Responsibility

Recently, I was asked to write a review of Muhammad Yunus’ latest book on Social Business for the Stanford Social Innovation Review—the issue will be out shortly. Yunus, the undisputed founder of micro-finance, is someone for whom I have a great deal of admiration, in particular for his insight into innovation at the “bottom of the pyramid” and the benefits of lending mostly to women. I found the book an easy read, although I was somewhat concerned by the unnecessarily rigid limitations on what a social business could be.

• First, it seems contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia itself as an open forum where opposing viewpoints are aired.
• Second, the concept of social enterprise and business dates back at least 150 years in the UK to the Rochdale pioneers, founders of the cooperative movement, and the great Victorian social businesses (like Cadbury’s) and the mutual societies. The Wikipedia entry contained no reference to these. Such historical revisionism gives me a slightly Orwellian chill.
• Third,ClearlySo has an undeniable commercial interest in a broader definition. Many of our 1400+ social business and enterprise (SBEs) members from over 40 countries would be unnecessarily excluded from the ranks of social business, although this is how they see themselves.
• Finally, there is a risk that by limiting the category only to non-profit businesses you undermine the basis for much social investment in the UK, Europe and the United States. This would be seriously damaging and seems unnecessary.

• Is there no room for several definitions of what a social enterprise/business is?
• Can we recognise that the Grameen approach of leveraging substantial amounts of corporate capital in exchange for the CSR benefits is but one approach to enabling the social economy?
• Is it not possible that opportunities for social investment in Europe and the US are very different from those that exist in Bangladesh where Grameen was founded?

What Will It Take For Disaster Response To Do More Good and No Harm?

1. Structuring Response: How can disaster response be structured to tap local community-led solutions and resources in the impact zone, foster resilience and avoid dependency? 
2. Applying Social Entrepreneur Tenants: What tenants of social entrepreneurism can be applied to coordination of agency efforts in the disaster zone to avoid tripping over each other?
3. Buying Local: How can local or regional producers of food and essential supplies become the source of same so that the local economy is not unintentionally undermined?
4. Donor Education: How can individual donors make better giving decisions by tapping the best of both their emotional and rationale brains in a time of wrenching human need?

• Deepening Donor Commitment: Katya Andresen, COO of Network for Good and I wonder: How can donors giving via cell phone or on-line be converted from one-time emotional responses to on-going engagement and support?
• Donation Designation: There is starting to be more discussion about the relative impact of different kinds of disaster response. Should NGOs provide donors an opportunity to designate what their donations do? Fund immediate needs for food, water, tents. Fund permanent housing and infrastructure rebuild. Fund initiatives to change building codes, reduce poverty and prevent future disaster fallout...

• Do you think entrepreneurs should talk more openly about their underlying beliefs or is it simply not relevant or useful?
• Do you feel like there is an unspoken taboo preventing the sharing of personal beliefs?
• Do you feel comfortable expressing your own beliefs openly and would you like other entrepreneurs to do the same?

• Setting clear objectives
• A method of engagement: capacity-building
• Critical listening
• Validation imago/reflection
• Crucial conversations
• Conflict-to-cooperation conversations
• Deliverables
• Coaching/mentoring
• Sustainability
• The cycle continues: more capacity-building

If you look to the left (I mean that literally—to the left hand column of the Social Edge homepage) you will see a rather silly photograph of me and the words A Clearly Social Economy.  This is meant as a clever play on the name of our business (ClearlySo) and the social economy we all wish to help bring about. But just because we want desperately for something to happen does not mean it will, and I have a profound weakness for hopeless causes. My football team (soccer, to you Yanks) has little chance of surviving in the top division and my political party seems to be a perennial third place finisher in a two-horse race. Is a truly social economy just a pipe dream?

On the investment side, despite all the talk, the flow of funds is just a trickle. Foundations, with few exceptions, keep talking about social investment but doing little—here the USA is uniquely advantaged because of the requirement to spend at least 5% of fund assets each year (a requirement absent in most other countries), against which “Mission Related Investment” counts. So that is relatively good, but where else would we applaud entities who dedicate 5% of their assets to their core activity as a success but in social/impact investment? What about the other 95%!!

SRI funds, although they are growing at a clip, make investments in the same large listed companies as mainstream investors—no hope there, right?

