Reclaiming Social Entrepreneurship | Daniela Papi Thornton | TEDxBend

Summary

The speaker discusses the limitations of the current social entrepreneurship movement, which often focuses on creating businesses that address social issues rather than fundamentally changing broken systems. Using the example of a bag made from reclaimed fire hose, the speaker argues for a shift towards system change leadership, where social entrepreneurs like Cressy work not just to sell products but to change the systems that create waste. The talk calls for a reimagining of social entrepreneurship education to produce leaders who are focused on solving problems and changing systems, rather than just starting businesses.

Takeaways

• 🛍️ The story of a bag made from reclaimed fire hose illustrates the potential of social entrepreneurship to address waste and support charitable causes.
• 🔄 Social entrepreneurship traditionally focuses on fixing broken systems, not just making money or donating to charity.
• 🏢 The current social entrepreneurship movement has shifted towards promoting social businesses, losing sight of the broader goal of systemic change.
• 👩‍🏫 Education plays a critical role in shaping social entrepreneurs; current systems often teach students to start businesses rather than change systems.
• 🌐 System change requires collaboration across sectors, including businesses, nonprofits, and governments, to address complex societal issues.
• 🌱 The true essence of social entrepreneurship lies in its ability to create change across various sectors, not just in starting a business.
• 👩‍💼 Social entrepreneurs like Wendy Kopp and Ma Jun have made significant impacts by focusing on systemic change rather than business growth.
• 🎓 Universities should adapt their metrics of success to measure the impact of their graduates, moving beyond traditional business school rankings.
• 🔧 Social entrepreneurship education should equip students with the tools to understand and engage with complex problems, not just to start businesses.
• 🌟 The potential of social entrepreneurship lies in fostering system change leaders who are passionate about solving problems and transforming systems.

Q & A

What is the main issue the speaker identifies with the current social entrepreneurship movement?

The speaker identifies that the current social entrepreneurship movement is overly focused on starting and growing social businesses rather than addressing the broken systems that create social and environmental problems.

What is the significance of the bag made from reclaimed fire hose in the story?

The bag made from reclaimed fire hose symbolizes the potential of social entrepreneurship to repurpose waste and create value, but also highlights the limitation of only focusing on business solutions without addressing the systemic issues.

What does the speaker suggest is missing from the story of the bag and the social entrepreneurship movement?

The speaker suggests that what's missing is the broader system change that social entrepreneurship was initially about, which includes not only creating social businesses but also engaging with governments, nonprofits, and other sectors to address systemic issues.

How does the speaker differentiate between a social business founder and a system change leader?

A social business founder is focused on starting and growing a business with a social goal, while a system change leader is focused on addressing the root causes of social and environmental problems through various means, not limited to business ventures.

What role does the speaker believe universities should play in shaping social entrepreneurship education?

The speaker believes universities should shift their focus from solely teaching how to start social businesses to equipping students with the skills and understanding to become system change leaders who can address and fix broken systems.

Why does the speaker argue that the current social entrepreneurship education system needs to change?

The speaker argues that the current education system is producing social business founders rather than system change leaders, which is not effectively addressing the complex and systemic nature of social and environmental issues.

What is the 'hero entrepreneur' concept that the speaker critiques?

The 'hero entrepreneur' concept refers to the idea that an individual can single-handedly solve large-scale social problems through their business ventures. The speaker critiques this concept for overlooking the complexity of systemic issues and the need for collective action.

What changes does the speaker propose for business plan competitions in universities?

The speaker proposes changes such as allowing alumni to participate, requiring applicants to demonstrate a deep understanding of the problem they aim to solve, and shifting the focus from pitching solutions to pitching a comprehensive understanding of the problem and existing solutions.

How does the speaker describe the ideal mindset of a system change leader?

The ideal mindset of a system change leader, according to the speaker, is one that is deeply concerned about a specific problem and is open to using various tools and approaches, including but not limited to starting a business, to bring about systemic change.

What example does the speaker give of a system change leader in action?

The speaker gives the example of Cressida, who not only runs a social business making bags from reclaimed fire hose but also works with governments and corporations to promote waste reduction and reuse, demonstrating a commitment to systemic change beyond her business.

Outlines

00:00

🛍️ The Paradox of Social Entrepreneurship

The speaker begins by introducing the story of a bag made from reclaimed fire hose, highlighting the initiative of its founder, Cressy, who not only recycles waste but also donates a portion of profits to charity. This example is used to critique the current narrative of social entrepreneurship, which often stops at creating businesses that address social issues without fundamentally changing the systems that create these issues. The speaker emphasizes the need to move beyond just creating social businesses and to focus on system change, which involves a broader range of actors and approaches.

