Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies E-Book

Mark Durieux

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 574

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Discover how to bring social responsibility to your business

In today's business world, your bottom line isn't measured by your company's financial performance alone. Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies shows you how to implement social responsibility to your business plan in order to increase your bottom line.

This book helps any social entrepreneur gain the necessary skills needed to change the system and spread the solution, while providing explanations of the most successful business tools being used today.

• A complete reference on the ideas and processes associated with social entrepreneurship
• Provides a foundation and business plan for those looking to create their own socially oriented business venture

Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies gives you the trusted and friendly advice you need to get on your way toward social responsibility!

Leseprobe

Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: An Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship

Part II: Establishing Your Organization

Part III: Growing Your Organization

Part IV: Keeping Your Organization Running for the Long Haul

Part V: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: An Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship

Chapter 1: Social Entrepreneurship: A Calling for You

What Is Social Entrepreneurship?

Social entrepreneurship is motivation

Social entrepreneurship is organization

Social entrepreneurship is society

Social Entrepreneurship: How Do You Get Started?

Recognizing and stating objections

Taking action

Starting a social enterprise

The Beginnings of Social Enterprises

The International Red Cross

Ryan’s Well Foundation

My Life My Soul

The Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan

Moving Forward with Your Ideas and Passion

Chapter 2: Building Public Compassion

Public Compassion as the Groundwork for Success

What compassion is

Why compassion is everybody’s responsibility

How social entrepreneurs fit in

Breaking Down Exclusionary Social Distance

Understanding the reality of social distance

Tearing down social distance through social entrepreneurship

Attachment: Emotional Bonds and Public Compassion

The emergence of attachment theory

When attachments don’t form properly

Applying attachment theory to social entrepreneurship

Supercharging Public Compassion: The Secret’s in the Culture

Why culture matters

“Doing” culture

Spreading Public Compassion: The Clarity of Social Insight

Discovering social insight

Seeing social insight in action (and inaction)

Developing your own social insight

Chapter 3: Motivation and the Volunteer Spirit

What Motivates Social Entrepreneurs?

Altruism

Community engagement

Generosity

Compassion and sympathy

Serious Leisure: Social Entrepreneurship as a Career Choice

A strong sense of commitment

A sense of moral obligation

It’s Not All Altruism: Rewards and Costs of Serious Leisure

For-Profits: The Entrepreneur as Occupational Devotee

Leisurely Volunteering

Defining what a volunteer is

Identifying what volunteers get out of the deal

Searching for volunteers

Chapter 4: Communicating for Social Change

Talking to Yourself Helps More Than You’d Think

Communicating in the Social Enterprise

The etiquette of communication

Communicating in small groups

Communicating in hierarchies: Directions and grapevines

Overcoming barriers to communication

Communication in Social Development

Development communication versus communication for social change

Participatory democracy: The foundation

Communicating trends and tipping points

Chapter 5: Using Trends to Harness the Next Big Things

Identifying Major Trends Facing the World Today

Globalization of science and technology

Urbanization

Population growth

Issues Arising from the Major Trends

Consumption and waste

The nuclear family

Swamping governments

Trends in Social Responsibility and Corporate Social Responsibility

Social impact assessments

Ethical investing

Philanthrocapitalism

Microcredit and microfinance

Open access and open source

Part II: Establishing Your Organization

Chapter 6: Finding Your Focus: Civil Society’s Many Faces

Service, Community, and Social Organizations

Health and Wellness Organizations

Family, Children’s, and Youth Organizations

Women’s and Minorities’ Organizations

Poverty, Humanitarian Aid, and Development Organizations

Environmental Organizations

Chapter 7: The Ground Floor: Doing the Initial Planning

Planning Strategically

Setting Goals: The Foundation of Planning

Official goals: What you tell the world about where you’re headed

Unofficial goals: Stuff you secretly hope to also achieve

Planning on Profit — Or Not

Anticipating Who Will Benefit from Your Work

Defining a human target

Focusing on nonhuman targets

Developing Mission and Vision Statements

Short and sweet: Crafting a mission statement

A glimpse of your future: Writing a vision statement

Chapter 8: For-Profit and Nonprofit: Considering Your Options

Introducing the Different Types of Socially Conscious Organizations: Nonprofit and For-Profit

Unincorporated nonprofit groups

Nonprofit corporations

For-profit corporations

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Nonprofit and For-Profit Organizations

Nonprofits: Everything goes back to the organization

Helping society while turning a profit

Looking at the Moral Dimension in For-Profit Enterprises

Double and triple bottom lines: Adding social and environmental good to your goal of turning a profit

