That's how we started at P-CED, first lobbying the US government, in the form of the Steering Committee to re-elect the President to contemplate a wider interpretation of capitalism. We began with a whitepaper for a new kind of business replacing greed with compassion.

Breaking entirely with the nonprofit tradition we adopted an approach as a for profit business which leveraged development aid funding as investment capital. This gave us the opportunity to source a project in Russia managed by USAID, insisting on FINCA as a microfinance provider.

Moving into Eastern Europe we've taken an activist position with my colleague and founder permanently resident taking a blogging pulpit provided by local activists to condemn the plight of street children , administrative corruption and the mistreatment of children in institutional care.

Working for more than 5 years, in a territory not without risk shortly after journalist Giorgey Gongadze was murdered while writing of corruption) our aim, reached a year ago was to deliver a national scal microeconomic development plan for consideration in an MCC Compact for development aid between the govermments of the US and Ukraine.

As before, it's proposed as a for profit approach aimed as in Russia, to deliver over 5 years at nil overall cost by using the more than full cost recovery components from profitable business to underwrite the components which are less than full cost recovery.

Our network grows at grassroots level in the streets where we operate and via the new medium of social networking, encouraging others to consider the possibilities of doing business for a wider purpose.

We are able by means of this approach, to lobby or antagonise where nonprofit orgs are sometimes prevented from going, we can do so on their behalf,

For us it works only by being there, it offers both local insight and credibility. Win-win is the natural territory for social business, as we understand and deploy it. Taken to the ultimate conclusion , now that we have others on board understanding the relationship between poverty and terrorism, we compare the cost of doing it with return on investment against the cost of not doing it to draw the ultimate win-win conclusion with a slogan - Peace: It's cheaper than War and more fun. What we want invested socially represents less than a week's military engagement with Iraq.

For the rest, including up to date progress on success engaging governments and social capitalism, the best place to see is now on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4474165671

I just wanted to add that this hasn't been a particularly easy path. First, attempting to offer an alternative to the nonprofit model and confront politics creates hostility. In short nonprofits shout fraudsters, businesses shout lunatics and politicians do both. Yet we can compare efficiency directly, knowing that for instance the project we leveraged and then halted on the grounds of corruption in Crimea was then picked up by the UN. Their budget was 200 times our actual cost. As a business with copyright on the development plan my colleague was able to say, "Please don't do this we're making a stand against corruption and if needed we'll enforce our copyright". We may have in some way altered the political climate, it's hard to know but we do know that the zero-tolerance stance has gained traction in the last 5 years.

This by the way is just one social entrepreneur working with my support in a very lean and tightly focused effort. So lean if fact, that he's blocked from entering my country as a potential economic migrant.

Then he got coverage in a national paper with an op-ed calling the country to develop a collective spine against corruption, he got a spot on Radio free Europe to complain that he wasn't too enamoured with a country where dead street children are stepped over because of unbridled greed and corruption. What we didn't know was that a democratic revolution was brewing with the same concerns.

Then the story of death camps for children a closed door for the nonprofits who daren't speak about it, the childcare institutions that don't open their doors. Others would admit they knoew about it, some offering photographic evidence but they would be wiped out in a moment if seen being outside their social remit. No problem to us, aside from the condemnation for publishing the story.

The point was, that we were making a case. Not only raising awareness but the opportunity go sit down and work out a strategy, demonstrate to multiple governments that such abuse of human rights would impede their entry into Europe and that it could be resolved with a recovery plan. More than a year later we know they've announced a plan to create 400 rehab centres for disabled children, who according to some don't exist. we also know that a year after our microeconomic development paper hit them they've declared a 10 year adoption project and national scale program for group care homes. This must have had some influence as nobody else was discussing it, few have noticed the announcement.

We'd love to get the nonprofit world behind us, simply for the support and will to push it through but we don't register on radar - being for-profit.

Elsewhere recently I've given an illustration of this in extremis. Ashoka with the British Council (a goverment charity) and several others sponsor a social entrepreneur network like this which repeatedly sends invitations to international conferences we can't afford to attend . Coincidentally, the British Council is also a customer of my revenue yielding business and themselves working in similar areas to those we address. It reached a point at which having waited a year for payment of an invoice, I wrote describing how this is harming us and our social mission while they promote social enterprise at our expense. It seems to have woken them up.