05:01

🌳 The Broader Impact of System Change Leaders

This paragraph delves into the broader impact of system change leaders, contrasting them with social business founders. It discusses the evolution of social entrepreneurship, which initially focused on systemic change but has become more business-oriented over time. The speaker uses examples like Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America, to illustrate the entrepreneurial approach to systemic change. The paragraph also touches on the need for a more comprehensive approach to social entrepreneurship education that prepares students to be system change leaders rather than just social business founders.

10:03

🏫 Rethinking Social Entrepreneurship Education

The speaker critiques the current state of social entrepreneurship education, which often focuses on teaching students how to start and grow social businesses rather than how to understand and change systems. They argue for a shift in educational priorities, suggesting that universities should measure success by the impact of their graduates rather than traditional business metrics. The paragraph also calls for a change in the way students are taught and funded, emphasizing the importance of understanding problems deeply and collaborating with existing efforts rather than just starting new businesses.

15:04

🌐 The Potential for System Change in Education and Beyond

In the final paragraph, the speaker outlines specific changes made at Oxford to foster system change leaders, including a leadership program, a new approach to funding, and a competition that focuses on problem understanding rather than business solutions. They also discuss the need for a broader shift in educational practices and funding models to better support students who are committed to solving problems and changing systems. The speaker concludes with a call to action, urging educators and funders to support system change leaders and to refocus the social entrepreneurship movement on its original goal of systemic change.

Keywords

💡Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship refers to the process of creating and managing a business with the aim to generate social value and address societal issues. In the video, it is discussed as a movement that has the potential to shift broken systems and achieve collective social and environmental goals. The speaker critiques the current focus on creating social businesses and emphasizes the need for system change leadership.

💡System Change Leader

A system change leader is an individual who not only runs a business but also actively works to change the underlying systems that create societal problems. The video contrasts this with a social business founder, highlighting Cressy's efforts to change waste systems as an example of a system change leader. The speaker advocates for education that fosters system change leaders rather than just social business founders.

💡Reclaimed Materials

Reclaimed materials are items that have been recovered or saved for reuse, often from waste streams. The video uses the example of a bag made from reclaimed fire hose to illustrate how social entrepreneurship can repurpose waste and create value. This concept ties into the broader theme of addressing environmental issues through innovative business practices.

💡Broken Systems

Broken systems in the context of the video refer to the societal structures and processes that are flawed or inefficient, leading to problems such as waste, inequality, or environmental degradation. The speaker argues that social entrepreneurship should focus on fixing these systems rather than just profiting from them.

💡Collective Goals

Collective goals are objectives that are pursued by a group or community with the aim of achieving shared benefits. The video emphasizes that social entrepreneurship should be about achieving collective social and environmental goals, suggesting a shift from individualistic business success to collaborative problem-solving.

💡Social Business Founder

A social business founder is someone who starts a business with a social mission, often with the goal of generating profits and social impact simultaneously. The video discusses how the focus on creating and growing social businesses has overshadowed the original intent of social entrepreneurship, which was about systemic change.

💡Educational Inequality

Educational inequality refers to the disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes among different groups in society. The video mentions Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach for America, as an example of a social entrepreneur addressing educational inequality by placing high-performing students in low-performing schools.

💡Externalities

Externalities are costs or benefits that affect a party who did not choose to incur those costs or benefits. In the video, the speaker suggests that accounting courses should include accounting for externalities, which would involve considering the broader social and environmental impacts of business decisions.

💡Heropreneurship

Heropreneurship is a term coined in the video to describe the tendency for social entrepreneurship education and funding to focus on individual entrepreneurs as heroes who single-handedly solve societal problems. The speaker argues for a shift towards system change leadership, which involves collaboration and understanding of complex systems.

💡Apprenticing with a Problem

Apprenticing with a problem is a concept introduced in the video where students or individuals spend time learning about and working within a problem area before attempting to solve it. This approach is contrasted with the immediate launching of businesses without deep understanding, emphasizing the importance of gaining practical experience and knowledge.

💡Impact Metrics

Impact metrics are measures used to evaluate the social, environmental, or economic effects of a program or initiative. The video suggests that universities should change their metrics of success to focus on impact rather than traditional business school rankings, reflecting a shift towards valuing social change over financial success.

Highlights

The story of a bag made from reclaimed fire hose highlights the potential of social entrepreneurship.

Social entrepreneurship is often misunderstood as simply starting a business that addresses social issues.

The true potential of social entrepreneurship lies in its ability to fix broken systems.

