Changing the World is Not Enough

Fifty years from now, by most forecasts, the population of the world will have grown by two-thirds, bringing the total humans on the planet to ten billion. People of different skin colors, ethnicities, religions and ideologies will share more crowded societies around the globe. Scientific and ethical challenges will sprint through the coming decades side by side, each competing to beat the other in a race that has no finish line. Never before has humankind faced the veritable hemorrhage of knowledge, ideas, beliefs, conflicts, deprivation and possibilities—from sublime to monstrous—it faces now. This is an unexplored world. It will not survive and sustain a civilization with leadership that merely addresses these many challenges one by one, relying on the principles and practices that carried us across the twentieth century. We are entering a new land now; we need a new style of leadership. No current leadership style meets this challenge. Social entrepreneurship comes close. How do we as social entrepreneurs take a more global view? And how do the leaders with global influence recognize and adopt a long term global vision?

I feel a new world order free of all tensions is required, if humanity is to survive for the long term. This can be achieved only by social entrepreneurs.

We have to create a world, where every transaction of every individual, organization and government is transparent to the whole world, so as to make everyone accountable for every action or inaction.

This is certainly possible if we shed our egos and superiority complex as individuals, communities and nations. We need to cerate a truly borderless world, where all are treated equal and all have equal opportunities made available.

We need to ban currency circulation and make all transactions transparent using biometric smart cards.

Thanks to advancement in ICT now we can create a truly global village where everyone can know everyone else through the internet.

We have created a transparency e-Platform for all to act and react openly, thereby eliminating possibilities of community / state sponsored terrorism, arms trade, drugs trade, nuclear trade, etc. The viel of secrecy and corruption should become a thing of the past worldover.

We must create all round peace and prosperity for now and for ever, to enjoy the fruits of advancement of science and technology and not create dissent, discord and dangers.

Socail Entrepreneurship can be the mantra for saving the world, in the 21st century.

Zurick raises THE crucial issue for social entrepreneurs in the coming decade.

You wouldn't run a corporation with no CEO or Board of Directors. You wouldn't run a city without a Mayor and city council. Why do we think we can run so complex a system as a planet with no central governing mechanism?

All we have is the UN, which is a committee of sovereign states. Imagine if shipping, marketing, R&D, were all sovereign parts of a company - trying to negotiate some coordinated action, but shooting each other if that failed? Would it be any wonder such a company were failing?

The Earth is failing. An Inconvenient Truth, the academy-award winning movie funded by Skoll, begins to raise the crucial issue of the peril faced by the Earth's fragile environment - the environment which makes life possible. Wars rage around the planet draining resources and causing poverty, hunger and disease.

How can we social entrepreneurs begin developing innovative systems for governing this small blue marble drifting through space?

John, you say:

"Never before has humankind faced the veritable hemorrhage of knowledge, ideas, beliefs, conflicts, deprivation and possibilities—from sublime to monstrous—it faces now. This is an unexplored world. It will not survive and sustain a civilization with leadership that merely addresses these many challenges one by one, relying on the principles and practices that carried us across the twentieth century."

You go on to ask:

"We are entering a new land now; we need a new style of leadership. No current leadership style meets this challenge. Social entrepreneurship comes close. How do we as social entrepreneurs take a more global view? And how do the leaders with global influence recognize and adopt a long term global vision?"

Social entrepreneurship is a structural means to deliver a solution. It cannot be expected to provide a solution to a problem that doesn't originate in poor or wrong structures.

Before we concern ourselves with structures, we must concern ourselves with the development of a wholesystem understanding of the problem: "the veritable hemorrhage of knowledge, ideas, beliefs, conflicts, deprivation and possibilities — from sublime to monstrous."

In short, John, we need to understand what causes the sublime, and what causes the monstrous. Then we can design the structures we need to dismantle the factors that advance the monstrous, and to enhance the factors that advance the sublime.

While the challenges seem to be growing more severe the tools for understanding complex problems are becoming more available. We can visualize information. We can engage in discussions with people from every part of the world. Individuals can mobilize armys of other individuals in ways that was never possible in the past.

I'm a greybeard, so don't know if I'll be here in 30 to 40 years to see how this conversation unfolds, however, I'm optimistic that the tools social entrepreneurs can use to network, learn from each other, and collaborate across continents, and across disciplines gives us hope for the future.

I maintain a section of links in the http://www.tutormentorconnection.org web site that point to sites that demonstrate mind mapping, GIS data systems, innovation and creativity so that people who visit the T/MC site might learn to harness these tools in our efforts to help kids from poverty be starting jobs by the time they are in their mid twenties. These sites can be used by anyone seeking to innovate new ways to solve problems.

I hope that during the next 10 or 20 years we can innovate ways to harness these new tools and set in motion innovation practices that give those who follow us greater momentum for solving the problems that they will face.

Krisdev's comments paint an idealized and inspiring picture (call it "point B"). Dan Bassill has built a network that can help save the world from the ground up, and rightly points out that we now have the means to reach and mobilize masses of people efficiently (call it "point A"). Thank you both for your comments.

My question is: Where are the leaders who can take us from point A to point B?

Over the decades ahead our leaders will need to embody and express the noblest hopes and dreams of their followers. The leaders who navigate the new frontier will need to be ambitious, inventive, competitive, strong like bulls and as pure as the driven snow. How they lead and how they are expected to lead must follow a moral compass calibrated by both the societies they serve and civilization as a whole. Our leaders must be what we know as social entrepreneurs, but social entrepreneurs of a higher calling. They must expand their hearts to encompass a global vision, serving the greater good of our worldwide civilization.

Who are they? Where are they? How do we empower them to save the world?

Or, as Ted Turner says, either lead, follow or get out of the way.

Or as Hemmingway said with an assist from John Donne, Ask not for whom the bell tolls...it tolls for thee.

I agree with Patrick Heffernan. No point waiting for the great leader(s). Time is awasting. While a global network of social entrepreneurs can achieve much across our planet, most individuals can only focus on one meaningful project at a time, and probably locally.

I agree with Patrick O'Heffernan. No point waiting for the great leader(s). Time is awasting. While a global network of social entrepreneurs can achieve much across our planet, most individuals can only focus on one meaningful project at a time, and probably locally.

I like your definition. What if I fit that definition. Shit! Please pray for me.

I'm not sure leadership is really going to take us where we want to go--especially not if you are talking about leadership in the narrow sense of the word, where it means individuals who take great ideas and run with them in inspired ways. I want to throw two new words into the mix: education and revolution. The first is a long-term solution, and, I agree, it's a little frightening to think that we might need to wait for the next generation to make large-scale change. The latter is a loaded word, but I think it might be a good paradigm to think about, given that we are all so worried about tipping in the wrong direction.

Eve C., I very much agree with you that we need education, but I would substitute "evolution" for revolution. Rather than look to leadership today, it appears to me that we must become "co-learners" because we are facing challenges that have never been encountered in previous recorded history. Where I feel we have to go is into our "inner awareness", into our "intuitive self" for wisdom. And I feel where a large part of that is going to come from is through a reconnection to nature.

There is currently a large movement going on toward "relocalization" as small communities mobilize efforts to become secure in the face of dwindling jobs and resources; and, in particular with regard to food supplies.

We are really being challenged to "think outside the box" in the face of these new and unprecedented challenges.