Practicing corporate social responsibility

Marketing with a conscience

Considering Capitalistic Concerns in Nonprofit Enterprises

Philanthrocapitalism: Capitalism with a twist

Venture philanthropy: The work of fairy godcapitalists

Socially responsible investing

Chapter 9: It Doesn’t Grow on Trees: Funding Nonprofits

Achieving Charitable Status

You Gotta Pay Your Dues

Deciding how much to charge in dues

Maximizing the efficiency of your dues

Putting the Fun in Fundraising

Ongoing funding

Episodic funding

Capital campaign

Planned giving

Hiring out your fundraising

Finding Donors and Preventing Their Fatigue

Finding External Financial Support

Foundations

Governmental entities

The private sector

Gifts

In-kind contributions

Writing Successful Grant Proposals

Chapter 10: Creating Your Brand

What’s in a Name?

Creating an Online Presence

Reaching the right folks

Creating content

Developing an appropriate appearance

Focusing on functionality

Seeking commercial support and advertising

Getting Your Identity on Paper

Brochures

Flyers

Posters and banners

Business cards

Letterhead stationery

Marketing the Old-Fashioned Way

Logos

Networking

Slogans

Apparel

Public Relations: Imaging Your Enterprise

Part III: Growing Your Organization

Chapter 11: Mixing It Up: Using Social Networking and Social Media

Social Networking and Social Media

Signing up with the most popular social media sites

The four functions of social media for the social entrepreneur

Following Followers on Twitter

Becoming a valued tweeter

Turning followers into collaborators

Networking, Online and Off

Balancing your physical and digital lives

Rapport: The key to keeping it real

Building whuffie and rapport

Collaborative Intelligence and Collaborative Learning

Committing to collaborative learning

Using social bookmarking sites to collaborate

Chapter 12: Greenroom Strategies: Winning with the Media

Why Media Relations Matters

Focusing on Your Media Outreach

Feeding the Media Monster: Producing Your Materials

Planning your materials

Writing press releases

Assembling a media kit

Sending out your stuff

Holding a media event

Following Up to Make Sure Your Message Gets Out

Chapter 13: Keeping Kafka at Bay: Dealing with Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy and the Chain of Command

Flat Bureaucracy: Keeping Things Lean

Setting limits

Staying on a bureaucratic diet

Avoiding the Tendency to Over-Bureaucratize

Having realistic expectations

Asking if you can do without expansion

Assessing expansion

Adhocracy: Alternatives to Bureaucracy

Task forces

Committees

Assignments

Co-options

Dealing with External Bureaucracy

Governmental bureaucracy

Corporate bureaucracy

Chapter 14: Going Corporate: Formally Organizing and Incorporating

Forming a Group: Formal or Informal

Introducing Corporations: Nonprofit versus For-Profit

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Incorporation

The pros

The cons

Incorporating Your Social Enterprise

Registering your enterprise’s name

Identifying and recruiting directors and trustees

Drafting your constitution

Laying down the bylaws

Part IV: Keeping Your Organization Running for the Long Haul

Chapter 15: Putting the Entrepreneur in Social Entrepreneurship

Defining What an Entrepreneur Is

Doing more than minding the gap

Identifying the characteristics of the entrepreneurial mindset

Knowing What Makes a Social Entrepreneur Different

Focusing on what is and what ought to be

Feeling people’s pain

Facing trying conditions

Being inventive out of necessity

Thinking local, no matter where

Fostering Pragmatic Creativity

Recognizing the power of story

Looking at whether creativity can be learned

Chapter 16: Leading Indicators: Leadership and Your Organization

Building a Leadership Model for Social Change

Balancing driving and restraining forces

Making sure driving forces win

Social Change and Charismatic Leadership

Switching allegiances and reframing

The other-attentive and the self-absorbed

Social Change and Servant Leadership

Distinguishing servant leaders and charismatic leaders

The nuts and bolts of servant leadership

Social Change and Distributed Leadership

Developing Your Own Leadership

Chapter 17: Managing a Social Enterprise

Recruiting Paid Staff

Writing a job description

Posting a want ad

Creating a job application

Interviewing candidates

Drafting an employment contract

Managing and Training Paid Staff

Planning

Organizing

Directing

Monitoring

Training paid staff

Recruiting Volunteers

Managing Volunteers

The role of the volunteer coordinator: Knowing what makes volunteers tick

Training volunteers

Whipping Up Morale

Keeping goals visible

Giving constructive feedback

Recognizing and rewarding people for a job well done

Avoiding burnout

Managing the Finances

Putting your treasurer to work

Cutting costs

Taking a Hard Look at Your Managerial Ethics

Talking the talk: Being honest with your team

Who’s the fairest of them all: Treating your team members fairly

Making sure you’re not exploiting your volunteers

Chapter 18: No Man Is an Island: Teamwork

Being a Team Player

Being a Coach: Managing Teams

The basics of team management

Firing up teams

Using the Power of Persuasion

Collaborating with Your Team Members to Work toward a Common Goal

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 19: Ten Great Areas for Social Entrepreneurial Action

