Very insightful comments by David Gergen and excellent questions by Jim Phills/SIR. One of the best interviews on the subject I have read.
But for limitations of space, I think Gergen would have also described a pioneering fellowship program in social entrepreneurship which he led the effort to bring to Harvard’s Kennedy School, Education School and School of Public Health in 2005 and which was established at New York University in the following year- funded by a gift from the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation. These programs have significantly impacted and accelerated the interest and activity in social entrepreneurship at Harvard and NYU (led by Wagner School and Dean Ellen Schall) and has created a new dialogue on the role of public policy and social entrepreneurship- given the priorities and outlook of the Harvard Kennedy School and NYU Wagner School- and their different perspective from the leading US business schools. What is emerging is a greater effort by universities like Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, NYU, Duke, Yale, Berkeley, Columbia, MIT, Northwestern, Brandeis, Georgetown, BU, Babson, UCLA, Princeton, (apologies to those not mentioned)....to have several of their best graduates schools (business, public policy, education, law, public health, medicine, design, engineering, divinity) and undergraduate divisions collaborate in interdisciplinary global problem solving. There is great power and promise in this trend of universities being interested in fusing academic brilliance with practical problem solving and in the growing link between innovative public policy/public partnerships and social entrepreneurship. Gordon Bloom
While I have admired much of David Gergen’s career over the years, the last thing social entrepreneurship needs is to become linked to big government. If and when this occurs, it will begin the decline of the movement and the loss of the very excitement and new energy he discusses. In the private sector, most firms that grow to more than $20 million companies begin to lose their creativity as they evolve further into gargantuan, but highly ineffective monoliths. The same is true of many government programs. Transforming social enterprises into giant nonprofits would be the kiss of death for societal innovation. Most of the best NGOs are quite small, nimble. They emerge from the grassroots and become able to have significant impacts. Here at the Marriott School over the past two decades, my students and I have launched some 40-plus innovative projects to improve the world, a number of which became NGOs that do microcredit, literacy, square-foot-gardening, and other interventions globally. The 16 largest raised $24 million in 2007 alone, growing to over 3.1 million poor families. As these organizations expand, we tend to split them off so that they become more self-reliant and sustainable. Thus the lifeblood of creativity flows better and new ideas flourish.
I believe social entrepreneurship needs the vitality and simplicity of structures that are human scale, that require entrepreneurial mindsets to survive. In doing so, they are able to accelerate their movement and build life-changing strategies for the poor, as well as for the agents of change—the social entrepreneurs themselves. This is not about politics, about liberals vs. conservatives. Social entrepreneurship is about bottom-up change strategies that are experimental, purposefully designed to operate on a human scale, where the spirit of sacrifice and transparency are core, where instead of bureaucracy, love and personal relationships give life to the organization and its outputs. Clearly America needs to revitalize both the government and corporate sectors. But establishing a federal Office of Social Innovation and Results would be akin to George Bush’s fantasies known as No Child Left Behind and the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. In spite of wonderful announcements at their launch, both have tended to evolve as mere rhetoric that produced little impact. If such a gimmick for social entrepreneurship were formed in the next administration, I can almost see federal employees chasing down social innovators to announce: “We’re from the government and we’re here to help you!” Some might jump at the chance for federal funding. But real social entrepreneurs would run in the other direction.
Our focus is on thinking outside the box. The mantra: “If it ain’t broke, break it.” We are risk takers, not careful plodders within society’s norms. Our work is down in the trenches where we labor in solidarity with the poor. Today the World Bank’s growing interest in social entrepreneurship, along with that of the U.N., and perhaps folks inside the Beltway are dangerous signs of an imminent takeover by the establishment.
Civil society is best built by radical innovators who don’t fit into formal organizational systems which run from the top down. Rather than fly first class to meetings, they travel coach. Rather than $500-a-night hotel stays, they sleep in the villages and communities of their clients. Rather than be preoccupied with reporting relationships, formal structures, and budgets, they are often wild and crazy innovators who are loose, energetic, unpredictable, and entrepreneurial—the very antithesis of traditional social systems. The truth of the matter is that today’s new social enterprises have arisen precisely because of the incompetence and strangled decision-making cultures of the Big Boys of business and government. Such institutions have reached the point of suffering from a kind of organizational sclerosis—hardened processes, loss of flexibility, and narrow in vision. They tend to traditional routines, operate cautiously, shun responsibility, and have become quite jaded. Inviting such institutions to now join the cause of empowering the poor by fostering social innovation seems quite ludicrous.