Cressy, the co-founder of a company turning fire hoses into bags, aims to change the system, not just run a business.

Social entrepreneurship education should focus on creating system change leaders, not just social business founders.

The current social entrepreneurship education system is largely designed to produce social business founders.

System change requires collaboration across sectors, not just competition within the business sector.

Social entrepreneurship has evolved from its original focus on system change to a more narrow definition.

Examples like Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, demonstrate the original intent of social entrepreneurship.

System change involves messy and complicated processes that go beyond business growth.

Social entrepreneurs should be agnostic about the tools they use to create change, including working with governments and nonprofits.

The business sector has commandeered social entrepreneurship, narrowing its definition and practice.

Real system change involves addressing entrenched problems and reinventing systems, not just selling products.

Universities should change their metrics of success to focus on impact rather than traditional business school rankings.

Educational programs should teach students to understand and work within systems, not just start businesses.

Business plan competitions should be rethought to encourage collaboration and understanding of existing solutions.

At Oxford, changes were made to leadership programs and competitions to foster system change leaders.

Students should be encouraged to apprentice with problems they care about, rather than immediately starting businesses.

The potential of social entrepreneurship education is in creating leaders who are married to solving problems, not just starting businesses.

Transcripts

[Music]

[Applause]

I'm going to tell you the story of this

bag and then I'm going to tell you

what's missing from the story because

what's missing from the story of this

bag is missing from our current social

entrepreneurship movement and if we can

reclaim those missing pieces well then

we can reclaim the potential of this

movement which is to shift our broken

systems and Achieve our Collective

social and environmental goals so here's

how the story is often

told this bag is made from reclaimed

fire hose every year firefighters

decommission tons of fire hose and it

ends up in our

landfills this company's co-founder

Cressy figured out how to sell enough

bags belts and wallets to reclaim the

entire Supply from London's fire brigade

each year plus they donate 50% of their

profits back to the firefighters charity

pretty cool huh that's how we teach

about social entrepreneurship we say

there's a system in our society that's

broken and it's creating a problem or

creating waste and so the social

entrepreneur comes in takes that waste

makes a business makes lots of money

saves lots of waste makes lots of

donations but that doesn't fix the

broken system system what's missing from

the story is that social

entrepreneurships potential and cressy's

goal is to fix that system so she does a

lot more than simply run a social

business we're going to look at the

difference between being a social

business founder and a system change

leader and then we're going to look at

our education system because as an

educator myself who's had a chance to

teach about these things all over the

world I can tell you that right now our

social entrepreneurship educ system is

largely designed to make social business

Founders so then we'll look at what we

can do to start to make some system

change leaders because when this

movement started over 25 years ago

social entrepreneurship was about system

change we celebrated social

entrepreneurs like Wendy cop Wendy is

the founder of Teach for America they

take some of our highest performing

students and put them in some of our

lowest performing schools and in

addition to reallocating Talent they're

helping to generate a generation of

young people who know about and care

about educational inequality so they can

further change the system in their

future careers Wendy never started a

business but she is a social

entrepreneur because she's taking

entrepreneurial approaches to take

limited resources create more value by

shifting a broken

system somehow along the way over the

last 25 years as the term social

entrepreneurship spread wide the

definition and the practice has narrowed

and along the way we lost lost system

change We Now teach it as if it was

simply about starting a social business

and growing it bigger we tell small

circle business that it needs to become

big circle business and in order to do

that it needs to gain market share by

outcompeting its competitors and being

unique in the field it's about winning

and that might be how the idealized

version of a business grows it's not

what impact growth looks like system

change looks more like this it's messy

and complicated and it takes more than

businesses it takes nonprofits and

governments and everything in between

because no one organization can grow to

the size of the problems we face and

we're certainly not going to get there

by selling a lot more

stuff sometimes it means deliberately

trying not to be unique in your field by

giving information away or training

others or getting the government to take

over your work in cressy's case she does

run a social business because she

recognizes that there's a problem of

waste right now and she wants to reclaim

it and show other people that it can be

done and then she uses those funds and

that credibility to do the rest of her

system change work like work with the

Scottish government to help them affect

change with their aggressive climate

change goals or work with corporations

all over the world to help them design

products that produce no waste and can

continue to be reused or she works with

us at Oxford and other universities to

teach Future Leaders about environmental

entrepreneurship she is trying to change

a

system yet people who subscribe to the

small circle big circle version of

Entrepreneurship would say she shouldn't

do those things it's a waste of time and

money unless it sells more bags somehow

social entrepreneurship has been

commandeered by the business sector and

many people now Define it as simply

starting a business with a social goal

but that's completely missing the point