Culture Clash: Solving Cultural Problems in Your Community

It’s Not Easy Being Green: Tackling Environmental Problems Head-on

Providing the Comforts of Home: Food, Clothing, and Shelter

Heal Thyself: Tackling Health Problems

Movement of the People: Migration and Immigration

Ways of Living: Addressing Lifestyle Issues

Working for a Living: Helping Folks Find Work

Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Working for Peace and Reconciliation

Back to School: Education and Personal and Community Development

The Big City: Alleviating the Problems of Urban Life

Chapter 20: Ten Common Mistakes to Avoid

Overlooking Potential Leaders

Mismanaging Volunteers

Getting Too Bureaucratic

Incorporating When You Don’t Have To

Failing to Spot Trends

Being Unrealistic about Funding

Failing to Innovate

Choosing the Wrong Name

Not Having a Good Web Site

Not Using the Media to Your Advantage

Appendix: Resources

Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies®

Mark B. Durieux, PhD and Robert A. Stebbins, PhD

Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies®

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Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

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About the Authors

Mark B. Durieux, PhD: Mark is an applied and clinical sociologist who teaches and consults widely with community groups and the public concerning the contemporary study and practice of compassion and social entrepreneurship. He also teaches a comprehensive range of sociology courses at the university level — everything from social statistics and research methods to social psychology and leisure. But his courses in the areas of the sociology of compassion, social entrepreneurship, and grounded theory methodology are well known for their innovative content and delivery. Mark is currently collaborating with a number of extremely supportive and well-respected academic and frontline colleagues in developing and creatively extending the last three areas.

Robert A. Stebbins, PhD: Robert is faculty professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Calgary. He has also taught at the University of Texas at Arlington and Memorial University of Newfoundland. Robert received his doctorate in sociology in 1964 from the University of Minnesota. Among his 35 books are A Dictionary of Nonprofit Terms and Concepts (with David H. Smith and Michael Dover) and Serious Leisure: A Perspective for Our Time. Robert was elected Fellow of the Academy of Leisure Sciences in 1996 and, in 1999, elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His own serious leisure includes volunteering in Calgary’s French-language community. He has helped establish two social enterprises and served on the boards of directors of several others.

Dedication

To Friedel (mom); Barney (dad); Sherry (wife and very best friend); Meghan, Matthew, and Emma (fantastic children, really!); Bob Stebbins and Jaber Gubrium (super-supportive colleagues); and the truly compassionate and social entrepreneurial friends and folk I encounter daily.

—Mark Durieux

To Karin.

—Robert Stebbins

Authors’ Acknowledgments

Books as complicated as this one always have a supporting cast who work behind the scenes to bring them to fruition. This book has been no different. Stacy Kennedy was our first contact with Wiley Publishing; she patiently and efficiently worked out the many details of the writing schedule and the publisher’s contract. She also put us in contact with Corbin Collins, who was responsible for reworking our manuscript to fit the distinctive style of the For Dummies series; this book would not have been published without his extensive knowledge and experience in this area. Finally, we want to thank Elizabeth Kuball, who edited the entire text, bringing it to the polished level of publication that you’re about to read, as well as Eric Corey Freed who worked behind the scenes to ensure technical accuracy and made a variety of most helpful suggestions.

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Introduction

Welcome to Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies!

If you’re browsing through this book, chances are good that you’re more than a little worried, anxious, or frustrated about a world that is absolutely bristling with problems. Maybe you’re not exactly mad as hell — yet — but on some days you feel like you’re getting close. It’s a good bet that you’re also feeling that it’s about time you stepped up to the plate and tried to make a positive difference.

Maybe you’ve already dipped a toe in these waters. Maybe you’ve volunteered, but didn’t feel quite fulfilled. Volunteers tend to work on already recognized issues, whereas you, on the other hand, may be dismayed by problems that not enough others see. Or maybe the problems you see have been recognized, but reaction times in addressing them seem sooooslooow that you just have to shake your head.

Things needed to be done yesterday! You sense the urgency. Doesn’t anybody else? Is it that others just haven’t got around to it yet? Is there a lack of know-how or available resources? At this point, it doesn’t much matter. Somebody’s got to do something. And you have a feeling that somebody is you.