We speak often of the massive tidal wave of wealth that could come from the HNWIs (High Net Worth Individuals), but the private bankers which guard those assets are conservative to say the least. Less well-off retail investors, even those inclined to make social investments, are blocked from doing so by securities regulations.

And what of the social entrepreneurs? Despite all the hype and charisma, where are the big success stories—the social sector equivalents of Google or Facebook? We cannot blame it on time, as these two businesses are recent hits. Those which make a big difference and become household names (The Body Shop, Ben & Jerry’s and others in the UK whose names will not be widely recognised) cash in their chips as soon as they achieve scale. Will there ever be a big social enterprise (apart from Mondragon of Spain, the exception that proves the rule)?

Absent financial success, do we really imagine the funding will continue to flow to unsustainable (though eminently worthy) social enterprises in a fiscally constrained world?

And earlier today, at the Said Business School at Oxford, where I spoke at the Skoll Emerge Conference to high-powered students looking for guidance, a young woman asked me if she should not “clear her debts” and work for an investment bank. It was not just the money, but she valued the competitive, highly-charged atmosphere. Could I really pretend that this was available in abundance at firms in the social finance field? To whom do I owe my loyalty? To the keen MBA? To the sector?  To “Truth”?

Join ClearlySo CEO Rod Schwartz in the conversation. And be honest!

Last week I participated in a podcast by the Guardian in the UK. One issue we debated was the idea of a women-run investment bank. I was highly supportive and put my name forward to sit on its (mixed!) Board. My thinking was that our investment banks need more balance, considering that an excess of testosterone and an absence of diversity have nearly destroyed the western economic system.

These are tricky issues to address in print; one feels on a cliff edge in doing so, but this seems important. There is much research which suggests that women are better equipped at exhibiting balance—at being aware of and acting in accordance with a wide-range of conflicting objectives. In a financial meltdown caused by a lack of balance, are these not sound arguments for a more feminine approach to the economy—or simply more women in more senior places?

Rwanda, in the aftermath of its 1994 genocide, has since seen women attain many senior positions and the majority in Parliament. More recently, Iceland was bankrupted by a set of reckless “cowboys”—now women have been given the political and economic reins. In both cases this was not a planned or decreed handover; the people merely turned to women to sort out their mess (see a ClearlySo blog post on this subject). Do we need to do the same elsewhere?

In the social economy this has already begun. Think of some of the prominent figures in social business, enterprise and investment. Anita Roddick was co-founder, driving spirit and the face of The Body Shop, one of the sector’s first mega-success stories and a business that changed how we think about consumer products. The co-heads of Justgiving, the leading charitable giving website, are both women (Zarine Kharas and Anne-Marie Huby), and the two leading UK fairtrade brands, Cafe Direct and Divine (chocolate) are run by Anne MacCaig and Sophi Tranchell. There are some great men as well, but compared to the traditional business sector, the extent of this female presence is unique.      

• Do we need to encourage this further? If so, how?
• Could we be going too far in this direction? If so, what are the risks?

Although it is a bit weird feeling that history is making my gender somewhat useless—our position is much of our own making. I look forward with enthusiasm to seeing a more feminine economy, in the social enterprise sector and elsewhere. We have had our chance!

Join ClearlySo CEO Rod Schwartz in the conversation, and be provocative!

What does it take to lead the charge on poverty? It seems easy to conclude that people who have nothing want something, and that anyone who can and wishes to give them that deserves to be in the game of poverty alleviation.

The endeavor implies that those who undertake to help others have enough material or personal well-being to think about others: in Maslow’s terms, they have attended to their physiological and other lower-order needs, and can now seek a purpose through “self-actualization,” which means, at least for some people, actualizing others.

How the for-profit, socially responsible businessperson, the social entrepreneur, or the non-profit leader sees the fundamental relationship between giver and taker in the exchange makes all the difference in how he or she leads. That vision will affect organizational culture and determine both the stated values of the organization and the actual practices leadership puts in place to deliver on its mission. Leaderly values influence managerial practice, and can surface in socially responsible practices across a range of fields, not just poverty alleviation.

That said, they can also generate a tension that is inimical to the health of the organization and its mission. The tension between leadership presence and institutional sustainability is nowhere more salient than in the question of ends and means. Poverty alleviation is an age-old mission, and it is easy to assume that doing good in its name will at least occasionally justify doing bad. 