This is certainly a controversial topic and one about which I have mixed feelings. It’s interesting that Gergen is such an advocate of involving government in social enterprise when he has been a long-time spokesperson for Ashoka, the organization that first popularized the term “social entrepreneur” and which has always taken a strong stance against government funding. So what are Ashoka’s reasons for not accepting government funds? First, government grants rarely come without certain strings attached, and Ashoka believes these strings result in a number of negative consequences grantees. Stipulations placed on the grantee often lead to non-profits being reactionary to the wishes of government, thus limiting their ability to be proactive to the needs of their beneficiaries. Studies have also shown that non-profits that rely heavily upon government grants are more prone to mission drift in an attempt to acquiesce the granting agency. Another problem Ashoka cites is that government funds shift rather capriciously as government priorities change. And because the political winds shift in 2-, 4-, and 6-year election cycles, grantees often have little or no control to ensure that shifting political priorities match their own—hence, even greater danger of mission drift.
Not only is this topic controversial in terms of the efficacy of social enterprises, but it’s also likely to become highly controversial in a purely political sense. Michelle Malkin and other conservatives have already accused the new Obama/Democratic support for social entrepreneurship in their freshly-released party platform of being nothing more than a “political slush fund” for left-leaning organizations aligned with Democrats (http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/news/detail/index.asp?id=622). Interestingly, their criticisms are reminiscent of the left’s criticism of Bush’s White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives (mentioned in Mr. Woodworth’s post). For an interesting discussion on this topic under the subject of “Obamanomics: American Social Enterprise”, check out this Facebook discussion—http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=74425130211&topic=5608
Please help fight against more social intervention by any huge government body! David is absolutely right that at the US federal level, the government has a ton of money that could do a lot of good if “done with great care”. However, it’s not right and it’s not effective in the larger picture of our whole society. I won’t go in to the additional bureaucratic administrative costs and the additional taxation that would result, or the reality that our society is starved for community-based charitable connections and it always works best when freely given (rather than forcefully extracted via taxes), or even the fact that it’s outside the government’s constitutional authority. Instead, I’ll offer specific examples where government work in this sector is making things more difficult for us, the first being the way it has frozen my own charitable accounts:
Admittedly, I’m rather angry and frustrated about the whole situation, so hopefully these concrete stories help. Please help get government out of this sector.
I thought I would chime in as I have connections with two of the comments—I was a student of Warner’s at the Marriott School and now work at Ashoka which Nathan cites. My personal thoughts would land somewhere in between. For all the reasons Nathan cites and for additional reasons of independence for a globally operating institution, Ashoka does not and likely will never take government funding. The organizations of Ashoka Fellows, on the other hand, often are supported partially by their local governments (although the desire is largely to be freed from the restrictive nature of government funding). Additionally, a key measurement of success Ashoka tracks among their Fellows is if the Fellow’s work has influenced national policy.
This conversation reminded me about the research presented in the book “Forces for Good” which analyzes the key practices of high-impact nonprofits and I remember being struck by one of the first findings which was that “although most these [high-impact organizations] started out as direct service providers, at some point they all realized that if they wanted to create more significant change, they needed to influence the political process.” If the measurement and goal is impact and scale then I think that the most influential social entrepreneurs find that they cannot ignore government completely. They leverage government like they do business, individuals and their own nonprofit networks; it is another tool in their arsenal to achieve their overall goals.
If social entrepreneurs are not involved in the design and implementation of any sort of government office of Social Innovation then I think it is largely a bad idea. If such an office can be a mechanism to create an environment in which social entrepreneurs can thrive then I think it could be a major boost to social innovation within the United States.
Perhaps one of the greatest examples came from the political campaign of our new president. Organizing for America, the organization that got him elected and now continues to disseminate his policy goals to his constituents. It all depends on what you mean by big, If you mean by the area that it affects or the number of clients or the number of personnel (including volunteers) than, yes I believe Social Organizations can (and should) get there and still be innovative. However, If it is through centralized bureaucracy than yes, that stifles innovation.
Governments role in Social Innovation would best be served by simply creating a fertile environment for it to thrive, the drive is already there. Personally, I think the sector would be served through a new legal entity with the benefits of being tax-exempt and reasonable restrictions on personal gain, but with the freedom of action and access to liquidity and investment reserved to LLC for instance. This, can only happen through government. However, I can see why so many of us “Social Entrepreneurs” are wary of cuddling up to government, those that came from the non-profit world in the first place have developed these methods BECAUSE of the dependence on Gov’t. However, I feel the next two great steps in Innovation for the sector in particular, and the economy as a whole, would be the increasing access to liquidity and coordination of/collaboration with all sectors.
COMMENTS
BY Gordon Bloom, Harvard
ON September 4, 2008 02:58 PM
Very insightful comments by David Gergen and excellent questions by Jim Phills/SIR. One of the best interviews on the subject I have read.