About This Book

If we’ve just sketched a portrait of you, in however rough an outline, this book is intended for you. You may not know it yet, but you’re a social entrepreneur in the making.

Very simply put, a social entrepreneur is someone who uses business principles to address social or environmental problems. Social entrepreneurs become experts on the problems they fight — whether those are local, regional, national, or global — and, as often as not, they’re visionaries. Social entrepreneurs see that we’re all our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, and they form effective organizations to carry out missions to demonstrate that in one form or another. This book walks you through what it takes to become one of these visionaries and lays out many of the principles and strategies social entrepreneurs employ, both practical and philosophical.

Conventions Used in This Book

To make this book as easy to use as we can, we try to define each new term as it comes up. We also use the following conventions:

Italics are used when we introduce new terms (which we define shortly thereafter, often in parentheses).

Boldface words and phrases in bulleted lists and numbered steps help you pick out the keywords at a glance.

Web addresses, or URLs, are in a special monofont typeface. The link may be only one page of a larger, interesting Web site, so take advantage and explore the rest of the sites we mention in this book.

When this book was printed, some Web addresses may have needed to break across two lines of text. If that happened, rest assured that we haven’t put in any extra characters (such as hyphens) to indicate the break. So, when using one of these Web addresses, just type in exactly what you see in this book, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist.

What You’re Not to Read

You’re busy — we know that. So if you need to skip over sections of the book, you can safely skip the sidebars and any chapters that just don’t seem relevant. You can also skip anything marked by a Technical Stuff icon (for more on icons, see “Icons Used in This Book,” later in this Introduction).

Foolish Assumptions

If you’ve read even this far, we assume the following:

You want to become a social entrepreneur, or at least want to know enough about it to make a decision. You may be moving in this direction because you’re concerned about the state of the environment or because you recognize that creating an organization is the best way to battle poverty, for example, or homelessness, or the issues of hunger or drinking water availability in some far-off land.

You don’t have a lot of experience running an organization. That’s why we slow down and address many fundamental concepts that go into the effective operation of organizations.

You want to look for ways to give your existing business a social entrepreneurial slant. You have a for-profit business and you’re thinking about your corporate social responsibility and how to implement it.

You’re committed to making a difference, and you’re not attached to the status quo. You’re ready for change and willing to take risks to get it.

You’re curious. You want to discover more about what you don’t know. You’re reading this book to expand your thinking about the various ways of tackling your chosen issue.

You’re willing to put some real effort into this. You’re not an armchair quarterback anymore. You realize we can’t give you your social enterprise or run it for you, and we can’t even cover everything you need to know in the limited space we have here. You’re ready to continue your research after reading this book.

How This Book Is Organized

We’ve organized this book in five parts. Each part builds on the one before, but don’t feel like you have to read the chapters in order. Each chapter stands on its own as an examination of a piece of the social entrepreneurial puzzle.

Part I: An Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship

In Part I, we introduce the fundamental concepts of social entrepreneurship and the social context within which it takes place. Compassion is at the heart of social enterprises, and it’s the main theme of Chapter 2. Motivation is another important component, and Chapter 3 presents a set of ideas and concepts aimed at helping you understand what motivates people to become social entrepreneurs.

Social entrepreneurship is almost always a group effort, and in Chapter 4 we cover the vital issue of communication within an enterprise. The final chapter in this part, Chapter 5, examines the multitude of trends that currently bear on social entrepreneurship. They can subtly influence how your own enterprise will evolve and whether it’s likely to fail or succeed.

Part II: Establishing Your Organization

In Chapter 6, we set out a smorgasbord of areas in which social entrepreneurship has succeeded over the years, while pointing out that more work of this kind remains to be done. The intent is to help you zero in on the specific area of life where you’d like to generate significant social change. We get down to discussing the initial planning of your enterprise, including setting your mission and goals, in Chapter 7 and help you answer the question of whether to organize as a nonprofit group or one that seeks a profit in Chapter 8.

Finding the money necessary to run your enterprise is invariably an early concern, especially if you choose to be a nonprofit organization; various ways of obtaining money are the subject of Chapter 9. In Chapter 10, we look at the importance of establishing the identity of your new enterprise and creating your own unique brand; we also explore ways of achieving these things effectively.

Part III: Growing Your Organization

Getting something up and running is one step, but keeping it alive and growing requires more knowledge and skills. The main theme of the chapters in Part III is finding out how you can make your organization into a continuing success. Networking is an important strategy for reaching this goal (Chapter 11), and so is working effectively with the media — newspapers, radio, television, magazines, the Internet, and other public outlets (Chapter 12).