We are the people we have been waiting for. Large-scale change in teh 21st century is leder-drfiven, it is social network driven. We live in an global interconnected society in which information and direction is viral, not top-down. We all need to write, blog, video, speak. Most important we need to be movement entrpreneurs as well as social entrepeneurs - we need to stgart instituions that spread the SE virus, turn them over to managers, and take our knowledge capital with us and start more. Jeff Skoll and Pam Omidyar are examples; so are Jerr Boschee and Jim Fructerman and many others who invest in organizations and media and education that spreads the SE virus.

One of the reasons social entrepreneurs are successful is because we focus on solving real problems with real communities. We may be very ambitious, but we need to stay focused. Scale without focus leads to huge waste of resources.

My approach to saving the world right now, beyond Benetech's work, is on encouraging more people to become social entrepreneurs. Horizontal growth of the movement in addition to vertical growth.

I have created a few short essays on my web site that describe roles leaders can take. Such people can be highly visible people, or very invisible people. They can even be kids. They are people who connect the people they know with each others, with ideas, and with people who they know need help. This role was described in the recent book titled The Spider and the Starfish.

Here are links: Role of leaders: http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/Partner/CC/Presentations/Leaders/Role%20of%20Leaders.pdf

Connecting those who can help with those who need help: http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/Partner/CC/Presentations/TMC_Role/Connecting%20those%20who%20need%20help.pdf

While I demonstrate this with a focus on helping kids, I think the same role is required of leaders in any social sector channel.

I feel that we have very few public leaders who take this role consistently. The "volunteer" and "donate" buttons on a polititian's web site ask people to help them get elected. They don't ask people to help others solve problems.

We can change that if we'd just vote for people who demonstrate these habits.

Hi John,

Where we must go from here in order to adequately address the complexity of the challenges we face today is to another level of consciousness. The frightening thing about this is that few of us know or understand human consciousness and how to manage it effectively in order to maximize our personal power and reach our "full potential".

And, in this respect, I am talking about individual consciousness. But, both Jung and Freud recognized that we also manifest a "collective consciousness" as a group

or as a nation -- and this largely dictates our "group behavior".

Today, we are coming face to face with the knowledge that our collective behavior is severly threatening the survival of the human family;and has already killed off thousands of other species as well as depleted much of our natural resources in an astoundingly short period of time given the thousands of years it took to produce them.

In order to reverse this trend and conserve our life support system, we are faced with executing a major transformation of the collective consciousness.

For quite a few years I have been working with several transformational psychologists. One that I would like to introduce this group to is Dr. Jay Earley, author of "Transforming Human Culture -Social Evolution and the Planetary Crisis".

In the book, Dr. Earley develops a theoretical model for social (consciousness)evolution. Written in easy to understand, non-technical language, complete with graphics on many pages, Dr. Earley explains how the present crisis emerged through the natural flow of historical trends, and how these trends can now help to shape a healthier world. In nuturing the transition, if we understand the social forces that served to foment the crisis, we can then understand the personal changes we must make and use this understanding to become "change agents" and influence others so as to foment change in the collective consciousness. www.earley.org

It is imperative that we do this, for as you state, John, it cannot be accomplished "one by one".

I am currently involved in an effort, as one individual, to put up a website mapping human consciousness from a biological point of view so that we can begin to understand who we are as the human family. However, there is not only "biological consciousness" but social and cultural consciousness as well. The website, entitled "Pathways to Consciousness" will explore all of the different manifestations of consciousness and their effects on human behavior.

Hi Marguerite, many thanks for your comment. Normally I don´t do that, but in this case I must correct you. I am very happy, that I have a conciousness of my own, but what you mean, is the collective unconciousness, which is in Jungian psychology the elements of unconscious they are theoretically common to all mankind like the sunlight or the air( his words)

Life and its synchronicities are an interesting phenomenon … John you started this discussion by saying how disillusioned you are about the world today as we got to know it … your viewpoint was further supported by Krisdev and Daniel.

You have all posed certain viewpoints and wishes, some of them impossible to ever be realised. Utopia doesn’t exist and will never exist because neither the current situation confronting us in the world nor utopia is the solution.

The solution is a world that is in balance. If one takes lessons from nature, one learns that in nature there is always balance … but mankind is unbalanced.

In nature there is polarity (negatives and positives), unfortunately the mankind balance that exists today is currently heavily swayed towards negativity, driven primarily by three factors … FEAR, GREED and POWER.

The solution as I see it is not to create UTOPIA but to bring balance back into mankind. Utopia in itself is also not a good thing because it is also out of balance .

We can learn from the past … communism versus capitalism … both had their good points and their bad points. Unfortunately both systems were based on extremes and both out of balance. But if nothing else, we can learn from it.

And we must not forget that both systems failed, why? Because of FEAR, GREED and POWER! Because they were competition and fear driven rather than creating a spirit of cooperation.

You ask how can we not only change the world but save it from self-destruction?

Agree that we need real LEADERS! We don’t have them, they are seriously lacking everywhere in every country in the world! The question that should be posed is why are they lacking?

Let’s start with the hierarchy of life and humans:

We are born, and the first thing that we are taught is to compete, to WIN! That is the ultimate goal and it should be the primary reason for being alive … and we are faced with it from the first day that we have some basic understanding until the day that we die!

We live in a time when competition and a successful life are seen as one and the same, where the spirit of superiority is breed from pre-school days, where, what we are is measured by your assets rather than your deeds, by your position in society, by religious beliefs that teaches you that each religion is the one that is right and the others wrong.

We cannot ignore the fact that it does breed dissension … we have leaders that are totally driven, by POWER, GREED and FEAR of loosing who they are and what they have. (And am not just talking about governments, am also talking about big business, churches and religions)

They design systems and laws that foster their self-interest. Our kids and all of us are schooled that unless we compete, unless we WIN we are nothing! The primary goal that is taught is to WIN at any cost. But there can only be one winner, everyone else is then a looser … and nobody likes being losers.

… and then we are surprised that the result is what we have in the world today.

To answer your question what can we do to change and save the world in time!

Start in our homes by teaching our kids our own value system … and work hard in our communities, walk the talk, do rather than just philosophise. Be an example for others and one that others will want to follow … let’s us ourselves be the leaders, starting in our own homes, in our own communities, in our own countries.

… let’s teach our kids, and all around us to develop a spirit of cooperation rather than a spirit of competition! …

Can we do it in time? Who knows, but if we don’t start, what I do know is that there will not be a world in the future!

Hello, everyone.

I thank everyone for his or her post. I hope that somebody provide an answer to the question at the end of this post.

A friend who teaches social entrepreneurship at a California university had his 2007 spring course canceled by the interim dean. Not enough student interest. (By the way, when, in September, 2005, I asked some sixty MBA students at this university for a show of hands by those who knew what the Millennium Development Goals were, not one hand went up, not even from the Net Impact officers in the class.)

Another friend, who has a successful, global youth entrepreneurship program, had his proposal to teach social entrepreneurship at a different California university rejected.

There are a few university programs in the US for social entrepreneurship, but, compared with the number of university students, these programs reach very few students.

Service-learning at universities and high schools is not the solution. Service-learning is optional at most universities, tied to courses instead of graduation, and the phrase is not even known in many school districts, my own included. Even if students take service-learning, there is no guarantee that they would receive a grounding in self-reliance, social responsibility, and sustainable solutions, which could be considered three elements of social entrepreneurship.

And does anybody have to be told that there is an urgency with regard to addressing global warming, if not an urgency with regard to reducing extreme poverty?

