J. Gregory Dees's Impact On Social Entrepreneurship
924 Words4 Pages
When I was first asked what social entrepreneurship is, my response was businesses or individuals that reach out to their communities to make a positive impact on a social issue. However social entrepreneurship is much larger than my original discernment. Social entrepreneurs are very similar to business entrepreneurs, they are people or organizations who use leadership and business skills to drive social innovation and transformation in various fields including education, health, environment, and enterprise development. According to the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurs build strong and sustainable organizations, which are either set up as leveraged not-for-profits or companies. These are also known as leveraged…show more content… Gregory Dees believes that social entrepreneurship combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination commonly associate with, for instance, the high-tech pioneers of Silicon Valley. He believes that social entrepreneurs are needed to develop new models for a new century. (Dees, 2001) Dees states that “The following definition combines an emphasis on discipline and accountability with the notions of value creation taken from Say, innovation and change agents from Schumpeter, pursuit of opportunity from Drucker, and resourcefulness from Stevenson. In brief, this definition can be stated as follows: Social entrepreneurs play the role of change agents in the social sector, by:
• Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value),
• Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission,
• Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning,
• Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and
• Exhibiting heightened accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created.” (Dees,…show more content… Being a change agent in the social sector you must seek to create systemic changes and sustainable improvements which have the potential to stimulate global improvements after they have a local impact. Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value means that you focus on social impact as a gauge, sustaining the impact even if you are creating profit, how can you use that profit towards the mission. Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities means you see opportunities not problems, persistence even when you run into a problem with your model or approach to improve a social issue. Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning means that you are continuously looking to improve existing ideas or create a new way of doing something and having a willingness to innovate. Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand means you use scarce resources efficiently and you leverage your resources by drawing in partners and collaborating with others. You understand that you must take calculated risks and that having the right partners or stakeholders involved means that the risk is spread amongst everyone involved so the impact is lessened. Exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served for the outcomes created means you assess the