So, now the plan is on the table, commitments have been made. We've made the case for investing $1.5bn over 5 years at nil overall cost. we called it a Marshall Plan since it has the same objectives as the original - hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. It is an investment plan, but this time aimed specifically at microeconomic targets using tools that were not available 60 years ago.

Jeff, Thanks for your comments. A key part of your strategy is that you are finding points of leverage within larger systems to create more change than you could through just your organization's own programs alone. That's what differentiates social entrepreneurs from other types of leaders

social entrepreneurs look for ways to create more impact through leverage. As Ashoka founder Bill Drayton has said, social entrepreneurs look for cracks in the system, and then they relentlessly pursue all avenues for change. I am wondering if other social edge members out there have tried to change policy or work with business, and what challenges they have faced?

Hi Leslie

Leverage ... is part and parcel of a social entrepreneur's life!

Challenges? Millions of them on a daily basis.

But then we love challenges!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In portuguese we have a say ... slowly, slowly a dripping pipe will drop water one drop at a time ... left unattended it will eventually make a hole in a stone and the water will run through and go on its travels.

That action = social entrepreneurs! Social entrepreneurs do not run away from challenges, instead they pursue their vision ... bit by bit ... until eventually they get a break through!

laurinda

Laurinda

I just want to post from the thoughts which emerged after reading introduction by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant -

Rather say Basic questions -

>What is the purpose of Non-Profit? >Does policy change help? >Do we need to engage our time in explaining or doing?

Ours is a non-profit established in 1999.

Established with a quest that why we address anything except basics?

Today after 9 years of understanding what this buisiness of Non-Profit all about, then my answer is just do what you can as many things are decided otherwise.

1)I see when Afghan was Bombed, say especially eg: when a marriage party was hit - a simple apology was rendered that they misjudged it - their were children and women in the bus.

I stand by these bodies who never would have thought that death was calling rather than sumptous dinner.

I have no answer for this.

2) One day early in the morning in my city, near a dustbin, a young boy was collecting meat pieces from leftovers.

I was just a mute spectator.

Friends,

Iam sure so many questions are the reason why non-profits emerge and I see yes we do have to look into the policies and policy change, but IF somebody decides the future then - DOES POLICY CHANGE HELP?

When it comes to engaging profit sector, prerequisite is they are sensitized to the issue and they volunteer to involve and willing to change.

In a recent statement by a leading political party was - one of the condition for enrolement into their party was that they should abstain from alcohol and to my knowledge, some of them (who already in the party) have their breweries as resource and the policy of the govt itself is to promote alcohol consumption for revenue generation(to run the govt).

Friends, I am just typed my dilemas.

Deffinetly open for questioning and willing to explain..

Surya Prakash.

Surya, The questions that you raise are important ones

and questions that every leader interested in making the world better must ask him or herself. Working for policy change can definitely seem very removed when people are going hungry or suffering from pain that could be alleviated with the right treatment. I think that most nonprofit leaders are inspired to address problems directly and create programs that immediately serve needs and alleviate suffering. And, some nonprofit leaders come to understand that if they don't do something to change underlying systems, then they aren't alleviating as much suffering as they could. I think about the example of America's Second Harvest, one of the successful nonprofits in our book, which is working to fight hunger in the USA, where millions of adults and childrens go hungry every day. The nonprofit started out by re-distributing excess food to hungry people through its network of Food Banks. But when they saw in the 1990s that our nation's Welfare policies were going to be drastically changed, and programs like Food Stamps and tax credit programs for the working poor could have been eliminated, they decided that they had to join the debate and advocate to preserve and expand those programs -- so that they could better serve their mission of feeding and serving hungry people.

Leslie and Heather

Found your research findings interesting! ...

Within Empowerment Gateway ... we have followed the principle of dealing with individuals irrespective of where they are, who share a common vision with us. This process goes further, in that we will support (externally) their efforts wherever we can.

The reason for following this process is that we all at times tend to forget that any institution / organisation is populated and managed by people. We call it getting back to basics. If enough people can be influenced and/or supported for following their vision of doing good for others, the planet, mankind ... then combined we will start to effect real positive change.

For example. We may partner with an organisation in theory ... in practice, we identify key players within an organisation who share our value systems and vision. We then, do all in our power to ensure that those key players have the means to impact change within their spehes of influence by delivering the outcomes that are required using our methodologies of doing well whilst doing good. By supporting them, we support their organisations indirectly. We then have a cooperative process ... we are covert activists ...