1. We have far too few "natural born" social entrepreneurs.
2. We need to cultivate far more social entrepreneurs.
3. We would advance social entrepreneurship, hopefully at an accelerated pace, by implementing mass education about social entrepreneurship and related subjects, through an innovative curriculum which includes innovative practicum. This supports EveC's "education and revolution", with the revolution of which we speak being innovation in thinking.
4. There is a proprietary concept for such mass education. ("Proprietary" in the sense that I am serving as the custodian until ownership be transferred to a governing assembly of stakeholders.) Without interfering with faculty syllabi, without taking class time, and without requiring that institutions budget, we offer students online lessons with incentives. Socially- and environmentally-responsible employers ("SEREs") provide material for the lessons, as do innovative community organizations. A content team converts the material into brief, yet poignant, lessons delivered three times a week.

By the way, the same or similar incentives are meant to draw high schoolers to the online lessons.

1. A survey was done on three campuses of the California State University in October, 2006. 201 (80%) of 251 students said "yes" to participation. Notably, all the respondents at CSU San Diego were from India, and 70% of them said "yes". There is a probability that the concept would be applicable domestically and abroad. There is a probability that, just in the U.S., several million high schoolers and university students would participate every year within a few years. Perhaps this would help us reach the tipping point in social entrepreneurship which we need.
2. Additionally, the concept is meant to generate considerable surplus income. That income becomes the fuel for the "practicum" side of the concept. For example, instead of spending money on telling youth that they should vote when eighteen, money goes into a community chest so that the youth and their parents and neighbors do vote to improve their communities, using pioneering practices in democracy which, hopefully, would help democratize American democracy. Like having an open board of grant-making directors of a foundation.
3. Thus, the concept is meant to be a very useful tool to inculcate social and environmental responsibility and cultivate social entrepreneurs.

So, if it is that good, why is it not public yet?

Because every social entrepreneur has her / his project and, consequently, is not looking to collaborate. The concept is like a heavy Thor's hammer. If we lifted it together, we could use its power. None of us alone could tap the power by herself / himself.

1. The concept needs a preparations team, one of whose first activities would be to identify a network to announce the concept to a large number of university students and high schoolers, so that a test be done. Such a network might be the offices of career services on university campuses and the counseling offices at high schools. Or an organization like Net Impact. Or a SERE with a reach to a large number of educational institutions. That network has not yet been identified.

Suggestions for a preparations team? No "Hail, Mary" please, as I have tried to catch enough of those.

Thank you.

Van Ajemian vanajemian@yahoo.com 323.720.1022, office and voice mail, Pacific time Montebello, California 90640

It's gratifying that this discussion has reached the level of thinking and candor I had hoped for but wasn't sure we would see. Just a few comments on what's been written up to this point:

1. I admire Benetech and Jim Fruchterman greatly. His is an organization, at the core of its existence, practicing and promoting the principles and promise of both social entrepreneurship and social enterprise. If the world had a dozen Benetech's spread across the planet we might start to see international for-profits catch the Benetech draft and ride the wave to a new level of enlightened enterprise. My perspective, however, is that time is of the essence. We could be one wacky world leader away from global meltdown. What Jim models is social enterprise at its finest. What I see a need for is a higher level of leadership--one that moves entire societies forward toward an improved world purpose.
2. Marguerite's point is precisely where I think civilization needs to move--to a level of "collective conscienciousness." We all need to look beyond the many embarrassments history will remember this era for--the Iraq War, genocide in Africa, terrorism, astronomical corporate profits and abject poverty, state-facilitated homophobia, religious zealotry, and the like, to name a few--to a world where all of civilization shares a consciousness for the vital importance of acceptance and peaceful coexistence. I will get Dr. Earley's book.
3. Thank you, Laurinda, for pealing another layer of varnish off this discussion. We will never achieve utopia. I don't think that would be my choice...maybe in another life. It's human nature to evolve through our innate capacities for ambition, invention, ego and competition. Life would be boring in a perfect world, I think. This doesn't mean, to your point though, that we can't move toward a better balance. Alot less killing. Alot less starvation. Alot less disparity in rights and privileges. Alot less hatred and mistrust. And alot more nobility in leadership at the highest levels. The energy that will move us to a better balance, not with one worthy social enterprise at a time but in giant steps, is the energy of leaders who look beyond their personal rewards to the rewards their influence enables them to endow to humankind.
4. We all see a similar "greater good." We're each passionate about our own ways of achieving it. Van Ajemian and Eve touch on the need to instill young people, through education, with the knowledge and principles, to appreciate social entrepreneurship.

This is all tasty food for thought. How do we cook it into something we can feed up the leadership food chain?

I'm reading William Easterly's reasonably controversial book, The White Man's Burden, at the moment. He focuses in on some of these issues. While not using the social entrepreneur language, he divides those working for social change into "Planners" and "Searchers." Planners are the foreign aid establishment, which Easterly feels in general delivers very little for a great deal of money. Searchers are the people who search for solutions to the actual needs of people, and of course these tend to be the social entrepreneurs:.

My concern is that if we focus on big change and lose touch with the real world, we'll fall into the trap of big plans and fail to actually deliver real benefits to the people we are supposed to be working with. I think we make a bigger impact on changing the world by creating an environment that encourages social entrepreneurs to make bottom-up change instead of another top-down plan.

An example might be Ashoka Fellow Anil Chitrakar. One of his wins was convincing the World Bank to not build a mega-hydro project in Nepal, which would be built by big multi-national. Instead, they built the same amount of power capacity, more quickly, by relying on Nepalese groups to build much smaller (and environmentally less disruptive) hydro projects.

Let's keep striving to build an environment where social entrepreneurs who are being successful can scale up to achieve maximum impact, instead of making a big plans for their own sake. It's not inconsistent with impatience or ambition to make big change.

a country Constituion states for example:

"discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, fun, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth. ... is unfair unless it is established that the discrimination is fair. (extract from the South African Constitution)" ... enabling a country legal system to declare via precedent law any discrimination against anyone irrespective of color, creed, language ... et ...al.

John, going back to saving the world ...

Above does not only apply to the South African constitution, it is also found in other countries constitutions around the world.

My question is how do we as Social Entrepeneurs facilitate the REAL aleviation of poverty? Do goverments, political parties, churches and BIG business really want to see REAL change? I am begenning to doubt it, (must be my old age creep in ...)

if we take out blinkers out of our eyes what do we see? - poverty is a fertile ground for unrest, people are starving, desperate and hungry ... they want to survive, most live in appoling conditions but they make easy prey for corrupt or power hungry polititians ... because people in poverty live in the hope of having their situation changed and Polititians sees them as an easy reacheable VOTE! ...

• Some of the BIG businesses today have income that far exceeds some countries total income, so they are in a position to influence Polititians ...

and I can go on!

so back to my question:

How do we facilitate change when we have to operate in these type of environments? How can we ever change the world for the better? How can we save the world from self-destruction?

Until we can facilitate real Constitutions in all the countries in the world we will not see much of a change!

Until we can facilitate real distribution of resources we will not see much change neither!

Until individuals stop looking just at the I, ME and MY, and start caring and loving, there will not be real change!

So where can we really start? We can only start by influencing change on an "individual", one-by-one basis, and hopefully still in our time facilitate heart-change to acheive a mind-change!

Like you, I look at the world and all I see is the scale tipping towards destruction ... and it saddens me! I just trust that I will have the strenght and wisdom to continue on my path! ... that I will have the support needed ...

and when I think like this I realise how invaluable places like this are (talking about Social Edge), how having people who share the same values and vision can meet and support each other ...

May we never despair and may we always be able to support one another ...