But for limitations of space, I think Gergen would have also described a pioneering fellowship program in social entrepreneurship which he led the effort to bring to Harvard’s Kennedy School, Education School and School of Public Health in 2005 and which was established at New York University in the following year- funded by a gift from the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation. These programs have significantly impacted and accelerated the interest and activity in social entrepreneurship at Harvard and NYU (led by Wagner School and Dean Ellen Schall) and has created a new dialogue on the role of public policy and social entrepreneurship- given the priorities and outlook of the Harvard Kennedy School and NYU Wagner School- and their different perspective from the leading US business schools. What is emerging is a greater effort by universities like Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, NYU, Duke, Yale, Berkeley, Columbia, MIT, Northwestern, Brandeis, Georgetown, BU, Babson, UCLA, Princeton, (apologies to those not mentioned)....to have several of their best graduates schools (business, public policy, education, law, public health, medicine, design, engineering, divinity) and undergraduate divisions collaborate in interdisciplinary global problem solving. There is great power and promise in this trend of universities being interested in fusing academic brilliance with practical problem solving and in the growing link between innovative public policy/public partnerships and social entrepreneurship. Gordon Bloom
BY Warner Woodworth
ON September 4, 2008 05:46 PM
While I have admired much of David Gergen’s career over the years, the last thing social entrepreneurship needs is to become linked to big government. If and when this occurs, it will begin the decline of the movement and the loss of the very excitement and new energy he discusses. In the private sector, most firms that grow to more than $20 million companies begin to lose their creativity as they evolve further into gargantuan, but highly ineffective monoliths. The same is true of many government programs. Transforming social enterprises into giant nonprofits would be the kiss of death for societal innovation. Most of the best NGOs are quite small, nimble. They emerge from the grassroots and become able to have significant impacts. Here at the Marriott School over the past two decades, my students and I have launched some 40-plus innovative projects to improve the world, a number of which became NGOs that do microcredit, literacy, square-foot-gardening, and other interventions globally. The 16 largest raised $24 million in 2007 alone, growing to over 3.1 million poor families. As these organizations expand, we tend to split them off so that they become more self-reliant and sustainable. Thus the lifeblood of creativity flows better and new ideas flourish.
I believe social entrepreneurship needs the vitality and simplicity of structures that are human scale, that require entrepreneurial mindsets to survive. In doing so, they are able to accelerate their movement and build life-changing strategies for the poor, as well as for the agents of change—the social entrepreneurs themselves. This is not about politics, about liberals vs. conservatives. Social entrepreneurship is about bottom-up change strategies that are experimental, purposefully designed to operate on a human scale, where the spirit of sacrifice and transparency are core, where instead of bureaucracy, love and personal relationships give life to the organization and its outputs. Clearly America needs to revitalize both the government and corporate sectors. But establishing a federal Office of Social Innovation and Results would be akin to George Bush’s fantasies known as No Child Left Behind and the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. In spite of wonderful announcements at their launch, both have tended to evolve as mere rhetoric that produced little impact. If such a gimmick for social entrepreneurship were formed in the next administration, I can almost see federal employees chasing down social innovators to announce: “We’re from the government and we’re here to help you!” Some might jump at the chance for federal funding. But real social entrepreneurs would run in the other direction.
Our focus is on thinking outside the box. The mantra: “If it ain’t broke, break it.” We are risk takers, not careful plodders within society’s norms. Our work is down in the trenches where we labor in solidarity with the poor. Today the World Bank’s growing interest in social entrepreneurship, along with that of the U.N., and perhaps folks inside the Beltway are dangerous signs of an imminent takeover by the establishment.
Civil society is best built by radical innovators who don’t fit into formal organizational systems which run from the top down. Rather than fly first class to meetings, they travel coach. Rather than $500-a-night hotel stays, they sleep in the villages and communities of their clients. Rather than be preoccupied with reporting relationships, formal structures, and budgets, they are often wild and crazy innovators who are loose, energetic, unpredictable, and entrepreneurial—the very antithesis of traditional social systems. The truth of the matter is that today’s new social enterprises have arisen precisely because of the incompetence and strangled decision-making cultures of the Big Boys of business and government. Such institutions have reached the point of suffering from a kind of organizational sclerosis—hardened processes, loss of flexibility, and narrow in vision. They tend to traditional routines, operate cautiously, shun responsibility, and have become quite jaded. Inviting such institutions to now join the cause of empowering the poor by fostering social innovation seems quite ludicrous.