At the turn of the 21^st century, Enron’s leadership claimed to be doing social good, and until very near its end was lavishly praised for just that; at the other end of the spectrum on both mission and revenue, non-profit start-ups will occasionally justify primitive operating practices, both internally and externally, in the name of the social good to which they have committed. 

We need leaders in the quest to end poverty, but we also need systems to manage them and the quest itself. How we accomplish that end will depend in part on the answers we offer to the following questions:

• In the workplace, regardless of mission, how does one articulate and then maintain core, guiding principles?
• How do we hold accountable individuals in organizations who have seized, or to whom stakeholders—employees, customers, the community, the larger society—have granted, the moral high ground on poverty?
• How do we build values-driven organizations and institutions that go to the heart of poverty alleviation?
  

Join Sara Olsen in the conversation.

In a speech delivered by proxy in 1994, the Myanmar Nobel laureate and human rights activist Ang San Suu Kyi, then under house arrest in her home country, argued that economic development would not produce the culture of peace and democracy that the poor need in order to feel empowered and enfranchised. 

In the face of the economic downturn of the past year, the same might be said for the poor even in developed countries where democratic traditions seem firmly established, and where at least domestic peace has prevailed. One might conclude that, no matter where we stand in the course of national development, market-style economic instruments will not secure us the fulfillment that Aung San Suu Kyi’s rights discourse seems to promise.

Since 1948, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights has served as the standard for international efforts to establish rule of law and a modicum of peace and justice around the globe. At the same time, most of the signatories to the Declaration do not completely live up to the challenge expressed in the document, and the universality of the Declaration has been challenged on grounds that it expresses a Western hegemonic intent towards Asian countries and cultures. Malaysia’s Mahathir bin Mohamad has been perhaps the most vociferous proponent of this view, but it might equally be read out of Lee Kuan Yew’s complex invocation of Western as well as Confucian values as he built his Singaporean success story, and similar claims for traditional values from the leaders of developing countries in the Middle East and Africa.

As we continue to address the problem of global poverty, we will need to determine what standard we apply, at the level of multi-lateral as well as non-governmental organizations, to ensure that the UN Declaration either stands or—if it is deemed irrelevant because outdated—does not obstruct the establishment of a different standard by which to engage in helping the world’s poor. 

We have seen versions of that other standard in the proselytizing for a globalized market economics; nativist political agendas; more evolved, pluralist, cultural traditions such as the democratic institutions Amartya Sen identifies in traditional cultures; and religious fundamentalism that resurrects old values for a new era.

In order to get at the beginnings of a solution, we might ask the following questions:   

What are the intellectual property rights and social capital of the poor?

Is political freedom possible without economic independence?

Property rights and wealth underpin social organization and governance in virtually every society. Given that truth, does economic development by definition upset traditional community values and power?

What role do religious groups play in countering or reinforcing the last half-century’s rights discourse?

Join Theresa Fay-Bustillos in the conversation.

Poverty, as the obverse of wealth, has served over the ages to measure the success or failure of cultures.  We sometimes treat it as a matter of blame: the poor are poor because they cannot or choose not to be better off.  We sometimes treat it as a matter of virtue:  people choose material poverty because it generates—or does not interfere with—spiritual well-being.

We have a long history of explanations for the existence of poverty:

• Sociology:  the poor are poor because human beings instinctively look to differentiate themselves from one another, and someone needs to be at the bottom of the pyramid
• Economics:  the poor are poor because economic forces depend on a mass of impoverished workers to provide the labor that makes our societies run
• Psychology/Physiology:  the poor are poor because individuals have unequal faculties, and in a society that does not compensate for those inequalities, someone must wind up at the bottom
• Scarcity:  the poor are poor because there aren’t enough resources to go around
• Environment:  the poor are poor because of regional environmental conditions—climate, topography, soil, etc.
• Spirituality:  the poor have chosen material poverty because they have found, or have been endowed with, immaterial sources of wealth

The list goes on. For good or ill, societies usually commit to token relief from poverty when it affects large numbers of people, suggesting that we generally view poverty as a negative state, an unfortunate circumstance for humanity.

We know the quotations from ancient wisdom literature, “The poor ye shall always have with you” (The New Testament, Matthew 26:11); and more recent, secularized versions, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” (Thoreau, Walden).

We seem content to allow isolated individuals to commit to a life of abstinence—hermits, spiritual leaders—but for people at large, we deem poverty unacceptable, and structure programs to alleviate it.