Laurinda's comments ring from the heart, with compassion and a yearning for simple truths. What can we do about a world that condones starvation and state-sanctioned discrimination? How do face the dirty truth that civilization as we know it today has been drawn, largely, by thousands of years of murderous conquest, that the world is still driven by the same irrational juice and if we don't stop drinking this lethal kool-aid our existence will go up in flames?

Actually I'm an optimist. I believe in the innate goodness of every individual's human nature. Yet groups of people, large and small, will decide to do things together and support things together that they would never do or support individually. This phenomenon is acutely demonstrated by Jerry B. Harvey in his program known as The Abilene Paradox. (There's a good summary on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox.)

As for what we do about all this...to Laurinda's question, What do social entrepreneurs do to facilitate change when we have to operate in these types of environments?... I believe we use our burgeoning industry to continue these conversations. In these conversations we should extend the scope of social entrepreneurship-—broadening who see as practicing it and how the performances of those people are judged. We should evaluate leaders at the highest levels of government and business on the basis of their performance as social entrepreneurs.

How well they are performing should be measured by what value they are returning to society. Their initiatives should be evaluated as social enterprises. If their initiatives succeed, the leaders should be rewarded. If the initiatives fail, the leaders should be replaced.

As a growing worldwide industry, social entrepreneurship is developing a voice. The world is starting to pay attention to us. We need to use our voice to push leadership to higher standards of performance. All leadership. The guiding principles of social entrepreneurship must be acknowledged and adopted by ALL leaders--in governments, business and education as well as non-government, nonprofit and social service. It should be ingrained in the mission of our worldwide S.E. industry to infuse in all forms of leadership a commitment to serve the greater good of civilization. And further, to reject all initiatives that run counter to the greater good of civilization. This is a universal principle that applies to every worthy form of leadership. We need to become the voice of this principle and the leading advocates for its implementation.

Van Ajemian and Laurinda spoke to the question of "how do we nuture the growth of more social entrepreneurs". However, I don't consider Social Entrepreneurship an industry. I just finished reading the book "How to Change the World" which tells the story of the growth of http://www.Ashoka.org. The people profiled in the book each had a different passion in a different part of the world. They had common traits, which as Van Ajemian said,need to be encouraged in more people, but it was their deep and persistent commitment to creating change and improving the life of people who need extra help, that makes them unique.

I feel we could grow more people who do this if more intermediary organizations took roles similar to Ashoka, identifying causes, and identifying people and organizations doing work in different places. What Ashoka does is try to give these people help. If more people took the role of connecting people they know or influence, with people who were doing good work in specific causes, but in many different places, I feel that more social innovators would be given the support they need to bring their ideas to reality.

This is exactly the role I play in supporting the growth of volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago and other cities. At http://www.tutormentorconnection.org I maintain a list of these programs, along with links to other organizations that are needed in this "industry of helping kids to careers". I invite others to join me in helping these entrepreneurs, who are leading social organizations to benefit inner city kids, get the resources they need to do their work on a more consistent basis. It's are focus on a single cause that makes this an industry, not the various forums of innovation we go through every day to connect kids and volunteers in many different places.

Thus the industry of people who want to address water issues, or AIDS, or hunger, or malaria .. in different parts of the world ... includes many innovators who would all be more successful if intermediaries would take on the role of helping them like the Ashoka folks are doing.

Hi Daniel

Quite agree with you, networks like Ashoka are what is required, and other supportive infrastructures like what you are doing are also critical. Like you, within Empowerment Gateway we are also facilitating mentorship, training, access to seed capital, human resources ... et..al but we are focusing across multiple silos, and not just the NGO sector.

EG's Pro-Help Forum provides the skills EG's Gateway 2 projects focus on specifics such as: - Gateway 2 Life (Drugs and Alchool abuse) Gateway 2 Health - AIDS Gateway 2 Work - job creation (unemployed) Gateway 2 careers - Job skilling (in service training) Gateway 2 Knowledge - scholarships Gateway 2 Development - Entrepeneurship, women economic development etc ..

Above are just some of the type of projects that we facilitate.

(Then we are currently building another 2 support networks a Pro-Bono legal and a Pro-Bono accounting)

But even doing all of above ... it still does not address the constraints that we face due to corrupt polititians, GREED et ...al!

The strauctures are basically in place ... but delivery gets twarted by external factors that are outside our control.

So back to the original question:

What else can we do to SAVE the world?

1. We start with each one of us individually. We need to open our minds to a broader sense of how we serve civilization. We must accept that we need to do more than succeed as social entrepreneurs driving individual socially responsible projects. We need to do more. We need to keep everything we do in the context of how it serves the greater good of the world we are creating for our children’s children. We need to see what we do in the bigger picture, at all times. 2. We need to talk the talk. It’s not enough to carry this perspective around inside us. We need to advocate for it with our project teams, our boards, our volunteers and all our other stakeholders. We need to inspire others by helping them recognize they serve a purpose that will help make the world a better place for many decades to come. 3. We need to sets the metrics for achievement with the leaders that each of us follow. Contact your government officials, healthcare leaders, educators, corporate leaders. Ask them for their long term vision of humankind, and what they do in their respective roles to help achieve it. Ask them to justify their major initiatives in that context. Tell them that’s how you evaluate their effectiveness. 4. As a worldwide community, social entrepreneurs need to continue these discussions. This is where we start.

John stated "We need to sets the metrics for achievement with the leaders that each of us follow. Contact your government officials, healthcare leaders, educators, corporate leaders. Ask them for their long term vision of humankind, and what they do in their respective roles to help achieve it. Ask them to justify their major initiatives in that context. Tell them that’s how you evaluate their effectiveness."

Exchelent wisdom and one that I want to integrate into our system. It makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing it ... have a great day.

It's not enough to ask our leaders to be accountable if we don't hold ourselves accountable. I encourage you to visit the data entry screen at this link: http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/OHATS/TMC/TMC_Events_Data_Entry.asp

This is an Organizational History and Tracking System that I've been using since 2000 to document actions that I or others have taken to build more and better volunteer based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago.

If people think through the key actions that they and others need to take over many years to achieve a vision, then they can document at the end of each day, or week, what they or others have done to make the vision a reality.

There are many challenges to maintaining an on-going documentation system, but this demonstrates what is possible.

As I see it, as long as social entrepreneurship remains divorced from the mainstream economy, it doesn't work very well. Traditional entrepreneurs create jobs, pay salaries, provide ROI to investors, etc. Until social enterprises can do all of the above, they'll remain a wart on the side of what most people have to do to earn a living.

Miles Fidelman

Zurick raises THE crucial issue for social entrepreneurs in the coming decade.

You wouldn't run a corporation with no CEO or Board of Directors. You wouldn't run a city without a Mayor and city council. Why do we think we can run so complex a system as a pleanet with no central governing mechanism?

All we have is the UN, which is a committee of sovereign states. Imagine if shipping, marketing, R&D, were all sovereign parts of a company - trying to negotiate some coordinated action, but shooting each other if that failed? Would it be any wonder such a company were failing?

The Earth is failing. An Inconvenient Truth, the academy-award winning movie funded by Skoll, begins to raise the crucial issue of the peril faced by the Earth's fragile environment - the environment which makes life possible. Wars rage around the planet draining resources and causing poverty, hunger and disease.

How can we social engepreneurs begin developing innovative systems for governing this small blue marble drifting through space?

