nonprofit
2008-05-06
How social entrepreneurship helps government Part I: Leveraging Public & Private Resources - ITNAmerica (continued from last week)
Filed Under:
Transformative, Financially Sustainable Innovation
ITNAmerica provides rides in private cars available 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, with “door-through-door” service using a combination of paid and volunteer drivers. Taking a limited-market approach, ITNAmerica charges a nominal one-time membership fee of $35 and about 50 percent of the cost of a taxi for each ride. Payments must be made for every ride, but no money changes hands in the vehicle. Seniors fund personal transportation accounts in advance and receive a monthly statement by mail.
In embarking on an ambitious five-year growth strategy, ITNAmerica has been efficient in leveraging private resources. According to founder Katherine Freund, “We have a very flexible approach to resources. We say money is one kind of resource, but there are other kinds of assets that have economic value. And if we can find a way to capture different kinds of economic value, then we can use those resources also to pay for rides.” Volunteer drivers make up about 40 to 60 percent of the driving team. This helps the organization keep costs manageable, and offers seniors a way to subsidize the cost of their own rides. Many of the volunteers who are over the age of 60 contribute their own volunteer driving time through ITNAmerica’s Transportation Social Security program, building up credits in their personal transportation accounts for their own future use while they are still safe and healthy to transport others. Family members also supply volunteer time and make in-kind contributions of their driving credits to their relatives who are using the service. Seniors may trade their personal vehicles when they are no longer able to use them and apply the liquidated equity to fund their personal transportation accounts. The donated vehicles are often used to deliver rides.
Societal Benefits
ITNAmerica has developed a highly efficient model that ultimately funds itself. When the organization starts an affiliate program in a new city, it limits the amount of public funding it accepts to 50 percent or less of the capital necessary. Moreover, no public funds may be used for day-to-day operations, because ongoing use of public funds crowds out the development of the private community support so essential for long-term sustainability. Freund explains, “Most of the resources for transportation are private. If you don’t have a model that is built to access them, then you’ll fall into the pattern of being one of many providers in a turf war over the public dollars.” She notes that while many social problems require ongoing public support, senior transport—which targets a population willing and able to pay modest fees—is not one of them. Once ITNAmerica affiliates reach their full capacity, the public funding that helped to get them started can be directed to other needs. As a result, ITNAmerica leverages minimal initial support from government to meet the transportation needs of older Americans across the country.
Learn how KaBOOM! has leveraged public and private resources to build nearly 2,000 new playgrounds in underserved communities.
Next week: How social entrepreneurship helps government Part II: Testing & Developing Solutions
ITNAmerica provides rides in private cars available 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, with “door-through-door” service using a combination of paid and volunteer drivers. Taking a limited-market approach, ITNAmerica charges a nominal one-time membership fee of $35 and about 50 percent of the cost of a taxi for each ride. Payments must be made for every ride, but no money changes hands in the vehicle. Seniors fund personal transportation accounts in advance and receive a monthly statement by mail.
In embarking on an ambitious five-year growth strategy, ITNAmerica has been efficient in leveraging private resources. According to founder Katherine Freund, “We have a very flexible approach to resources. We say money is one kind of resource, but there are other kinds of assets that have economic value. And if we can find a way to capture different kinds of economic value, then we can use those resources also to pay for rides.” Volunteer drivers make up about 40 to 60 percent of the driving team. This helps the organization keep costs manageable, and offers seniors a way to subsidize the cost of their own rides. Many of the volunteers who are over the age of 60 contribute their own volunteer driving time through ITNAmerica’s Transportation Social Security program, building up credits in their personal transportation accounts for their own future use while they are still safe and healthy to transport others. Family members also supply volunteer time and make in-kind contributions of their driving credits to their relatives who are using the service. Seniors may trade their personal vehicles when they are no longer able to use them and apply the liquidated equity to fund their personal transportation accounts. The donated vehicles are often used to deliver rides.