Those programs will reflect the attitudes towards poverty that underlie it. With that practical impact in mind, we need to ask the following questions:

• What are the competing visions of poverty today?
• What forces condition our solutions to poverty and dependency?
• How do our social ideals define the relation of the individual to society, with regard to material and spiritual well-being?

 Join Carola Barton in the discussion.

This week is Social Capital Markets week!

The SOCAP 2009 conference is taking place in San Francisco, and we're here to keep the conversation flowing online, too.

Kevin Jones (picture by Global X here), co-founder of SOCAP and founding principal of Good Capital, talked to the Huffington Post about this year's conference: 

You know, there are a lot of conversations about the future happening around the world, but mostly they're taking place inside walled gardens. The thing that I'm most proud of is that this conference builds bridges between these gardens, and between them and the street.

Specifically, he said, "SOCAP brings together the big players and their rigorous processes with the folks who are just starting out" as social entrepreneurs.

That's bridging a gap we've talked about a lot here on Social Edge -- the gap between a bright, even brilliant, idea and the funding organization that can give it impetus.

How can we best bridge that gap?

At the moment, there's terrific duplication of effort when many small social entrepreneurs do the same research to find out what funds might be available -- and there's also the issue of the "poor fit" whereby one funding agency's requirements my differ so greatly from another's that a small outfit may spend needless hours filling out different forms as part of similar applications.

Another issue that has come up here is that of the startup that finds it needs to present itself in a way that aligned with foundation or investor interests, but tilts it away from its own driving passion - perhaps just a little at first, but in such a way as to significantly reduce its vision over time...

• What's slowing you down, in terms of getting needed funding?
• What do you need to know from funders?
• How could you most easily find it out?
• What are your questions about funding?
• Have others asked them before you?
• Do you have access to their research?
• Would you be willing to share yours?
• How does collaboration work in a competitive market?
• Could some kind of software ease the burden?
• Who will build the application that solves their problem -- and yours?
  

And to sum them up:

Who is stepping up to help make the whole sector more efficient rather than trying to solve only part of the problem internally just for their own organization?

These aren't easy questions, and they're all the harder when they're asked in a context where beginning entrepreneurs are talking among themselves -- the funders need to be in on the conversation, too.  We all want to help, we all want things to go more smoothly, for the best ideas to get effective implementation...  But sometimes we need a bridge to get across the gaps.

SOCAP offers us one such bridge.  Let this conversation be another, in parallel with SOCAP.  It's time we talked! Join Charles "hipbone" Cameron in the conversation.

What do you think "wealth" is? Do you think we make decisions based on what makes us and our community wealthy? How do you see this changing in the future?

With only a few weeks until SoCap09, it’s timely to revisit one of the high points of last year’s inaugural conference. There was a debate, moderated by Matthew Bishop of The Economist over the topic, “This house believes you can maximize social returns by maximizing financial returns.”
 
But the concept remains: what ARE we maximizing? Specifically, many many years from now, when someone says, “That person is wealthy!” or “She comes from a wealthy neighborhood,” what will they mean?  

How do we find the way to be financially productive members of society while placing *first* our responsibilities to our communities and our families? Is it a chicken/egg problem? If we do not pursue financial wealth, does that mean our overall wherewithal is decreased?

Risk management is related to this too: when someone says, “That person squandered their wealth!” what will be the generally understood meaning?  If a person of the future grows up “wealthy," how would that future person think of protecting that wealth – what behaviors will it engender?

Robert Shiller, a Yale behavioral economist, has made a career of studying large-scale risks.  In an interview with award-winning journalist Charlie Rose, Shiller explains the background of his new book, Animal Spirits, and how Behavioral Economists incorporate the idea that humans are, after all, human. (A full transcript of Shiller's interview is available here.)

"The big problem is that economists, theoretical economists ... never figured out what drives the economy, what is the ultimate source of these fluctuations up and down?  Now, they got it partly right, but ...we both strongly feel that they omitted a very important point. ...One theme that George and I emphasize in the book is that [the inconstancy in human behavior] is driven by stories [we tell ourselves about our lives].

He says, "The efficient market hypothesis [of the 1970's]... was a half-truth."

If that’s the half-truth, what’s the full truth? Join Jessica Margolin in the conversation.
 

