Hi Kat - a quick question. As we work with primary producers, solar irrigation is a critical issue (and a huge market if the price is right). I have found it neigh on impossible to find reasonably-priced units. Is Solar Aid working on this (wasn't when I last inquired). Better still to support the development of solar irrigation enterprises in SSA which we could support/purchase through. This relates to when we ask farmers what irrigation equipment they believe is necessary to their specific environment - many do the calc comparison on the cost of diesel vs petrol - but often miss the value of solar (most likely because they are simply not on their radar). We would be willing to support higher costs to initial investment, if this reduced farmers' running costs and environmental impact. Be really good to hear from you on this. Now the discussion is over - perhaps by email? gem@gardenafrica.org.uk
Great - I agree - engaging with universities and using students can be a great way to get research pieces done. At a conference I was just at we were talking about the need for some sort of matching database/forum so that students/universities/researchers can be connected with enterprises/organisations on common interest areas.
I agree that the reality is more nuanced; in fact SolarAid/SunnyMoney are both an NGO and social enterprise and we tend to use it interchangeably depending on the audience we're talking to, so I don't think they're mutually exclusive, but I do think there are many NGOs that aren't social enterprises and don't pretend to be. I don't think that NGOs don't make good social enterprises, but I do think they need to be more careful about how they interact between the two. SolarAid is a registered charity that set up SunnyMoney; it's social enterprise, which is wholly owned by the charity - I think this works well as they can have their own objectives but ultimately support a wider goal that we both share.
I think you're right, that for social enterprises who have a different funding structure than an NGO they could well miss putting impact measurement tools in place; though I think by their nature (the social part of the social enterprise), they have an interest in this, so I like to think that even if they don't have to report to donors they are accountable to their own mission and objective.
I like your points about the value chains and how they might interact differently within these structures.
Exactly! Though to be fair, we say school fees as that's the most common answer. But I think we shouldn't be afraid to be honest with donors; development is all about choice and we're still giving a customer that...
Hi Georgina, I'm afraid we're not working on solar irrigation products. Our core focus is lighting, with some of the products we sell having mobile phone charging capacity too. We focus on pico-solar (under 15W) at the moment, so I guess that the charge needed for irrigation is much larger?
Let me send you an email and we can brainstorm.....
Let's go back to same basic definitions
- Transitional business: goal is to maximize profit / performance is measured by profit (or others trad. KPI)
- Social business: goal is to solve a problem of the society / performance is measured by social impact (= what part of the problem has been solved). It looks trivial, indeed.
I think impact is the core of social business. On the other hand social business has to be business-driven to reach scale, attract human and financial resources, and I know that SolarAid is also "pro-business". Doing business means providing customers with a product or service they want to consume and get paid in return. How could we do this without market research? "you said it right: It enables us to better target, serve and support our intended audience". So both or vital!
I also agree CONILH's point of view : "We can see it on how the business model is attractively designed and presented in "sexy" websites, not accessible to the targeted end users". Who can pretend today being successful in social business without giving figures [of the impact]? SolarAid is an example among others.
So we could link business and social business in this point:
Showing the figures (/impacts) is a driving force for (/social-) businesses to attract more resources in order to improve the global performance.
"for all enterprises": of course we don't to vulgarize this topic, some traditional business are also driven by others aspects than profit only (personal interest, power, technology, challenge, access to markets, etc..). It remains the case for the biggest companies...
Ni to see all these contributions btw! interesting