The Future of Social Entrepreneurship

From Beyond Profit

A few decades ago when Joe Madiath started Gram Vikas, he was labeled a “social activist,” a type of rebel. Today, he and other entrepreneurs have become lynchpins in the social enterprise sector. In the ’80s, social entrepreneurship was a concept in the making; now it’s at a pivotal point. Many entrepreneurs presented their visions of the sector’s future at the Villgro Unconvention 2010.

Social enterprise in its current avatar presents a business opportunity—a lucrative chance to marry commerce and change. Two decades ago when Shrashtant Patara, Vice-President at Development Alternatives Group, was looking for an opportunity to apply his technical skills in a business that has positive social impact, Development Alternatives seemed to be the only option available. Today, there are thousands of such opportunities in the market. The response that Yashveer Singh has received to the National Social Entrepreneurship Forum, or the growing number of applications that the Tata Jagriti Yatra receives only go to prove that.

Although the buzz is around market-based commercially viable solutions for change, Ashish Karamchandani, Partner at Monitor Group, believes that we are still in the relatively early stages. We have only a handful of successful models, such as microfinance. Further, it took microfinance 30 years to scale. Creating new scalable models is not easy, but it is what the social enterprise sector needs. Another question to ask is whether markets are the solution for everything? There are millions of Indians in the interiors of the country who are still in the pre-market stage—bartering for goods and services without currency involved. Investing in these millions and preparing them for the market stage, will be key in the success of scalable and sustainable social enterprises.

One of the important elements that has evolved in the space has been that of talent attraction. Yesterday, a fistful of individuals with passion in their hearts entered the space cautiously; today it is fashionable to work for a social enterprise. According to Bindu Ananth, IFMR Trust, the diversity of young talent that the sector is attracting is a fantastic sign. At the same time, as a sector we need to recognize the importance of bringing in professionals with the experience of building businesses, focusing and scaling.

Experts’ take: the future of social entrepreneurship

The future is about shifting from fail safe models to safe fail models—to be successful, we need to throw up as many balls in the air as possible.
—Shrashtant Patara, Vice-President, Development Alternatives Group

Taking on harder problems battled by more people will separate the high quality enterprises that scale from the mediocre ones.
—Bindu Ananth, President, IFMR Trust

The sector will see some sort of consolidation, as more enterprises compete for limited resources. Mergers and acquisitions and stress on transparency and better managerial practices will be upcoming trends.
—Yashveer Singh, National Social Entrepreneurship Network

There aren’t real failures in social enterprise, there are temporary setbacks. We need to build a support system for entrepreneurs who initially face hurdles, which will give them staying power and the ability to follow through.
—Joe Madiath, Founder & ED, Gram Vikas

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