Pope Benedict XVI published his third "encyclical" or letter to the bishops and the world -- he specifies "all people of good will" -- on the subject of "integral human development in charity and truth" just the other day.  The letter is his response to the global financial upheavals of the past year, and of the mind-set that generated them -- a mindset that we too in the community of social entrepreneurs have been concerned about -- and you can roughly take his topic to be *the economy and human values*.

"Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end," the Pope writes. "Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty."

The language the Pope uses is religious, Christian, Catholic: he speaks of "charity" -- caritas -- but he isn't meaning "non-profit" or "philanthropic", he's speaking of an attitude woven through all aspects of one's life and relationships:

On the one hand, charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples. It strives to build the earthly city according to law and justice. On the other hand, charity transcends justice and completes it in the logic of giving and forgiving. The earthly city is promoted not merely by relationships of rights and duties, but to an even greater and more fundamental extent by relationships of gratuitousness, mercy and communion.
 

Again, the language is religious, but the meaning extends "to all people of goodwill" and indeed means goodwill, means the consistent application of a standard in all of life's dealings -- individual, familial, neighborly, social, political, global -- that holds giving what is only just and due to be the minimal acceptable position, and begins to measure real worth moving on upwards from that beginning.

The Pope accepts that the global economy has "lifted billions of people out of misery" while calling for "a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise" -- does something there sound familiar?

And there are other relevant aspects of his critique buried in his encyclical -- the letter itself runs 144 pages.  How's this for a challenge to us all?

One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources, based on a realization that the notion of 'efficiency' is not value-free.

It's my sense that the Pope has issued a major broadside, challenging the present world culture and its ways of thinking about money and power, generosity and need -- and in doing so, given us the opportunity for a global discussion in which social enterprise will have a significant role to play.

The AP report, from which I've quoted here, hitting the highlights.

The encyclical itself.


We have discussed Islamic approaches to economics in a previous SocialEdge event, and in another, the opportunity provided by the Obama administration to move the public discourse forward -- here is a third such opportunity.

Let's talk.  Let's seek out the most telling quotes from this long document, and build them into our word of mouth.

• What does this encyclical mean in your part of the world?
• How can we generate the global conversation we all want to have?
• What opportunities can we see in collaborations with local or global Catholicism?
• What are the parallels with this statement, in the doctrines and documents of your synagogue, church, mosque or temple?
   

Popes have sparked considerable debate with previous encyclicals -- let's not let this one go to waste.  Please join Charles "hipbone" Cameron in exploring its implications.

Faith-based groups (meaning the full range of formal and informal religious communities) are among the most active social sector organizations in many parts of the world. If religious orgs are serious about building and enhancing community, why are they so behind in leveraging the latest and greatest technology tools to do so? And if nonprofit and do-gooder techies are serious about social change, why aren't they tapping into some of the largest and most effective community-based organizations out there – which are faith-based? It's a missed opportunity IMHO [Note: social media jargon for In My Humble Opinion].
 
Fortunately there are some murmurings. A couple of weeks ago, Time magazine ran a story on U.S. churches using Twitter during their regular services. And the online virtual world of Second Life is fertile ground for a whole range of active faith based communities from across the religious spectrum. You may want to check out this Guided Tour of Spirituality in Second Life.
 
There are a few great postings on Church 2.0 offering an overview of some of the most cutting edge and technology-relevant happenings that involve faith-based communities in the United States. But they are an exception to the rule. Many traditional religious institutions are experiencing a decline in membership among youth - perhaps in part because they don't fully understand how to communicate in a changed world? Take a look at the official website of the Catholic Church, representing one of the largest religions in the world, and you'll know what I mean.
 
I sense a lot of fear among traditional religious institutions around embracing and leveraging technology change. And the silence is deafening from the technology community on how new tools and technologies can be leveraged to support the rich and important spiritual practices of people all over the world – not to mention to support the incredible social action work of religious communities on the ground.
 
So in an attempt to walk the talk I am launching a "Technology & Spiritual Practice" program, designed to help faith-based communities make the leap into the brave new world of technology and social media, and to start a dialogue between spiritual leaders and technologists. But we need your help…
 
1.  Do you agree that there is a clear divide between the worlds of religion and technology?
2.  If so, why is it the case and what should we do about it?
3.  What are some examples of cutting edge technology practices among faith based communities from around the world?
4.  Assuming a dialogue could be established between spiritual leaders and technologists, what meaningful and impactful work might come out of such conversations?

Join Paul Lamb, a Man on a Mission, in the conversation.

Is Dignity Necessary to Empower the Marginalized?