It appears that there is still a misconception of what Social Entrepreneurs are. Most Social Entrepreneurs are traditional entrepreneurs as well. The difference is that they do care about the greater well being of people and planet and are doing something about it. Mike, the majority of traditional entrepreneurs care only about themselves and look only at optimising the bottom line in the form of increased ROI. Yes they create jobs, pay salaries et … al, but with a few exceptions that fact is secondary … people are just tools and commodities to be used and often exploited in pursue of the highest ROI. If that weren’t the case, we would not have corruption, fraud, mismanagement, global destruction, etc. There is nothing wrong in looking for an a high ROI, so long as there is balance and you are not doing so at a heavy cost to people and planet, but I believe that ROI alone is not enough, you need to also have a high SROI (social return on investment) and most traditional businessmen don’t even know the mean of it. And that is what most social entrepreneurs do, balance ROI and SROI. (Am not talking about NGO’s and voluntary organisations) There is still confusion between what a SE is and an NGO practitioner. SE maximises ROI for the benefit of either people or planet or both. They look at the bigger picture, without boundaries. Could the reason why they are a wart in most people’s sides be because they are not really separated from main stream economy as Mike sees it but because they are a mirror to the main stream individuals and most individuals in the main steam economy looking at it, don’t like what they see about themselves?

Arthur

You are looking at a macro picture (which is also neccessary) ... but let's not forget the value of looking at the micro picture.

Sit and think for a minute about the following:

If each individual in the world cared about his neigbour and set-out to assist him, and made sure that his neigbour had food, a roof over his head, and the right support to be healthy, and educated ... etc. why would you need to have a centralised global management structure?

Laurinda

PS: Just dreaming out loud!

For me, if you real want to change the world you need scale, which requires scaleability at the heart of your approach.

...and scaleability requires profitability (or at least a fair chance of it).

The two areas of social entrepreneurship that in my opinion have achieved the biggest impact - microfinance and fair trade - bear this out.

Just reaching financially sustainabilty can be hard enough for a non-profit, but unless there's a positive financial surplus, you can't grow exponentially.

Creating social change a brick at a time isn't an option when people are kicking out two for every one you put in.

It's hard, but it's not impossible. It's been done for credit. It's been done with fair trade. Teach A Man To Fish is trying to make it work for education (http://www.teachamantofish.org.uk).

It's a challenge we all have to take up if saving the world is to be more than a dream.

Thank you, Arthur Kanegis, for putting this challenge so simply and succinctly. “Why do we think we can run so complex a system as a planet with no central governing mechanism?… The Earth is failing.”

To the points made by Jim Fruchterman, Miles Fidelman, Laurinda and nkafka, I’d like to add these. No social entrepreneur, socially entrepreneurial initiative or social enterprise should stop what it is doing. The world needs you. You are making the world a better place “one brick at a time.” You are working from the bottom up, crawling through broken glass everyday for the greater good of all of us.

To respectfully disagree with Miles Fidelman, you sustain yourselves by meeting essentially the same standards entrepreneurs must meet to survive: You exist in a do-or-die marketplace where you must generate revenues sufficient to pay bills, meet payrolls, balance budgets and reinvest in your respective visions. You are always either growing and scaling out or dying. In all those ways entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs are the same. Where you are different is that in the most universal sense entrepreneurs exist to fill pockets; social entrepreneurs exist to fill people’s hearts. Entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs are equally important to the vision of a free-market, socially-balanced civilization (not to be confused with Utopia).

Social entrepreneurs are to be commended. You are the farthest thing from a “wart” to society. You are the civilized force of good. Given time, you will save the world.

As I said when this discussion began, I worry that we don’t have the time it will take for you and the many others you will inspire to save us. My suggestion is that we hedge our bets and work not only from the bottom up but also from the top down. By expanding the social entrepreneurs’ gestalt to acknowledge the role of every social entrepreneur in saving the world (not just changing it), and by holding top leaders accountable for a long-range worldview, we can create positive change from the top as well as from the bottom.

I’m NOT suggesting that we be “planners” (see Jim Fruchterman’s latest comments). I’m suggesting that we be “searchers,” taking steps now to trigger change at the top. One brick at a time. I think there are many ways to build momentum from the top down. I’ll offer them up in my next comments. In the meantime, please feel free to share any ideas you might have.

Glad to see this discussion taking shape and the debate that it has sparkled.

Like John says, the one brick at a time will work. When you build a house, you build one brick at the time normally. But when you build a factory, you do use multiple building techniques using different support structures until everything is in place, but what all have in common is that you need a solid foundation.

With SE is the same! I believe that the foundation is in place. How you build the SE world structure will be done as a collective process using various methods and strategies.

We are following the 6 degree appoach (there's a theory that everyone is just 6 degrees away from everyone in the world) ... or more simply, the power of networking!

At Empowerment Gateway we are using multiple strategies and multiple approaches. Some are botom up and some are top down, some are running paralel.

We will be starting our international drive in a couple of weeks. We have moved our IP and Holding company to Portugal so that we can more easily roll-out the model into Europe. Our South African operations can roll-out into Africa, Asia and Middle East.

We are networking everywhere with anyone that is prepared to listen to us, be they goverment, large businesses, NGO's, Social Entrepeneurs or just plain individuals.

If anyone is interested in joining us in saving the world let's us know!. ...

We are running an hybrid, we generate our own funds which we apply back into the economy in various formats, from straught ROI to SROI.

We have integrated commercial and economic principles, social and environment awareness into our projects. But we are driven to make a positive impact through "DOING WELL ... WHISLT DOING GOOD"

Laurinda

Leadership will be on millions of Americans’ minds for the next 20 months, as we undergo another presidential election campaign. I have watched this piece of our democratic process steadily deteriorate over the past half-century into an embarrassment of propaganda, character assassination and clashing, gargantuan egos. The U.S. presidential election process is now a contest of cutting-edge marketing campaigns featuring products (candidates) that come in packages designed by special interests and spin doctors. These elections are an undeniable condition of the worldwide leadership market where social entrepreneurship lives.

Since this discussion began last week we have been looking at another undeniable condition of the leadership market. Quoting Arthur Kanegis’s comments once again, “The Earth is failing.”

(What defines social entrepreneurs? By most definitions we are people who match resources with shifting market conditions to achieve change.)

This presidential election presents an opportunity for us to do what we do best. We can use our resources: our passion for better leadership at the highest levels, our growing worldwide network of social entrepreneurs, the most efficient and cheapest communications network in history (the Internet), our SE industry aggregators (Skoll, Ashoka, Social Enterprise Alliance, to name a few).

We can match our resources to these profound forces in the worldwide marketplace: a presidential election campaign in the U.S., and a worldwide failure of leadership at the highest level. By doing so—by matching these resources to these market shifts—perhaps we can achieve change.

Here’s the idea: Create an ongoing web-based survey of each presidential candidate’s qualifications, measured by the metrics of social entrepreneurship. Keep the survey short and quantitative. Score each candidate on such things as long-range world vision, strategy to address global poverty, strategies to address global warming, human rights, “preventative” wars, religious tolerance, public health… Link the survey to the network of social entrepreneurship web sites around the U.S. and the world and invite anyone with an interest to submit their responses. Collect and automatically tabulate these surveys until the election. Post results for all to see on an ongoing basis. Revise the survey or introduce new ones as campaign events might dictate. Invite each candidate to submit their platforms on each of the key issues. Invite each candidate to be engaged in the evaluation to the full extent that they choose. And so on. And so on.

This is the germ of an idea. It can be refined and implemented for little or no money with the support of a small team of SE industry leaders. It has the potential to elevate the candidate evaluation process, and most importantly to make the candidates aware that social entrepreneurs around the world are holding them to a higher standard.

Comments?