of all these people who can weave and

through these different sectors because

real system change social entrepreneurs

they're agnostic about the tools they

use to create change yeah they might

start a social business if that's what's

needed but if that doesn't work or if it

it's not what it's needed they'll do

something else they will work with

governments to create new policy write a

book work with corporates work with

nonprofits be activists heck they might

even hug a tree from time to time but

these are not your grandmother's Tree

Huggers these are people who are solving

our most entrenched problems people like

ma

Jun imjin was an investigative

journalist who was so angered by the

environmental problems he saw in China

that he found a way to take the

government's pollution data and share it

with corporations abroad so that those

corporations could see if the factories

they were hiring were causing

environmental environmental violations

and if they were then they could put

pressure on those factories to improve

their environmental outcomes and it's

working he didn't start a business

either because he didn't think that's

what's needed but he continues to change

the system by writing about it by

putting pressure on the government to

release more data you see a system

change leader looks at a system and sees

what's missing and then they look

internally and say what can I do to

affect change but then they Galvanize

other people and those skills to fill

other gaps so that the system can shift

and the beauty of that is that you and I

and all of us can do that from whatever

area we come from it means that you

don't just need to have the skills of

being a social business founder to do

this work it means we don't just need

people to invent and sell new and better

solar panels we need them to reinvent

the systems that left people without

sustainable electricity to begin with

and all the roles in between but

fortunately for us we have an entire

generation of young people who want high

impact careers I've worked at the

University of Oxford for the last five

years and over 60% of our MBA students

say they're getting an MBA because they

want to have a high impact career which

means it's not the type a MBA of the

past who's elbowing each other out of

the way to get first in line in the

hedge fund interview now they might

still be a lot of type A's but some of

the biggest competitions on our campus

and campuses all over the world now are

the social impact ones and while our

students demands have shifted our

universities have been slower to do so

and that needs to

change universities need to change their

metrics of success because if our

students are demanding high impact

careers then we better start measuring

for that rather than competing for some

archaic business school ranking system

that still ranks schools by asking our

alumni the size of their signing bonus

and nothing about the size of their

impact we also need to change this

siloed thinking these courses are for

accountants these are for marketing

professionals oh and people who want to

change the change the world well take

these entrepreneurship courses and and a

few social impact metric courses on top

system change needs to be this

generation's core work it's far too

important to leave up to a few social

business Founders every accounting

course should include accounting for

externalities every marketing course can

introduce social marketing every

entrepreneurship course can teach our

students to measure more than

money

but but if we want our students to break

out of a broken system

well then we need to teach them to that

there's a system to break and right now

we're talking about it as if there's a

problem in the world they just need to

start a social business and grow it

really big and they can solve the

problem which completely ignores all the

other efforts out there that they can

learn from and build upon and they see

that all the accolades have to do with

social business founding so they're

applying to universities saying I want

to be a social entrepreneur I just need

to figure out my issue and my business

model what they don't realize is that

real system change leaders

don't wake up every morning saying man I

am so excited to be a social business

founder no they wake up and they are so

angry about something in the world that

they really care about and want to

change or something they're so excited

about creating for our society that

that's what drives them they are married

to solving a problem not married to

their solution but right now we are

marrying our students to their Solutions

almost every entrepreneur ship course

and accelerator program ends in some

sort of pitch day where the students

need to pitch their world changing

solution and it further embeds their

confirmation bias we're spending more

time teaching them how to perfect their

sales pitch than we are teaching them

how to understand the problems they

claim to be trying to solve and the

judges of those contests often know more

about business and business scale than

they do about impact and social change

and I can tell you from having joined

and judged enough of these contests that

if the judges focus on scale over

reality an app probably wins perhaps an

app for Nigerian Farmers but it's

pitched by students who have never

farmed and never been to

Nigeria that might sound funny and I

don't hold the students to account for

they have Goodwill but they are doing

exactly what we're asking them to do

they're trying to solve problems they

never lived for people they have never

met in places they have never been and I

don't know about you but I can't get

fired up to my core about something I

don't understand so they win a bit of

money they fly to Nigeria they meet some

Farmers they set up a focus group

eventually they realized their business

wasn't grounded in reality they come

home they write a blog they get credit

for their course and they go work for a

consulting

firm we need to marry students to

solving problems we also need to think

about what about those people in the

focus group whose expectations were set

up and what about the people who have

lived the problem who we overlooked

because we're using our limited funds to

fire elite students around the world to

try out their business ideas we have to

ask ourselves some really tough

