The Tao of Social Entrepreneurship

• What is it that generates the flow of enthusiasm? – Success in a social venture
• What kinds of things weaken or block that flow? – Dependence on Government officials or philanthropists. Social entrepreneurs should be able to make money and not depend on income redistribution
• What is it that generates the flow of funding – An idea that makes money and creates jobs in a socially responsible way
• What kinds of things weaken or block that flow? – Lack of creativity, blaming others, and not solving problems
• Are "expectations from headquarters" a poor fit with "realities on the ground"? –No, expectations should be high
• Do "funding requirements" fit with "mission goals"? –In general, yes
• Where are your bottlenecks, and how can you release the full potential of your endeavors? – A major bottleneck is the difficulty in obtaining the capital goods necessary for success at a reasonable price; Also in many areas of the world you must worry about your physical safety (see Robert Young Pelton's book “The World's Most Dangerous Places”). To release the full potential you must build your plans base on what is available
• And -- perhaps most important of all -- where does "let go and let it flow" fit in? – Optimism and enthusiasm are very important; It is too easy to be a critic

Hi Paul:

Your response makes it all sound so easy, which I take to mean that you have an excellent sense of balance! I wish more of us did!

I note also your mention of the need to worry about physical safety in some parts of the world. I particularly appreciate that comment, because social enterprise naturally spans the entire range of places and situations, and a task that may be simple in one places can make extraordinary demands in another.

As I read the first three responses here, with their three very different "tones", I wanted to applaud your own tone of calm common sense, practicality, and getting the job done.

The flow of social entrepreneurship is the flow of value within the Whole, otherwise known variously as Tao, Whole, Truth, Nature, It, or Logos.

After the Whole become able to observe Oneself, One became able to be attracted or repulsed by whatever was observed.

After the Whole became able to copy and store whatever was observed at the local vantage point where the observation occured, One became able to anticipate attraction or repulsion with whatever it recognized from such vantage points.

After the Whole became able to combine stored copies of whatever it observed into ideas, One became able to be attracted or repulsed by the anticipation of the realization of these ideas, and began to move and act locally in ways that advanced such realization.

Thus value emerged within the wholesystem, as the realization of attractive ideas and as the avoidance of repulsive ideas, and entrepreneurship emerged as the organizational form for effecting such realizations.

Value drives human action in the wholesystem much as the mass of forms drove the motions of forms in One's material subsystem.

Wherever observing of the rest of the wholesystem widens to consider what's attractive for the whole rather than what's attractive for any part of One, new ideas for healing the wholesystem arise within the One.

More attractive social entrepreneurship emerges wherever the local vantage point of the self-observing function of the whole is upgraded from a narrower view toward a wider perspective.

Meta social entrepreneurship, or facilitating wholeself-awareness as an integral function within the wholesystem constitutes generation of meta flows that will automatically accelerate the emergence of more and better flows of social entrepreneurship.

After all, what is social entrepreneurship but organized motion/action to reverse the effects of motions/actions of narrower identities within the wholesystem with ideas from ever wider identities.

Hi, Ravi:

We've known each other for a while, here and elsewhere, and I'm getting better at "reading" the way you express yourself, which always embodies the clear insights that form the basis of your philosophy / worldview. As you know, I am in considerable agreement with it. As with Heidegger, though, it can take some time to get used to your keen blade.

You write:

QUOTE: Wherever observing of the rest of the wholesystem widens to consider what's attractive for the whole rather than what's attractive for any part of One, new ideas for healing the wholesystem arise within the One. :UNQUOTE

Unselfishness is the key to creativity, eh -- in responding to the problems that face us in ways that will be useful, ecological if you will, sustainable?

I like it.

Thanks for your contributions, and if nI'm misreading you, please feel free to say so...

You're right Charles, Tao in essence is a process, I agree Ravi and Paul, in the context of the whole - to let go, is to let flow.

As a principle of Nature (and in the Bureau of Public Secrets) the Tao is a union of opposites 'in the primordial mystery behold(ing) the issues of the universe' - rational, masculine, active / feminine, mystical, yielding, spirit/matter etc - and like the beginnings of the universe in creating something from nothing and like in SE, that unfolding reveals principle and process as inseparable.

With two flows from the same source, the gateway of the essential is "the abyss of the abysmal" where there's always a way, when the flow of Tao is the path of the heart. Miraculous workings are the ability for transformations between the two, and in the resulting essence, one must then "realize the potential within oneself which is of benefit to all" like in alchemy, the unity in the flow of energy, is the secret of transformation and change.

I think what social entrepreneurship gets, is that the individual and the Universal are one, and that the first principle is in aligning with your dreams, from which all else flows, enthusiasm and so on. Or like the world's most beloved bear's says in the Tao of Pooh: "Think think think...A little consideration, a little thought for Others, makes all the difference."