There is no general class "social entrepreneurs" who are looking honestly and into the future. Some of us do it some of the time. A better question to ask, is how can we institionalize honest exploration of the impact SE can and needs to have on the future? The Skoll Forum In Oxford is a major step forward. This page (and your question!) is another. The SE movement is under construction; the question that shold be embedded in our writing, our businesses, our organizations, is how can we institutionalize onging analysis and course correction.

Can SE's save the world? No. But we are part of the answer, as is technology and science and the human rights movement, and the peace meovement, and the women's movement. Imagine you are in a jet plan flying over the ocean and you notice two guys on the wing pulling out rivets. You tell the attendant and he says not to worry, there is a man on theother wing putting them back in and the plan always lands before the pullers get to far ahead of the replacer. We need to increse the replacers, not try to be the only one. SE's should not take on that burden; what we should do is run our organiations and businesses in collaboration with other movements that are part of the sollution.

Is there more we should be doing? Always, but not in panic mode.

Patrick O'Heffernan’s succinct comments remind me it is a fine, bleeding line between passion and panic. I agree with Patrick. Panic is dangerous and counterproductive. Passion though is an essential juice in a social entrepreneur’s vision. For me, passion comes in part from knowing the horror millions of people around the globe have been born to and wake up to every day. To lesser degrees, my passion comes from an unraveling I see of the delicate safety net that catches our civilization when our naiveté sends one population or another into freefall. We cannot ignore these truths. And the passion they trigger is a great energy for change. Working to fix them in panic mode overnight, however, is a path to failure.

Our global SE community is building power by virtue of its growing numbers and the nobility of our purpose. As we grow, if we mobilize our numbers with a united voice, we can save the world together.

The guiding principles of social entrepreneurship should be the model for world leadership at the highest state, corporate and social levels. If we use our voice to communicate and promote that model, and hold leaders accountable for practicing it, the “saving” of the world can take on a new life.

This discussion is an important step in the right direction.

If SE unite around the world and they expand and grown in various countries, saving the world can be a matter of procedure. It must be strategised by starting at the task level, and replicated through an SE organisation, a community a country.

Panic is not going to save the world but will instead add to its problems. No, we must not panic, but we must support one another when the "grimlins" sit-in and we need support, be it financial, emotional or physical.

We must think bigger than just our own backyards (although that is were we start) ... we must think global.

Places like this are invaluable.

A week ago, I was feeling despondant, then I read all that you have contributed and I realise that we are not alone ... that is worth more to me than money ...

Thank you

This has been an invigorating discussion. I extend my gratitude to all of you who commented as well as those of you who visited and “listened in” on the discussion. Leadership is an evolving craft. It changes steadily to adjust to the demands of our ever-changing world. It’s one of our most versatile, portentous advantages against the hazards of the coming decades. This discussion has heightened our attention to what leadership is now, can be and should be. Thank you all for taking part. Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly via email at any time to continue this dialogue via jzurick@zqi-inc.com. I also invite you to follow my blog at http://WorkAndChangeTheWorld.typepad.com.

Thanks for a good discourse.

I work for a social entrepreneurship company called GreenDimes that is a for profit trying to do well by doing good. The goal is help people do little things that collectively will help the planet. The idea is not to get people to change their lives radically, but rather to solve small problems in a way that cumulatively will also make the world better. The goal is also to make it measurable so that people can tangibly realize the small thing they are doing will make a difference. I am of the belief that the only way we can save the world is if we make it in people's everyday interest to do so.

The first problem we are solving is junk mail - GreenDimes (www.greendimes.com for more info) is a service to reduce your junk mail and plant a tree for you every month. Getting less junk mail saves people time, counter space, and privacy (less chance of identity theft). It also helps the planet - over 100,000,000 trees are chopped down annually to make U.S. junk mail, much of which goes straight into the recycling bin unopened, so if we can reduce this waste, we can save some trees in addition to planting more trees.

So taking this concept to the larger level, I think the more social entrepreneurship companies, the greater chance we have of making a big difference overall.

I think some of the problems are caused by the "leaders" inability to galvanize and relate to their potential "followers". Using terminology such as "changing the world" or "saving the world", is very intimidating. People, aka potential followers and change makers, get turned off because that sounds like an impossible task. Some people don't think the world needs to be changed. Some people like it the way it is, perhaps that is because they are unaware of the issues of the world because the local media informs them about a car chase on the freeway as opposed to child bondage. Some people hate the word change let alone the thought of them having to change. Perhaps we need to work on a better way to reach the masses. I want to follow a leader who I find human. If there is something in them that I can relate to and they speak the langueage of the masses, then I am more likely to join them in their efforts as well as kick start my own. When people hear "change the world" they think of how long it has taken for the world to get to where it is today and they think how on earth can i change it in my lifetime or as an individual? Perhaps instead of using the word "change" we can say "improve", "make better, "enhance", "strengthen", etc. etc.

The thing about social entreprenuers that makes them great leaders is that they are everyday people, like me, who are proving with measurable and sustainable results that one person CAN make a difference and CAN incite others to do the same. They are showing that they can create business', make money, travel the world, meet amazing people, all while working towards a goal that will make the world and peoples lives better!

We all do things on different levels and not always can those "things" be measured. Sometimes it is the little things that can be the most effective. The messages the leaders need to spread need to be more realistic, galvanizing, positive and encouraging. Otherwise, we ignore them and just get consumed in our own lives and start looking at theses "leaders" as being crazy and out of touch. For example, I can't stand the terminology "save the world". Save the world from what exactly? Is the world dying? How depressing.

Lets work on the way in which we spread messages and how to galvanize everybody to do what little they can, on their own terms and in their own way, but for the betterment of all.Lets make this fun and start, realisticallly, showing people how their efforts and brains are needed.

Be Stirred and inspire others!

I think some of the problems are caused by the "leaders" inability to galvanize and relate to their potential "followers". Using terminology such as "changing the world" or "saving the world", is very intimidating. People, aka potential followers and change makers, get turned off because that sounds like an impossible task. Some people don't think the world needs to be changed. Some people like it the way it is, perhaps that is because they are unaware of the issues of the world because the local media informs them about a car chase on the freeway as opposed to child bondage. Some people hate the word change let alone the thought of them having to change. Perhaps we need to work on a better way to reach the masses. I want to follow a leader who I find human. If there is something in them that I can relate to and they speak the langueage of the masses, then I am more likely to join them in their efforts as well as kick start my own. When people hear "change the world" they think of how long it has taken for the world to get to where it is today and they think how on earth can i change it in my lifetime or as an individual? Perhaps instead of using the word "change" we can say "improve", "make better, "enhance", "strengthen", etc. etc.

The thing about social entreprenuers that makes them great leaders is that they are everyday people, like me, who are proving with measurable and sustainable results that one person CAN make a difference and CAN incite others to do the same. They are showing that they can create business', make money, travel the world, meet amazing people, all while working towards a goal that will make the world and peoples lives better!

We all do things on different levels and not always can those "things" be measured. Sometimes it is the little things that can be the most effective. The messages the leaders need to spread need to be more realistic, galvanizing, positive and encouraging. Otherwise, we ignore them and just get consumed in our own lives and start looking at theses "leaders" as being crazy and out of touch. For example, I can't stand the terminology "save the world". Save the world from what exactly? Is the world dying? How depressing.

Lets work on the way in which we spread messages and how to galvanize everybody to do what little they can, on their own terms and in their own way, but for the betterment of all.Lets make this fun and start, realisticallly, showing people how their efforts and brains are needed.

Be Stirred and inspire others!