questions those are some of the

questions I asked when I did research

and wrote a report last year called

tackling hero preneurship where I looked

at how we can move from the hero preneur

to the system change leader and because

I was in a position to be designing

social entrepreneurship courses I got to

try out some of the ideas and here's

what we found most social

entrepreneurship courses right now give

students one tool start a social

business they don't teach students how

to understand an apprentice with

problems they haven't lived and they're

asking them to solve before they ask

them to understand and they're not

teaching students about systems about

how other efforts can be built upon

learn from and contributed to if we can

shift those things well then we can

shift our broken social entrepreneurship

education system and create more system

change

leaders at Oxford we did a few things

first we started a leadership program

where we cross-pollinated our mbas with

the Masters and PhD students and we

didn't teach them about how to start a

social business we gave them leadership

skills so they could use those skills

however they wanted to attack problems

in the future there are so many

accelerator programs right now that ask

students to apply with their world

changing business idea and then they

spend all this time to try and start

this business even though we know

businesses in general are more likely to

fail than scale what if we had had the

same number of system change leader

accelerator programs where student

applied with an issue they cared about

and what they knew and what they didn't

know yet and they could spend the time

to learn more about the issue figure out

how they might contribute and figure out

how to get others to create change

that's the potential of our social

entrepreneurship education we also need

to rethink these business plan

competitions at Oxford we made three

changes first we opened it up to alumni

and in essence what we were saying to

our our current students is you don't

need to start a social business the day

you graduate if you don't know about

homelessness and it's an issue you care

about don't start a homelessness social

Enterprise tomorrow go work for one or

volunteer there on the side learn ask

questions and eventually you will find a

U-shaped hole in the world where you can

use your unique skills to contribute to

change and if at that time it happens to

be that you're going to start a venture

come back to us then secondly we said if

you have not lived the problem that you

are trying to solve and can't prove that

you have apprenticed with it you can't

apply for startup funding but you can

apply for our new funding called

apprenticing with a problem funding

because what we realized is that at

almost every University there's only one

pot of funding for those who want to

improve the world so students are

knowingly pitching half-baked ideas just

so they can get the foot in the door

with apprenticing with the problem

funding they can go out do research get

a job get an internship and start on

their

path third we created a new competition

internally we call it an unbs plan

competition and we're running it at 24

universities students no longer need to

pitch their solution to the world's

problems it's based on the open- source

impact gaps canvas and students now

pitch their understanding of the problem

what's happening what are the numbers

what's going on why is it still

entrenched and then they explain their

understanding of the current Solutions

what's already being tried what models

are out there what's working what's not

and then they look at the gaps and it

might sound obvious that someone who

wants to solve a problem might look at

what's already being tried but that

might be common sense it's not common

practice and as Educators we need to

give our students tools like this and

incentivize them to learn before they

try to

solve we also need to stop asking

competition questions questions like who

are your competitors how are you better

how are you unique and start asking

collaboration questions like how is what

you're proposing

going to fit into the system that's

already there how are you learning from

others who have already tried to solve

this and how are you contributing to

their impact not just your

own then we can start to fund some

people who are married to solving a

problem people like Laura Laura won some

of our apprenticing with a problem

funding last year she's from Hawaii and

she really cares about the issue of

preserving indigenous cultures while

improving their economic opportunities

and she realized that that there was a

number of organizations in New Zealand

that had done just that so she used her

funds to go to New Zealand for a few

months and work with some Maui

organizations and she's now taking that

knowledge back to Hawaii to share it

across the social sector there that is

the potential that we have as social

impact Educators to find people who are

married to solving a problem and Laura

said she never would have applied for

funding if it was about starting a

social business cuz she doesn't want to

start a business she wants to solve a

problem and change a system which brings

us back to this bag and to Cressy there

were two things missing with her story

in the beginning first cressie didn't

just fall into this work she has cared

about our Waste Systems since she was a

young girl and she would go to the

garbage dump with her father and see

beautiful and useful things that we had

all thrown away and she wanted to change

that so she spent her education and her

early career learning about that waist

system and secondly she's not just a

social business founder she's a system

change leader she's doing everything in

her power to change the system so that

other young girls don't need to see that

waste to begin with but she can't do it

alone we need a heck of a lot more

cresis we are so close there is so much

momentum and interest in this social

entrepreneurship movement and we're

nearly there in how we educate and fund

it but we're missing a few things and if

we can bring those things back well then

we can do a lot more than sell some sexy

bags made out of waste we can fix our

wasteful systems and help those young

people who want high impact careers to

be the system change leaders that we

need them to be thank you

[Applause]