Societal Benefits
ITNAmerica has developed a highly efficient model that ultimately funds itself. When the organization starts an affiliate program in a new city, it limits the amount of public funding it accepts to 50 percent or less of the capital necessary. Moreover, no public funds may be used for day-to-day operations, because ongoing use of public funds crowds out the development of the private community support so essential for long-term sustainability. Freund explains, “Most of the resources for transportation are private. If you don’t have a model that is built to access them, then you’ll fall into the pattern of being one of many providers in a turf war over the public dollars.” She notes that while many social problems require ongoing public support, senior transport—which targets a population willing and able to pay modest fees—is not one of them. Once ITNAmerica affiliates reach their full capacity, the public funding that helped to get them started can be directed to other needs. As a result, ITNAmerica leverages minimal initial support from government to meet the transportation needs of older Americans across the country.
Learn how KaBOOM! has leveraged public and private resources to build nearly 2,000 new playgrounds in underserved communities.
Next week: How social entrepreneurship helps government Part II: Testing & Developing Solutions
2008-04-29
How social entrepreneurship helps government Part I: Leveraging Public & Private Resources
Filed Under:
As new contributors in the realm of social problem solving, social entrepreneurs have come to serve as resources for government as it addresses social problems to improve the lives of Americans. As Citizens Schools Co-founder and CEO Eric Schwarz explains, “The best social entrepreneurs have great results. Government is looking at ways to get results at low costs. Social entrepreneurs can help them achieve this. They can test new ideas and innovations, and partner with government to bring successful ones to scale.”
Government leaders continually face pressures to allocate limited tax revenues to address pressing societal needs, and many have achieved a great degree of success. While social entrepreneurs will never take the place of government, conversations with social entrepreneurs and experts in the field suggest that social entrepreneurship is uniquely positioned to help government officials better address societal needs. Specifically, the social entrepreneurs interviewed help government improve the lives of their constituents in two primary ways: (1) leveraging public and private resources and (2) testing and developing solutions.
Leveraging Public and Private Resources: ITNAmerica
Because of their focus on financial sustainability, social entrepreneurs identify and utilize new and existing resources, both financial and nonfinancial, to help them address social problems. Often this means that social entrepreneurs are able to implement solutions to social problems on a wider scale that have previously been too costly. At times, social entrepreneurs also end up shifting costs from public budgets to private resources, thus freeing up government tax revenue to address other needs.
Market Failure
ITNAmerica provides a good example. Too often, older Americans must choose between their safety and their mobility—between continuing to drive as their abilities decline or remaining homebound and dependent on others after giving up their cars. Prior attempts to address this problem have failed to fully meet the needs of their target senior consumers. Senior transportation programs, often government funded, have typically relied on attempts to convince older people to ride buses or subways; on organizing volunteers to pick up vanloads of seniors for group trips; or offering rides to a handful of specific destinations, such as medical appointments. Finding these options insufficient, many seniors continue to drive when they are no longer fit to operate a vehicle, or become increasingly housebound as they restrict their own driving and become dependent on favors from family and friends. As ITNAmerica Founder Katherine Freund explains, “Depending on the private automobile for transportation is inadequate for years before people actually stop driving. And then people who do stop driving outlive that decision by about ten years. It’s a very big problem because of the aging of the population. There are more older people. There are more older people living longer. There are more older people outliving the ability to drive longer. You can see if you multiply those things together you come up with a pretty big social problem.”
Next week: Leveraging public & private resources, continued: ITNAmerica’s solution
Government leaders continually face pressures to allocate limited tax revenues to address pressing societal needs, and many have achieved a great degree of success. While social entrepreneurs will never take the place of government, conversations with social entrepreneurs and experts in the field suggest that social entrepreneurship is uniquely positioned to help government officials better address societal needs. Specifically, the social entrepreneurs interviewed help government improve the lives of their constituents in two primary ways: (1) leveraging public and private resources and (2) testing and developing solutions.
Leveraging Public and Private Resources: ITNAmerica
Because of their focus on financial sustainability, social entrepreneurs identify and utilize new and existing resources, both financial and nonfinancial, to help them address social problems. Often this means that social entrepreneurs are able to implement solutions to social problems on a wider scale that have previously been too costly. At times, social entrepreneurs also end up shifting costs from public budgets to private resources, thus freeing up government tax revenue to address other needs.