I agree with most of you that there is a problem with leaders "stepping in with a plan" when it comes to social entrepreneurship. There are too many unknowns in each case. Many people would be most grateful for the opportunities and resources to solve problems for themselves so that leaders may never have to stay or return. People want to feel their own strength.

A rich discussion. A concern was raised that changing the world one person at a time will be insufficient. Similarly, changing the world one issue of the time will be insufficient, even though these activities are indeed essential contributions.

My approach is to assert that we need a whole system change based on a shift in core values. Futurist Riane Eisler makes a fundamental distinction between partnership/respect relating and domination/control relating. These two contrasting core values operate fractaly at every level from personal relationships to global governance.

Briefly, the Dominator sequence includes abusive child rearing, authoritarian schools, workplace bullying and spouse abuse, the corporate production of known toxins, an economic system designed to concentrate wealth at the top, the corporate control of the State, and finally war.

In contrast, the partnership sequence includes birth without violence, supporting kids in following their own interest, methods of emotional healing, respectful workplace relations, and an open democracy that works for the well-being of the whole community.

It is people with a Dominator mentality who willingly destroy the environment and communities for personal aggrandisement (think of the invasion of Iraq) as well as an expression of their personal/group mental dysfunction. Influential dominators actively resist the changes we need to deal with global warming and other environmental issues. In contrast, social entrepreneurs typically express partnership values by working for the good of the community.

In my view, this partnership and dominator distinction is as profound in the social sphere as Einstein's E =MC2 is in physics. And it leads to this conclusion: the fate of the world depends upon partnership values coming to set the tone. And in every sphere from child rearing to business to global governance people have developed practical approaches based on partnership values, so we actually know how to do it.

Therefore, coming back the theme of this thread, I suggest that all NGOs and social entrepreneurs should:

• Articulate loudly that we are committed to a whole system change based on positive values • Help everyone within their sphere understand the connections between the environment, our economic system, advertising and consumption, personal psychology and core values. My book Evolving a World That Works spells this out. Evolving can be downloaded from www.futuresfoundation.org.au/. Look in Project to Make Wellbeing a National Priority.

This stance, and the education that follow from it, prepares people to follow constructive leadership when it arises. And since we must become the kind of people who can create and enjoy a sustainable society, ideally some people will be moved to do personal growth to sort out their inner psychological issues and open up their creativity and fuller love of life. And those in positions of influence will begin to reorganise their organisations to operate more on partnership values. Ricardo Semler’s Maverick is a brilliant articulation of this process in business. Ultimately politics must shift to emphasising community well-being.

Best wishes to all!

Andrew, you say:

"My approach is to assert that we need a whole system change based on a shift in core values. Futurist Riane Eisler makes a fundamental distinction between partnership/respect relating and domination/control relating. These two contrasting core values operate fractaly at every level from personal relationships to global governance."

I agree with your assertion that we need a whole system change. But if it is really to be a whole system change, it must be based on the whole system itself. A whole system change based on some part of the whole system such as core values would not be a true whole system change.

We can begin the process of arriving at a whole system change by starting with Riane's core values. But wholesystem thinking would require us to penetrate causally upstream of these core values, to find those factors that cause these core values. After we have found the upstream-most point in the Whole System, we can try to effect the required shift at that level.

From my own understanding of the Wholesystem, Riane's core values are a product of the upstream factor of human identity:

Those who regard themselves as discrete, separate and independent individuals will tend to focus on individual survival at the expense of the rest, and which in turn orients them defensively, acquisitively and exploitatively vis a vis others and nature. Domination and control are behavioral modes of this orientation.

On the other hand those who at least feel, if not believe that they are connected, integrated and interdependent with everyone else and with nature, will tend to focus on the health of this Whole, sometimes even at the expense of oneself. This identity orients them to be loving, enhancing and uplifting to others and to nature. Your core values of Partnership and respect for others and toward nature are attitudinal modes of this orientation.

Attempting whole system change based on a shift from domination/control core values to partnership/respect core values cannot produce lasting results. We must first effect the corresponding upstream shift from our prevailing identity as discrete, separate, independent individuals to our wholesystem identity as connected, integrated and interdependent systemhood.

As long as the identities that generate the prevailing core values remain unchanged, the false identities will keep on generating those dysfunctional and destructive core values of domination/control.

"Discovering of a world with difference" may happen only with the change in our perception and the change in our attitude which may happen only to a person encountered with some real time problem in one's own life. We the "social enterprenures" some time or the other encountered with such situations in our life which made a sea change in our attitude towards our own life and the life of others in our surroundings facing similar situations. We should not expect any miraculous change in the near future because the problem of todays world is "Money or No Money". The people having money normally did not bother the opposites and often think that the others are their subject and they can "use and exploit" the others in their "designed manner" and often act as "Social savioures" of the poor or the sufferors to shield their own vested interests, malafides, grits and guilts feeling that nobody on this earth would be able to diagnose their malafides.Some times they succeed in their designs, BUT this is not true for all the times because once they get exposed, like USA & UK in Iraq, they themselves become subject of the "Haterdness" of the opposites, having "No money" or "lesser resources". And these type of events and incidents becomes the barrier in "creating confidence" in the Hearts of the people with lesser or no resources,towards the sincere efforts of genuine social enterprenures.

Therefore, we should be very sure of our own motives, our surroundings,the real situations of the people we are having the plan to change & a well defined and clearcut strategy to help them out ensuring their active participation with self respect. "Let us change ourselves first ~ the world will change itself"

John asks:

• Are we social entrepreneurs today looking honestly around us and far enough into the future?

We live in a common world that runs on cause and effect. Cause begets effect, which becomes cause for the next effect, which in turn begets the next effect, and so on. Causality is a stream flowing downstream toward sequence after sequence of more and more effects.

Looking honestly around us will show us what is going on right now. But everything that is going on right now has hidden sequences of causes going further upstream.

The further into the future we want to improve our world, the higher upstream we must begin, and design our project to harness the sequences and momenta of causality to support and facilitate our effectiveness and success.

• We know social entrepreneurs can change the world. But can we save the world?

The difference between changing the world and saving the world is the difference between making and unmaking

Any of us can change the world by simply generating a new effect that did not exist before. But saving the world involves UNMAKING existing conditions that are threatening the world.

To save the world, we must understand the most dangerous threats, identify the causes of these threats as far upstream as we can find their origins, and dismantle these original factors.

• Is there more we should be doing?

The best way to do more is to do less things, and focus on addressing the few systemic things that cause all these effects that all of us are busily addressing. It is not enough to do. It must be doing for effective and sustainable results.

Most of us will continue to engage in knee jerk reactions to the myriad problems we appear to face. This is not unlike physicians always focusing or relieving the symptoms we complain to them about. The good doctor works backward from these surface effects to isolate the hidden disease that is causing the symptom.

This means that those of us who are more concerned with saving the world must focus exclusively on finding the most upstream causes of most of these effects, in order to dismantle their systemic origins.

"make vs unmake" and that the best way to do more is sometimes to do less. Great!

I'm curious... how do you apply your theories to your own philanthropy and giving?

I have been focusing on developing a Wholesystem Model that will make it easier for anyone to find the most upstream causes of the problems that interest each of them, so that they may more easily become able to dismantle the systemic origins of these problems, and thereby effect an effective and lasting solution.

I think that you all hit the nail on the head. For better and for worse, the fate of the world lies in the hands of those who are uncommonly good at making something from nothing. (In other words, us.)