Tuesday, October 20^th is officially Global Dignity Day.  The concept of Global Dignity Day was incepted by Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum, a group of under-40 wunderkind from all sectors. The mission of the Global Dignity organization is “to implement globally the universal right of every human being to lead a dignified life.” 

In the strategies of empowering the marginalized, how important is dignity?  Is it a ‘must’ or simply a ‘nice to have’? 

Let us compare two different paradigms of development – a social entrepreneurial approach and a pure commercial interest (we’ll leave aside multilateral efforts as 60 years of work and trillions of dollars have yet to yield conclusive, and cost-effective, results).     

‘Base of Pyramid’ solid waste management (SWM) entrepreneurs exist all over the world – working with marginalized waste pickers to provide them more rights and develop profitable livelihoods. The transformation from Lima (Peru) to Patna (India) is phenomenal as waste pickers are no longer persecuted by authorities and earn a living wage. One can tangibly see the pride and dignity of a waste collector as she wears an official uniform signifying her role. It is an example where the marginalized are given an opportunity to create their own dignity and in turn are recognized by others. 

Chinese Infrastructure and Investment in Africa: Much has been made of Chinese investment across Africa – both good and bad. Whether you take the moral stance against the lack of environmental/ corruption business practices or a cynical view of China providing more than Western colonial powers ever could and without moral condescension, the impact is staggering: $100 billion in investment by 2010; rapid build-out of important infrastructure; and vast employment of local populations in the commerce generated from such investment. Nowhere in this paradigm does one hear (nor expect) dialogue about dignity.           

• Is Chinese investment any less effective in poverty alleviation than the waste picker example? Does the China model develop dignity in another way? 

• How should we best facilitate dignity?

• Is the intent of providing dignity required in such efforts? Or can it simply be a secondary effect?

• How do we ensure it is not just a buzz word thrown around but actually implemented?

• Where have you seen dignity (intentional or unintentional) make a difference?

Join BoPtimist Parag Gupta in the conversation.

For starters, this week’s topic is counterintuitive.

By which I mean, this piece of advice -- stop following your dreams so that you can succeed -- goes clean contrary to the advice we've heard so often: "follow your dream," "follow your bliss", "do what you love and the money will follow."

That alone makes it interesting.

So here's a question.  Our dreams may define success -- but will they take us there?

Many of us are in the social entrepreneurship-sphere because our dreams of a better world mean more to us than simply making money hand-over-fist without consideration for others, for the global ecology, for "the human heart".  So anything that calls our dreams into question is good for getting us thinking, if nothing else.

And why do we have these dreams in the first place?  Why is the world not already the human-friendly place that, in our dreams, we'd like it to be?

Isn't it precisely because many people haven't followed their dreams, opting instead for better paid or more secure work that all the evidence suggests would be -- at least in financial terms -- way more successful?

So if the "bite the bullet and just do it" opposite of the dream world works, and works so well that more or less the whole industrial world happily follows its dictates -- and if the dream has a harder time working, because it doesn't engage the universal motives of self-interest nearly as strongly as sheer competitive entirely profit-driven business -- what conclusion should we come to about the dream?

Should we stop following our dreams so we can succeed?

Can the dream be too much of a good thing?

Should we be attempting to create our dream world in a distinctly non-dream way?

I looked up "don't follow your dreams" on Google, and found "don't follow your dreams, chase them" and " don't follow your dreams, lead them" -- but neither one of those is what I'm getting at here.  I'd like us to try shaking our assumptions just a bit, and see where it leads us.

I am not against dreams ("I have a dream" -- remember?) but I am against unquestioned assumptions, and as with an earlier Social Edge event that asked whether procrastination and untidiness might be good for us, this event will try to ask the counter-intuitive question.

And with purpose.

The purpose here, let's not forget, is to succeed.  So the whole question could also be phrased as "what does it take to succeed -- and would it help to dismantle our dreams?" What are the strategies that bring success?

Once we've envisioned the goal -- and here the dream really is important -- what happens if we drop the "dream" thing entirely, and simply ask ourselves what's the best way to get there?  Will we find fresh, new, powerful ideas to carry us to our goal?

Often, clearing the mind of assumptions and preconceptions does that.

Please join Charles “Hipbone” Cameron in the conversation.  This could be fun -- but more than that, it might teach us a few things that surprise us!

Is there a code of behavior for social entrepreneurs?