Market Failure
ITNAmerica provides a good example. Too often, older Americans must choose between their safety and their mobility—between continuing to drive as their abilities decline or remaining homebound and dependent on others after giving up their cars. Prior attempts to address this problem have failed to fully meet the needs of their target senior consumers. Senior transportation programs, often government funded, have typically relied on attempts to convince older people to ride buses or subways; on organizing volunteers to pick up vanloads of seniors for group trips; or offering rides to a handful of specific destinations, such as medical appointments. Finding these options insufficient, many seniors continue to drive when they are no longer fit to operate a vehicle, or become increasingly housebound as they restrict their own driving and become dependent on favors from family and friends. As ITNAmerica Founder Katherine Freund explains, “Depending on the private automobile for transportation is inadequate for years before people actually stop driving. And then people who do stop driving outlive that decision by about ten years. It’s a very big problem because of the aging of the population. There are more older people. There are more older people living longer. There are more older people outliving the ability to drive longer. You can see if you multiply those things together you come up with a pretty big social problem.”
Next week: Leveraging public & private resources, continued: ITNAmerica’s solution
2008-04-08
Definition Part II: Transformative Innovations
Filed Under:
Social entrepreneurship - the practice of responding to market failures with transformative and financially sustainable innovations aimed at solving social problems.
Transformative Innovations
Ashoka Founder Bill Drayton has famously commented that “social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.” Like other entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs are creative thinkers, continuously striving for innovation, which can involve new technologies, supply sources, distribution outlets, or methods of production. Innovation may also mean starting new organizations, or offering new products or services. Innovative ideas can be completely new inventions or creative adaptations of existing ones.
Many scholars take this focus on innovation even further. Social entrepreneurs are “change agents,” creating “large-scale change through pattern-breaking ideas,” “addressing the root causes” of social problems, possessing “the ambition to create systemic change by introducing a new idea and persuading others to adopt it,” and changing “the social systems that create and maintain” problems. These types of transformative changes can be national or global. They can also often be highly localized—but no less powerful—in their impact. Most often, social entrepreneurs who create transformative changes combine innovative practices, deep and targeted knowledge of their social issue area, applied and cutting-edge research, and political savvy to reach their goals. For all entrepreneurs, whether in the business or social realm, innovation is not a one-time event—but continues over time.
Of course, while addressing a social problem with a potentially transformative innovation is an essential component of the definition of social entrepreneurship offered here, succeeding in generating such transformation is not. The field, like any other, includes success stories and strong leaders, as well as those who fall short of their aspirations. Nonetheless, the definition of social entrepreneurship requires that initiatives at least have the potential for transformative social innovation on a local, national, or global scale. This characteristic distinguishes social entrepreneurship from other nonprofit, business, or government service providers that may be more narrowly focused on meeting the most pressing social needs as they emerge.
Next Week: Definition Part III: Financial Sustainability
Transformative Innovations
Ashoka Founder Bill Drayton has famously commented that “social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.” Like other entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs are creative thinkers, continuously striving for innovation, which can involve new technologies, supply sources, distribution outlets, or methods of production. Innovation may also mean starting new organizations, or offering new products or services. Innovative ideas can be completely new inventions or creative adaptations of existing ones.
Many scholars take this focus on innovation even further. Social entrepreneurs are “change agents,” creating “large-scale change through pattern-breaking ideas,” “addressing the root causes” of social problems, possessing “the ambition to create systemic change by introducing a new idea and persuading others to adopt it,” and changing “the social systems that create and maintain” problems. These types of transformative changes can be national or global. They can also often be highly localized—but no less powerful—in their impact. Most often, social entrepreneurs who create transformative changes combine innovative practices, deep and targeted knowledge of their social issue area, applied and cutting-edge research, and political savvy to reach their goals. For all entrepreneurs, whether in the business or social realm, innovation is not a one-time event—but continues over time.
Of course, while addressing a social problem with a potentially transformative innovation is an essential component of the definition of social entrepreneurship offered here, succeeding in generating such transformation is not. The field, like any other, includes success stories and strong leaders, as well as those who fall short of their aspirations. Nonetheless, the definition of social entrepreneurship requires that initiatives at least have the potential for transformative social innovation on a local, national, or global scale. This characteristic distinguishes social entrepreneurship from other nonprofit, business, or government service providers that may be more narrowly focused on meeting the most pressing social needs as they emerge.
Next Week: Definition Part III: Financial Sustainability