Unfortunately, the majority of governmental investment goes into developing leaders that do not think like entrepreneurs, but rather like bureaucrats. As a result, the domain of social entrepreneurship has emerged. Our core competency is sidestepping the obstacles of time, resources, limited ideas, and organizational inertia which blunt even the most well-intentioned government initiatives.

It is most definitely up to us, the Nobels and Carnegies of the modern era, to assume that responsibility.

The unique thing about this challenge is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to plan. As Ravi mentioned previously, the future we face is determined by an infinite number of variables that comprise an overall global outlook. 50 years ago, it would have been impossible to foresee the challenges that face us today, for example controlling the ecological fallout from Asia's industrial revolution. That generation's attention would be focused on nuclear nonproliferation as the vehicle to save the world.

Our advantage is that we are compelled to act as "reactive" leaders, learning and adapting as these circumstances arise. We have no way of predicting accurately what the future will bring economically, environmentally, and socially, but we can analyze trends and make educated decisions to lessen the threats as they arise.

The best thing that we can do to assume this role is, as many of you have mentioned, to develop young leaders with the type of business acumen that allows them to see the clouds on the horizon and react immediately. We can't always predict the problem, but we can develop leaders capable of using their heads, and then acting on it.

Laurinda, Jill, Andrew and Ravi have it right

a bent toward social entrepreneurship should be the "default" ethical stance of every young person stepping out into the world to make their mark, and of every adult who takes on the responsibility to be their parent, guide or teacher. Like these contributors, our bottom-up initiative encourages all people, including both the religious and the non-religious, to join hands in an ecumenical fellowship to use reason to deal with others and with society as a whole -- which we believe will help make the world a saner place. For more information see http://www.circleofreason.org.

Hi John Zurick,

In regards to your comments: (1) "But what if it doesn’t happen soon enough? What if we don’t have the time it will take? What if the world tips the other way first? Some days, for every tip towards a better world there is an opposite and greater tip towards a horrific world. What if those days overpower the good days?"

Reply: This paradox of some of us trying to make a better world whilst others may directly/indirectly work towards a horrific world is a constant struggle. Whilst this may have little logical explanation, it may be necessary for the evolution of mankind and the growth of our civilisation. In fact, the very existance of social entrepreneurs in today's world is as a result of this constant struggle. It can be argued that, in the absense of darkness, it is harder to explain light.

Some of our greatest achievements as human civilization were during times of war, destruction and madness. During the world war I and II, whilst there were so many deaths, suffering and destruction; humankind also managed to invent some of its greatest inventions followed by radical innovations in multiple industries and massive increases in global technologies.

I am certainly not suggesting that war is good, nor the fact that we should encourage/foster violence in any form. Simply that, the world operates in more forms and needs analysis beyond scientific and logical arena. In a way, one could argue that the world has a life of its own.

If as social entrepreneurs, we fail to succeed in 'saving the world'; I believe the world will take the matter into its own hands. As a result, humankind is likely to experience more natural disasters than ever before in the world.

However at the same time, bigger problems bring out bigger leaders. In times of great distress in the world, great leaders will also emerge out. Optimistically, I believe these leaders will save the world.

(2) Are we social entrepreneurs today looking honestly around us and far enough into the future?

Reply: Honesty and Far into the future are quite subjective terms. Rather than to categorise one social entrepreneur from another as either honest/dishonest or short-long term; I would like to propose that we see each social entrepreneur being nurtured through the developmental continuum.

In other words, each social entrepreneur has the intensions of doing good for the world, but also has to meet their own personal and organisational financial and operational obligations. This balance of priorities is the very foundation of social entrepreneurship that differentiates itself from traditional/corporate entrepreneurship and charities/NGOs.

Depending on various intrinsic and extrinsic factors such as age, experience, drive, ambition, passion, governmental support, legal constraints and other environmental factors; social entrepreneurs are always on the move - on a journey of self-development and self-challenge via relentlessly pursuing innovation by breaking down traditional boundaries to find solutions for social problems.

It can be argued that as time goes by - with changes in personal/family/life committments and self-identity, they are more likely to look further into the future. There are however, exception to this - where some social entrepreneurs from their very beginning are able to look far into the future; and initiated projects that best serve the future world.

Overall, it is necessary for the world to have social entrepreneurs that looks far into the future as well as in the short - medium term. Collectively, they are likely to bring about the best social entrepreneurial ventures that benefits humankind in short-medium and long term.

(3)"We know social entrepreneurs can change the world. But can we save the world? Social entrepreneurship is the manner of leadership that can restore a global vision of a better world. But social entrepreneurs will need to reach higher, think bigger and work harder. Changing the world is not enough. Social entrepreneurs need to save the world".

Reply: Personally, I am optimistic that social entrepreneurs WILL save the world. I also believe that the path towards SAVING the world begins by initiating projects that intend to CHANGE the world. Hence we need to encourage social entrepreneurs to do both.

(5) Is there more we should be doing?

Reply: I believe, there's always more that (i)we can do- short term minor issues, (ii)we should do - medium term implications and (iii) we must do - longer term impact.

Things that fall into category (i) are social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurial projects that intends to achieve short term benefits/results. These tend to be relatively easier to measure, more quantitative and provide direct impact visible to everyday people.

Category (ii) social entrepreneurs and their projects are likely to have medium term implications. These projects may or may not flourish in the hands of the initial social entrepreneur. For example, ventures of this type may require longer term nurturning that extends beyond the founder's physical life expectancy. Other times, the project may reach a certain point, where it requires the leadership of a completely new type of social entrepreneur (rather than the founder) - in order to achieve its fullness.

Category (iii) type projects extends well beyond the founders' life expectancy into the far future. Hence, the founders can only imagine the world created as a result of their social entrepreneurial initiatives. One could argue however that in fact the soial entrepreneurs who creates this type of projects can actually see the future through strategic foresight.

In one of Disneyland Board meetings - recent years, apparently someone got up and said I wish that Walt Disney was here to see Disneyland today and how it has changed the world as we knew it. Someone else got up and said actually Walt Disney has already seen what we see now and what we are going to see tomorrow. Category (iii) type social entrepreneurs in their approach may in some cases not actually get ventures off the ground in their lifetime, rather set the framework and foster a social entrepreneurial culture around them.

Regards John Meewella (www.aspiresolutions.biz)

The concept of social entrepreneur is so new, not many people from the general population have even heard about it and the ones that have heard the term do not know what it means.

Can social entrepreneurs change the world, the answer is yes, but does not mean "SAVE THE WORLD", since there are too many problems need saving.

It takes the willpower of humanity to solve a numerous social and environmental problems, inlcuding: governments, non-profits, social businsses, general population and businesses.

The exchange of ideas is important, but more important is action. We can have greast ideas, but if we do not act on them, we will never change, just like a "New Year's Resolution".

As for my part, we are setting up North America's first social stock exchange connected to a green social network, called the Green Stock Exchange (GREENSX) at: http://greensx.com, which will be launched in the Summer of 2008 to begin trading. It will trade shares in social businesses. A social business is a business that makes a profit, but benefits society as well. We have a triple bottom line (economic + social + environmental).

Since all the listed companies on the exchange are pre-screened, evaluated, and audited according to social and sustainable guidelines set by the exchange, it will make it much easier for green investors to find and support social businesses. The GREENSX provides opportunities for small green Issuers to access public equity capital efficiently, while providing early stage investors, angel investors, and venture capitalists with greater liquidity. This includes a eBAY.com trading system for carbon credits.

It is still in the beta stage testing. Check it out at: http://greensx.com.

Even the Green Stock Exchange, we cannot do it alone, we need many supporters.... so let us join our hands together to solve problems together..