Turn inwards where morality meets ethics, and you'll likely find some sense of what lines cannot be crossed, a moral sense -- but if you look around outside, can you also find a code that's agreed by your peers, that guides you in cases where your personal sense of morals may be conflicted -- and perhaps even instructs you to a narrower range of choices on occasion?

Does the community of entrepreneurs answering a social vision have a formal code?

Professor David Batstone offers ten Principles for entrepreneurial ethics. Reading them, I wonder how far they go towards converting an "entrepreneurial venture" into a "social entrepreneurial venture" by their very nature:

1. Company directors and management will consider their work force valuable team members, not merely hired labor.
2. A company will think of itself as a part of a community, not just a "market."
3. A company will take every possible care to ensure the quality and safety of the products it brings to the public.
4. A company will treat the environment as a silent "stakeholder," a party to which it is wholly accountable.
5. A company will strive to diversify the kind of people who lead and manage its affairs.
6. A company will pursue international trade and production based on reciprocal exchanges that respect the same rights accorded its own people.
7. A company will nurture an organizational culture that encourages its employees to give critical feedback on unethical practices, and even "blow the whistle" when their voices are ignored.
8. A company will protect the privacy rights of its suppliers, customers, and employees.
9. A company will deliver what it promises, and promise what it can deliver.
10. A company will not seek to generate any revenue from practices that threaten life.

What further principles would be required for social entrepreneurs?  Do any of Dr Batstone's principles seem impracticable or not relevant in the culture you are working in? What stories can you tell about ethical problems, lapses, and successes in the field (you may want to read Leila Chirayath Janah's experience)?

• Does your social enterprise have a code of ethics? Formal or informal?
• If not, would it help to have one?
• If informal, would it help to formalize it?
• If formal, is it ever a problem rather than a solution?

• Does the world of social enterprise have a code of ethics?
• If not, would it help to have one?
• If informal, would it help to formalize it?

What should such a code contain?

How would it address the very different circumstances (ranging from government support to active governmental opposition, persecution or suppression, from richest and most advanced to least advanced and poorest, and from the purely local and marginal to the global and widely supported) in which social entrepreneurship is practiced?

Bribery, for instance:  is it ever even remotely acceptable -- or is it sometimes a necessity if you intend to get food supplies to the starving?

Dive in, have your say -- join Charles (hipbone) Cameron in discussing the ethics of social entrepreneurship.

World Water Day is 22 March 2009, with the Skoll World Forum following closely on its heels on 25-27 March, so this seems an appropriate time for us to discuss water...

World Water Day's focus this year is on "waters that cross borders and link us together":

The world’s 263 transboundary lake and river basins include the territory of 145 countries and cover nearly half of the Earth’s land surface. Great reservoirs of freshwater also move silently below our borders in underground aquifers. With every country seeking to satisfy its water needs from limited water resources, some foresee a future filled with conflict. But history shows that cooperation, not conflict, is the most common response to transboundary water management issues.

Shortly thereafter, the Skoll World Forum will feature an event on Water:

Governments, international organizations and businesses struggle to achieve the MDGs for drinking water and sanitation. Join this vital, solution-oriented discussion on how social entrepreneurs can contribute and collaborate in order to meet these goals.

So:

Let's get some conversation rolling on the topics the Skoll water panel will discuss:

• What are the most promising innovations in this area?
• What is the role of non-state actors in global environmental governance?
• What questions of power and public/private authority do they raise?
• What are the ecological presuppositions of sustaining the water-related MDGs in an age of rapid climate change?
   

Some other topics that may crop up include:  

• Water wars

Riparian conflict may be in our future, as World Bank vice president Ismail Serageldin put it 1995, "The wars of the next century will be over water." That's a tough prospect, and for further reading, Vandana Shiva has a book titled Water Wars.  But there's also hope: as Joyce Shira Starr documented in Covenant over Middle Eastern Waters, water has considerable sacred signifocance in the Abrahamic religions, and may in fact be a force that draws people together rather than pulling them apart as a result. Which brings us to...

• Water altruism -- water specialist Dr Aaron Wolf takes a reassuring stand:

The actual history of armed water conflict is somewhat less dramatic than the “water wars” literature would lead one to believe: a total of seven incidents, in three of which no shots were fired.  As near as we can find, there has never been a single war fought over water.  This is not quite true.  The earliest domestic interstate conflict known is a dispute between the Sumerian city-states of Lagash and Umma over the right to exploit boundary channels along the Tigris in 2,500 BCE.  In other words, the last and only “water war” was 4,500 years ago.