BY Nathan Cryder
ON September 5, 2008 08:50 AM
This is certainly a controversial topic and one about which I have mixed feelings. It’s interesting that Gergen is such an advocate of involving government in social enterprise when he has been a long-time spokesperson for Ashoka, the organization that first popularized the term “social entrepreneur” and which has always taken a strong stance against government funding. So what are Ashoka’s reasons for not accepting government funds? First, government grants rarely come without certain strings attached, and Ashoka believes these strings result in a number of negative consequences grantees. Stipulations placed on the grantee often lead to non-profits being reactionary to the wishes of government, thus limiting their ability to be proactive to the needs of their beneficiaries. Studies have also shown that non-profits that rely heavily upon government grants are more prone to mission drift in an attempt to acquiesce the granting agency. Another problem Ashoka cites is that government funds shift rather capriciously as government priorities change. And because the political winds shift in 2-, 4-, and 6-year election cycles, grantees often have little or no control to ensure that shifting political priorities match their own—hence, even greater danger of mission drift.
Not only is this topic controversial in terms of the efficacy of social enterprises, but it’s also likely to become highly controversial in a purely political sense. Michelle Malkin and other conservatives have already accused the new Obama/Democratic support for social entrepreneurship in their freshly-released party platform of being nothing more than a “political slush fund” for left-leaning organizations aligned with Democrats (http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/news/detail/index.asp?id=622). Interestingly, their criticisms are reminiscent of the left’s criticism of Bush’s White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives (mentioned in Mr. Woodworth’s post). For an interesting discussion on this topic under the subject of “Obamanomics: American Social Enterprise”, check out this Facebook discussion—http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=74425130211&topic=5608
BY Trent Larson
ON September 6, 2008 04:19 PM
Please help fight against more social intervention by any huge government body! David is absolutely right that at the US federal level, the government has a ton of money that could do a lot of good if “done with great care”. However, it’s not right and it’s not effective in the larger picture of our whole society. I won’t go in to the additional bureaucratic administrative costs and the additional taxation that would result, or the reality that our society is starved for community-based charitable connections and it always works best when freely given (rather than forcefully extracted via taxes), or even the fact that it’s outside the government’s constitutional authority. Instead, I’ll offer specific examples where government work in this sector is making things more difficult for us, the first being the way it has frozen my own charitable accounts:
http://effectivesociety.blogspot.com/2008/08/federal-government-has-frozen-our-non.html
http://effectivesociety.blogspot.com/2008/05/starting-micro-finance-in-us.html
http://effectivesociety.blogspot.com/2008/02/us-government-sets-roadblocks-for.html
Admittedly, I’m rather angry and frustrated about the whole situation, so hopefully these concrete stories help. Please help get government out of this sector.
BY David Stoker
ON October 14, 2008 09:03 PM
I thought I would chime in as I have connections with two of the comments—I was a student of Warner’s at the Marriott School and now work at Ashoka which Nathan cites. My personal thoughts would land somewhere in between. For all the reasons Nathan cites and for additional reasons of independence for a globally operating institution, Ashoka does not and likely will never take government funding. The organizations of Ashoka Fellows, on the other hand, often are supported partially by their local governments (although the desire is largely to be freed from the restrictive nature of government funding). Additionally, a key measurement of success Ashoka tracks among their Fellows is if the Fellow’s work has influenced national policy.
This conversation reminded me about the research presented in the book “Forces for Good” which analyzes the key practices of high-impact nonprofits and I remember being struck by one of the first findings which was that “although most these [high-impact organizations] started out as direct service providers, at some point they all realized that if they wanted to create more significant change, they needed to influence the political process.” If the measurement and goal is impact and scale then I think that the most influential social entrepreneurs find that they cannot ignore government completely. They leverage government like they do business, individuals and their own nonprofit networks; it is another tool in their arsenal to achieve their overall goals.
If social entrepreneurs are not involved in the design and implementation of any sort of government office of Social Innovation then I think it is largely a bad idea. If such an office can be a mechanism to create an environment in which social entrepreneurs can thrive then I think it could be a major boost to social innovation within the United States.
BY Damian Tapia
ON February 13, 2009 12:06 PM
On Scale..and Gov’t
Perhaps one of the greatest examples came from the political campaign of our new president. Organizing for America, the organization that got him elected and now continues to disseminate his policy goals to his constituents. It all depends on what you mean by big, If you mean by the area that it affects or the number of clients or the number of personnel (including volunteers) than, yes I believe Social Organizations can (and should) get there and still be innovative. However, If it is through centralized bureaucracy than yes, that stifles innovation.
Governments role in Social Innovation would best be served by simply creating a fertile environment for it to thrive, the drive is already there. Personally, I think the sector would be served through a new legal entity with the benefits of being tax-exempt and reasonable restrictions on personal gain, but with the freedom of action and access to liquidity and investment reserved to LLC for instance. This, can only happen through government. However, I can see why so many of us “Social Entrepreneurs” are wary of cuddling up to government, those that came from the non-profit world in the first place have developed these methods BECAUSE of the dependence on Gov’t. However, I feel the next two great steps in Innovation for the sector in particular, and the economy as a whole, would be the increasing access to liquidity and coordination of/collaboration with all sectors.