At other times, we will play an overt activist role if we can't identify any role players within an organisation / department, etc ... (which happens more often than we like)

What we do constantly, is maintaining our vision and mission in focus ... our purpose in life and always accountable. Not an easy route or path.

You ask:

1. How can social entrepreneurs overcome the obstacles that prohibit many nonprofit leaders from lobbying for policy change?

By developing hybrid organisations.

1. What are some the best practices of social entrepreneurs that do engage in policy advocacy--do they hire professionals or build capacity from within?

You need to have a strong pool of professionals ... and that is one of our cornerstones.

Do they open offices in their capital city?

It will depend on their specific area of impact.

What are some of the best tactics to succeed at policy work?

Walk the talk! ... visibility and integrety.

1. What are the best practices of social entrepreneurs that work with business to create social change that go beyond basic charitable relationships and create win-win outcomes for both the business and the nonprofit?

Co-operation ... working towards a common goal, whislt ensuring that all parties needs are addressed at the same time.

1. How do leading social entrepreneurs harness market forces for social and environmental gain, and change business practices for the better?

By example.

Laurinda

Laurinda, Thanks for your responses to these questions. Your suggestions are very practical, and right on target. To the first answer (ie how do nonprofit overcome obstacles to policy change), you indicated "develop hybrid organizations" And yes, that's exactly what many of the nonprofits we studied do. As they moved into policy advocacy, they were concerned that they wouldn't be able to raise money for lobbying, or, that they would lose existing donors who did not like advocacy. So what many did was develop string-free funding sources. National Council of La Raza, for instance, instated its annual conference, which now gathers 20,000+ Latino leaders, including the heads of its affiliate network, annually; the earned revenue from that conference are more than enough to cover the annual lobbying expenses. Others, like Self-Help, which already had an earned revenue stream, went to foundations for help launching its policy arm, The Center for Responsible Lending. So it goes both ways.

Like the organisations researched by you, we have identified that we would not be able to follow an advocacy role unless we remained independent. Our own research indicated that some donors/funders use their funding ability as a control mechanism to keep advocacy in check and as a tool to get NGOs to speak when "allowed to do so" ... "they call it ... looking after bottom line and shareholder interest".

On the subject:

We have although identified, even within those type of organisations that there are numerous social intrepreneurs. We have also found that often they are blocked internally by others that are driven solely by fear/greed or thrist for power ... those individuals are often blocked in their endeavour to impact positive social change within their restricted areas of influence.

Some of those social intrepreneurs talk to us in confidence. What we doften o in that instance is to facilitate from an external and often at arms lenght access to information so that change can over time occur.

We play also the "buffer" role.

But at the end of the day we need to facilitate an "heart-set change" culture in organisations.

Show that balance equals not only social benefits, improved community relations but also ultimately better ROI's. (ROI is the language that most of the individuals preventing social change understand, the other is Reputation Management)

It is a fine balance to follow ...

Let me share a case with you.

As part of our service delivery portfolio on SME development in South Africa we have identified that automated design (CAD/CAM) is an area where skills are in very short supply. Being engineers ourselves we went into two towns (one mining, the other petroleum) and conducted extensive research on design automation utilisation. We researched what packages were being used by the engineering and design offices of big, and medium size organisations in those towns and why.

We were surprised to see a total migration to one OEM software supplier in total contrast to our original expectactions. Those findings led us to conduct a more in-depth research.

Our findings led to us identifying an organisation in South Africa (the distributor) that is using its position of power to control its dealer network. When we looked at social downstreem benefitiation we found it to be non-existent, instead we found that the chain is driven by fear or greed and is split in the middle.

What we also found, is a willingness and a want to deliver social benefitiation within more than 60% of the dealer chain ... but no access to the right delivery mechanisms.

We found intimidation, lack of corporate governance and poor ethics are preventing social growth and positive impact in those communities.

Now the question is ... how can we facilitate an "Heart-set change" in this channel? Any suggestions are welcome.

Laurinda Seabra

In my nonprofit's case we were forced to overcome that obstacle as a result of being denied funding by a certain state agency. It made us realize that we need not look at being involved in lobbying as politicking per se, but rather as an important way to contribute to the dialogue about how our field/industry needs to adapt and change to have any real impact. Looking at it from that perspective rather than as a mechanism for currying favor has helped us begin to develop our own strategy.