The dreaded concept of bureaucracy is often a necessary part of a social enterprise, and keeping it under control can sometimes be difficult, as we explain in Chapter 13. Bureaucracy is usually part of a formalized social enterprise — one that is incorporated, has a constitution, and perhaps has governmental charity status — which we discuss in Chapter 14.

Part IV: Keeping Your Organization Running for the Long Haul

It takes leadership and good management to keep an organization on course for the long haul. Chapter 15 takes a close look at the entrepreneur side of social entrepreneurship, including the fundamentals of capitalism, the need for innovation, and the development of relevant knowledge.

All strong organizations have, or should have, a good set of leaders. In Chapter 16 we explore the principles of leadership and the power of charisma, and we address problems stemming from overusing power. We give broader consideration in Chapter 17 to the management of social enterprises — of recruiting and managing paid staff and volunteers, whipping up morale, and looking after your organization’s expenses. The final chapter in this part, Chapter 18, centers on teamwork and the roles of passion and compassion in motivating effective coordinated group efforts.

Part V: The Part of Tens

If you’re inspired to start a social enterprise, but you haven’t yet found a social problem around which to organize it, look at Chapter 19 for a list of ten great areas for social entrepreneurial action. And always steer clear of common mistakes in this field, a helpful list of which appears in Chapter 20. Finally, the appendix lists many useful further resources for starting and running a social enterprise.

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, you’ll see little pictures in the margins, called icons. Icons are there to grab your attention. Here’s what each of the icons means:

Ideas next to this icon help you move your social enterprise forward or highlight especially relevant information that can save you time.

Paying attention to the tidbits next to this icon saves you time, money, and perhaps even some heartache. This icon warns you about possible problems or glitches you may encounter on the way to becoming a social entrepreneur.

This icon flags information that you should keep in mind in the long term, if not memorize, as you explore social entrepreneurship.

This icon indicates more advanced, arcane, or difficult stuff, such as deeper details or background, which may or may not interest you. You can safely skip this material.

Throughout the book, we use concrete or hypothetical examples to illustrate important concepts. Seeing the idea in action often gives you a better idea how to apply it.

Where to Go from Here

Are you ready to get started? Although you can start with any chapter, here are a few suggestions to get you off to a good start.

If you’re new to the whole concept of social entrepreneurship, we suggest starting with the chapters in Part I. Heck, start with Chapter 1, if you like, and don’t look back.

If you have a fairly good idea what social entrepreneurs do and what you care about in particular, you might start with the chapters in Part II to wade straight into ideas on forming your own organization.

Feel free to use the book’s handy Table of Contents or Index to look up your specific areas of interest and dive straight in that way.

However you use this book, and wherever you start your exploration, we hope you become as enamored and inspired as we are about the possibilities of social entrepreneurship. And we wish you the best in your future success.

Now, read on!

Part I

An Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship

In this part . . .

We believe that laying some groundwork for the foundations of social entrepreneurship before building your organization is a good idea. And that’s what this part is all about.

Chapter 1 is an overview of what social entrepreneurship is and how it works. Chapter 2 wades — gently — into some important aspects of social entrepreneurship theory that we believe can be crucial to your success. Chapter 3 takes on the issue of motivation, because knowing why people do what they do in the field of social entrepreneurship can have untold long-term benefits. Chapter 4 explores the currency of any enterprise: communication. And Chapter 5 gives you some insight into the larger forces currently at work that affect all social entrepreneurs.

Chapter 1

Social Entrepreneurship: A Calling for You

In This Chapter

Discovering what social entrepreneurship is all about

Seeing where you fit in and how to get started

Being inspired by examples of social entrepreneurs

Preparing to move forward with your passion and ideas

At the most basic level, social entrepreneurs want to fix problems. What kinds of problems? Well, what kinds of problems might you be concerned with? Some problems are nuisances or pet peeves, like overcrowded roads, outrageous dress, rude drivers, barking dogs, and telephone solicitors. Other problems threaten or degrade our way of life: environmental pollution, crime, corruption in business and government, economic crises, and so on. And then there are the problems that threaten life itself: climate change, war, famine, genocide, disease, and natural disasters — a grisly list for sure.

It’s probably true that the world today is plagued with more problems of all three types than at any other time in history. We face challenges like never before. The world’s “to do” list is enormous and growing. For social entrepreneurs, that means take your pick — please! You can start small, focusing on a narrow, local issue, and work your way up to bigger and broader goals, building on your successes. The good news — and the bad news, of course — is that there is no shortage of problems around, waiting to be tackled.