May 15, 2011 | Read Time: 5 minutes
Social entrepreneurship is one of the hottest concepts in Washington and state capitols these days as deficit battles intensify. Nothing is quite so alluring as the promise of doing something new to solve age-old problems, especially if it saves money in lean times.
The only problem is that most of the world does not have a clue about what the term means. Say the word “social entrepreneurship” outside the tightknit community of insiders who use it, and many think “social media.” Even President Obama avoided the term when he created his $50-million Social Innovation Fund—it is just too hard to explain.
Without a definition of social entrepreneurship that embraces other key ways to drive social change, the term becomes just another buzzword for anything new.
At best, social entrepreneurship creates the fantasy that solving intractable problems is only one mad scientist away; at worst, it reinforces the budget-cutter’s illusion that anything old cannot be worth saving.
Nevertheless, social entrepreneurs are still intensely loyal to the term as a way to capture what the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter called the new combinations of ideas that sweep away the status quo. Starting with an admirable belief that there is no such thing as an intractable social problem, many social entrepreneurs share three illusions about their role in social change that undermines its value for shaping long-overdue change.
First, too many social entrepreneurs believe their work is the only hope for a better world. However, virtually every great social breakthrough in modern times has involved a mix of change agents that includes not just the social entrepreneurs who invent new solutions to old problems but also:
- “Social stewards” who carry out, spread, and fine-tune innovative practices.
- “Social explorers” who measure what works, monitor trends, and alert the world to eminent threats.
- “Social advocates” who often lead the fight against a well-armed status quo.
There is little evidence that social entrepreneurship is either the only or even the initial spark for change. Nor is there much evidence that social entrepreneurs do best when they avoid collaboration that drives great breakthroughs. To the contrary, history clearly suggests that social entrepreneurs need all the help they can get.
That is not to suggest that social entrepreneurs are unimportant to the urgent threats on the horizon.
But rare are the social entrepreneurs with the experience and resources to act as inventor, steward, explorer, and advocate within the confines of their mostly small, new, and almost always vulnerable organizations. Their greatest strength is producing the new combinations of ideas that promote an end to misery, not managing day-to-day operations and spreading proven ideas, activating networks and alliances, or defending their breakthroughs once they are put in place.
Can social entrepreneurs find others to fill their roles? Absolutely. Should social entrepreneurs use their creativity to build this capacity at their organizations? The answer is not at all clear, especially since doing so takes time that the world cannot spare.
Second, many social entrepreneurs define themselves by what they are not and tend to ignore the differences between business and social change. Bring a new business product such as the smartphone to market, and the Flip camera is gone forever.
But bring a new social product such as the Harlem Children’s Zone or Teach for America into the world, and the prevailing wisdom about how communities grow and children learn often fights back.
Old ideologies about poverty, hunger, disease, and intolerance rarely die, and they almost never fade away. As the 2010 mid-term elections proved, they live to fight another day.
Does that mean social entrepreneurship is apolitical? Yes and no. On the one hand, many social entrepreneurs are studiously detached from politics, while others enter politics only to take on the status quo.
Even so, social entrepreneurship has produced its share of mostly Democratic candidates, not the least of which is City Year’s co-founder, Alan Khazei, who fought (unsuccessfully) for the party’s nomination to fill Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat in 2010.
Moreover, politics always plays a role in disrupting industries that reap windfalls from social, political, and economic pain through abusive lending, environmental abuse, intolerance and desperate need, if only because doing so often implies tax increases, new regulations, and aggressive enforcement.
Third, many social entrepreneurs promote the idea that the only effective leaders of social change are the “Type A” lone wolves who labor mightily against the odds. These individuals deserve accolades for their obsession, perseverance, and grit.
But plenty of “Type B” entrepreneurs, people who like to work collegially, successfully operate in teams that reach well beyond the heroic model, and even “Type C” entrepreneurs can come together through the kind of spontaneous leaderless combustion that is remaking the Middle East.
Indeed, recent research suggests that innovations devised by teams are not only more successful in producing breakthroughs but also more effective in preventing failures.
This is not to say lone wolves never succeed, but teams have special advantages in winnowing bad ideas, finding new combinations of old ideas, and creating efforts that succeed.
Is there a better phrase for social entrepreneurship that might create a more insightful way to talk and think about what it really means to be an effective leader who can promote social change?
President Obama certainly thought so when he used “social impact” to announce a new bond fund in his 2011 budget, but that term raises the same questioning glance. “Civic entrepreneurship” might work, too, but it contains that word “entrepreneurship” again.
Perhaps “public service” is the answer. Although the term has a checkered past linked to government bureaucracy, it can be broadly defined as any action to challenge the prevailing wisdom about intractable problems.
Instead of restricting public service to serve as a synonym for government, the term actually captures everything from occasional volunteering all the way to lives of service as social entrepreneurs, stewards, explorers, and advocates.
It also invites individuals, teams, organizations, and even crowds to do their part in creating lasting progress and can also take place just about anywhere—from the streets of Tunisia to seemingly moribund government agencies, corporate social-responsibility divisions, and ancient nonprofits.
If words matter, why not choose a term that imagines many paths to social change? And why not a term that embraces the active defense of established programs that work?
Instead of emphasizing social entrepreneurship as the favored option for changing the world, public service says, “just do it” in whatever way possible.