There seem to be more questions than answers here...

Another fascinating lead is to the work done on Balinese water use by J. Stephen Lansing, which ties together traditional Balinese "water temples" and the latest in Santa Fe science for modeling complex systems.  Lansing's book, Perfect order : recognizing complexity in Bali, creates an inspiring interweaving of traditional/spiritual and ecological/scientific approaches.

Lastly, we might want to consider various ways of purifying water, from massive national desalination projects to individual homes with "closed water systems" such as the experimental home built by R.L. Crosby, of Biorealis Systems -- see the water systems description.

• Where are we headed?
• What do you think?
• Where should we look next?
  
  Please join Charles "hipbone" Cameron as we explore social entrepreneurial approaches to water issues.
   

Navigating Traditional Power Structures to Strengthen Economic and Societal Rights of Women

In recent years, we have witnessed an increasing number of women holding power in government, the private sector and civil society, taking on roles previously seen as being the preserve of men. Some signs of progress:

• While still uncommon, women as heads of state or holding high-level cabinet positions are no longer a complete novelty. Elected in 2007 and 2006 respectively, two women are at the helm of Argentina and Chile, the second and fifth largest South American economies. The 2005 election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as the first African woman head of state sent a powerful message to the continent and to the world.

• The very first bill that Barack Obama signed since becoming the US President guarantees equal pay for women. During the bill signing ceremony, several Congresswomen were standing behind the President, including the first female Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.

• The exercise of power is not limited to those in charge at the very top.  Women leadership is central to successful grassroots and community-based initiatives. When women participate in the decision-making processes, the benefits of a program expand beyond the women’s immediate families and into the larger community. For instance, many link the Grameen Bank’s success with the fact that 97 per cent of its borrowers are women.  To these programs, women bring intelligence, fairness, vitality, commitment, resiliency and hope.

Yet these achievements do not paint a comprehensive picture of the state of women’s rights, in particular as it relates to navigating traditional power structures. For this week’s discussion, I’d like to start off with the following questions:

- What are the main barriers that still prevent women from successfully navigating traditional power structures in both rich and developing countries? What can we do to bring these barriers down?

- What can we learn from the individual and collective experiences of women who have succeeded in establishing their leadership in difficult and unfavorable conditions?

- Over the next five years, what major milestone could be achieved that would signify a major advance in women’s political, economic and societal rights?

Join Edith Asibey, president of Asibey Consulting, in the conversation.

President Obama has now been in office for one hundred days, and he has covered more ground in that time than many presidents do in an entire term. From the economy to foreign policy, he has shown quick, decisive leadership. So much change has taken place, and so quickly, that it would be easy to miss one of the most exciting aspects of his administration: the focus on social entrepreneurship.

Obama has committed to organizing an Office of Social Innovation, and he has just signed a Serve America Act that includes a Social Innovation Fund to seed new social enterprises and expand existing ones. He has also put aside tens of billions of dollars for green initiatives that will undoubtedly cultivate more promising social ventures. Perhaps most of all, he has used his bully pulpit to highlight the stories of social entrepreneurs, inspiring young people to follow a new model for making a difference.

Obama's commitment follows a global trend among foreign leaders to focus on social entrepreneurs as a key ally of government in delivering services. Indeed, for years now, the Labour government in Britain has made social enterprise a centerpiece of governmental departments from health to the environment to social services.

While Obama’s clearly been a champion of social entrepreneurship, there are questions about whether he could be doing even more. As an example, the conversation about social enterprise has been largely divorced from the conversation about how to rescue the US economy. Obama has brought the big banks and financial institutions to the White House to talk about how to responsibly serve Americans, especially those struggling to get by on low incomes.

But he has not directly called attention in these conversations to the many responsible social enterprises that are already working on financial education and services for the poor. Perhaps the answer is not only more regulation (as Obama has stressed), but also socially responsible business models.

This leads to a number of questions:
1. How is Obama doing in his commitment to social entrepreneurship?
2. How does Obama's commitment to social entrepreneurship compare to other world leaders?
3. Where should he go from here? He's made the commitment to an office and set up a fund… what should be next on his social enterprise agenda?

Join Seth Green, Founder of Americans for Informed Democracy, in the conversation.