services that support young social impact entrepreneurs:
- Social Impact Accelerator : YBI worked with three of our members to launch three different social impact accelerator models across three different continents. This involved providing support to over 120 social impact entrepreneurs to launch and/or strengthen their businesses with significant insights gleaned from the programme which were used to inform the design of future social impact programmes
- Creation and launch of a Social and Green Toolkit : As mentioned above, increasingly more young entrepreneurs are looking to develop businesses that, alongside generating profit, are designed to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing society and our planet. YBI is supporting them to do that well, and to do so, we’ve developed our Social and Green Toolkit, designed to take YBI members, mentors, trainers, and entrepreneurs through the steps of how to develop an effective social and green enterprise
- Investing in social impact innovations: As part of YBI’s network-wide Innovation Challenge, YBI provided funding support to develop an innovative agricultural credit assessment tool in Uganda to help MFIs (Micro Finance Institutions) de-risk loans to small agricultural entrepreneurs, and providing them with access to finance to invest in their businesses that they could not otherwise obtain
A1; Social innovation would require an organization being open to listen to employees’ opinion and innovation at the different levels , using a bottom up- approach, starting from junior employees since it has different meanings to employees. Businesses can therefore encourage social innovation by using data-driven decision making defined as the process of using facts to guide business strategy. By doing this a business:
- Gains valuable insights and seeks to understand what a solution should look like.
- Verify their theories and assumptions rather than rush to a solution which may not be what is needed to address social issues in the business.
- Better understand opportunities and challenges.
- Support an objective.
- Help to make a well-informed plan.
Leverage the power of Partnerships: No company can just turn the switch on and become innovative. In fact, about 75% of business innovation efforts fail. The shortcut to social innovation is through partnership, and social enterprises are the most innovative group I know of. Partners can bring in complementary skillsets, trusted relationships, and a sense of what works and doesn’t in that local context.
Advocating and contributing to the wider ecosystem
For example, YBI has dedicated the month of April to young green and social entrepreneurs. We are highlighting young green and social entrepreneurs and the impact of their businesses, the challenges they face, how our network is supporting them currently and what can be done to support them better. Throughout the month, we are hosting a series of weekly webinars digging into some key topics around how we can collectively provide the best possible support to young green and social entrepreneurs, and we will be joined by exciting external speakers who are making a difference in this space.
Collaborating with corporates
YBI collaborates with corporates to design programmes that are delivered with our members that provide support, coaching, and funding to youth-led social entrepreneurs. This spans from running accelerators, providing soft-skills and innovation training, to setting up pathways for entrepreneurs to access funding.
There are numerous benefits;
The benefits of encouraging and supporting social innovation for businesses can include:
Positive brand reputation: social innovation initiatives can enhance the brand reputation of a business, positioning it as a socially responsible and forward-thinking organization. This can attract customers, investors, and top talent who value socially conscious businesses.
Business growth and market differentiation: social innovation can lead to the development of new products, services, and business models that address unmet social needs, creating new market opportunities and differentiating the business from competitors.
Enhanced employee engagement and retention: Supporting social innovation can boost employee engagement, job satisfaction, and retention, as employees are motivated by contributing to meaningful social impact.
Innovation and learning culture: encouraging social innovation can foster a culture of innovation and learning within the organization, leading to continuous improvement, creativity, and adaptability.
Sustainable and resilient business practices: Social innovation can help businesses address social and environmental challenges, leading to more sustainable and resilient business practices that contribute to long-term success.
Hello all
This is Chioma I am a finance and sales expert ,I believe to support social innovation we need to be very strategic and imbibe it as a culture in the organisation with a target and a strategy around it
I think the most impactful solution is not only for the government to take a more proactive approach to encourage and support businesses on their journey, but by taking an approach that directly address the obstacles/challenges. I have the listed the main ones with an arguing clounter-claim:
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Resource constraints: particularly for smaller businesses or those with limited budgets.
Counter-claim:
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in impact investing and social finance, which has led to the emergence of new funding models and platforms that focus specifically on financing social innovation and impact initiatives – especially when businesses aren’t entitled to bank laons. -
Resistance to change: resistance from employees or stakeholders who are resistant to change.
Counter-claim:
a business that promotes social innovation will attract more benefits and financial opportunities in the long-run. Letting go of those resilient to that change may raise short-term concerns but will contributes to both the practice of social innovation, and long-term benefits. -
Lack of specialised expertise or knowledge that businesses may not have in-house. Alternatively, the options for potential collaborations, and which are most suitable, may be viewed as an overwhelming or time-consuming process.
Counter-claim:
When larger impact strategies feel overwhelming, there an always smaller ways that a business can contribute to social innovation without funding or training. For instance, opening internship opportunities for graduates in the field. -
Short-term focus: businesses may prioritize short-term financial gains over longer-term social or environmental benefits.
Counter-Claim:
It is possible for businesses to achieve both social innovation and short-term gains by incorporating into business strategy, adopting a stakeholder-centric approach (takes into account their interests, such as communities or the environment), collaboration, investing in research and development (For example, investing in R&D to develop sustainable production methods, energy-efficient technologies, or waste reduction solutions can result in cost savings, operational efficiencies, and positive environmental impacts, leading to short-term financial gains), engage employees and adopt sustainable business practices. -
Lack of clear metrics: Measuring the social impact of initiatives can be challenging, as there may not be clear metrics for success or clear standards.
Counter-claim:
businesses can still overcome this obstacle by adopting a proactive approach in defining and measuring their own impact metrics that align with their specific social innovation goals. Also collaborating with external stakeholders can help create industry standards, or access existing frameworks and tools. -
Unintended consequences: negative environmental or social impacts, which can harm a company’s reputation or undermine the effectiveness of their initiatives.
Counter-claim:
conduct thorough impact assessments before implementation, or implement robust monitoring and evaluation processes to identify and address unintended consequences during implementation. Engaging in stakeholder consultations can provide valuable insights to identify and address potential negative impacts that may arise from social innovation initiatives.
By acknowledging these potential challenges and addressing them proactively, businesses can minimize the risks and maximize the benefits of social innovation initiatives.
Benefits
Business performance
Climate change, globalization, urbanization, health and wellness are some of the biggest megatrends and areas where businesses can seek social innovation opportunities. Addressing these issues and coming up with solutions is not only good for society at large, but it’s good for business. Building the innovation muscle and capability to then go and explore new revenue streams, markets, business models, and to develop new products and services will translate into a competitive advantage over the longer-term.