And Jo:

Thanks again! As I say, I'm delighted by the three very different "tones" that my initial post has elicited.

It's subtle, isn't it. There are problems to solve, needs to meet, principles to live by, connections to make - and then there's an elusive quality that finds its way around obstacles and adds subtlety and warmth to the proceedings. And the part of the brain that handles some of that, and the heart that supplies the rest -- they'rew both "us"!

Thankfully.

i think that the tao of social entrepreneurship is all about the purity of intentions... if one keeps the intention pure (and keeps working hard at it), and the rest will flow.

on a more lofty level, when the intention is pure, then everything else seems to fall into place. i believe this more now, based on experience.

'pure intentions' means getting rid of the ego that makes us want things to be about our personal achievements rather than the real social goals of the project; that makes us narrow-minded and closed to other ideas; that makes us lazy and pessimistic.

funding flows from the pure intentions that allow the act of taking care of the business. as the saying goes, "take care of the business and the business takes care of you".

sometimes, funding requirements are too rigid, not understanding that most social entrepreneurs keep an approach that is organic, relying heavily, again, on the purity of intentions.

having said all this, i think that to practice the tao of social entrepreneurship, we must constantly recognize and acknowledge the reason why we do what we do.

that's all :)

You're right Krie, to recognize the intention is to allow the seed of thought to grow until it ripples into actions, that then take on organizational forms.

And just as the Tao way of doing things reveals a myriad of tones toward the intention, dropping the ego simply means letting go of our own blocks and obstacles on the path to clearing a way, for others. From the Tao of Physics - 'Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter'- that's why we have to go with the flow, right? I also think it's about perseverance and patience.

I'd like to thank you both for lovely posts. I'm afraid I haven't been very flowing myself in giving you timely responses - I've been here several times over the last couple of days and each time, felt there wasn't much to add except *yes*!

I'm going to make a quick comment on Dan Bassill's post now, and will then try to put together a more general comment on the conversation thus far, which I see as having two aspects I'll call "leaning to the spiritual" and "leaning to the practical", which I'd like to braid together.

It seems to me that inspiration/enthusiasm and funding are two of the central currents of social entrepreneurship, so the questions we can discuss here will include:

    * What is it that generates the flow of enthusiasm, and

The longer you're in the water, and the more fish you meet, the greater the current and stronger the enthusiasm. When I first became a volunteer leader in 1975 I did not have the same degree of enthusiasm, or purpose, that I have now. The other people I've met along the way, who share their own ideas and enthusiasm, have contributed to my own growth, and ability to constantly re-energize myself and my idea

    * What kinds of things weaken or block that flow?

We're still working in isolation, with too few resources. An entrepreneur with a truly innovative idea is not really embraced, but often feared, or ignored. Staying involved for as long as I have, requires some sort of spiritual force beyond myself keeping me involved.

    * What is it that generates the flow of funding, and

Good ideas, good work, creative outreach and luck influence the flow of funding. Building a network of people who have money to give, or who know people/organizations who will give, is essential. While we have built an extensive network, it still does not include people who regularly give five figure donations because they care about what we're trying to do, and believe in what we're trying to do, as much as we do.

    * What kinds of things weaken or block that flow?

Donors are bombarded from all sides by people asking for their support. Our messages are fragmented. We're competing with each other like a school of fish at feeding time. If new programs with high profile backing enter the water, they take donor attention from programs already operating, doing the un-glamorous day to day work that makes organizations successful.

What does it take to "let go and let it flow"

I show a strategy map at http://tinyurl.com/tmc-strategy-map which represents things that need to be done each year to expand the growth of tutor/mentor programs and help each program constantly improve the impact of what they do. I started creating this in my Chicago office before the Internet was available to me. I have a 20 foot section of wall with material posted that illustrates these strategies, and actions that need to be taken.

I learned a long time ago that I can't do all of these things by myself, or do them all every day. I also learned that even though I'm not "acting" that does not means someone else is not "reacting" to a message I sent, or "acting" to implement one of the ideas I've shared. This means that as I review the "wall" each week, I need to know "if something is happening" of "if something needs to happen" that I need to focus on that day, or that week. As long as we're making some progress in each strategy on the map, with the resources we have, we're progressing toward goal.

Understanding this removes a lot of stress and anxiety, and enables me to make more things happen.

Daniel:

As always, a very thorough, detailed and practical post. As I said to Krien and jo, I have the feeling this conversation has two "leanings" or streams at the moment, one more "spiritual" in tone, the other more "oractical" - though both have elements of the other.

I'd like to braid them together, and will do so in a more general post shortly.

As always, my warm and appreciative thanks!

I'd like to thank all the participants thus far, and to tell you something of my own sense of the event. And I mean this by way of praise and encouragement, even though I am going to call for a "whole" that's something more than the "parts" we've thrown into the mix thus far.

When water bubbles up at a spring, it's sweet, pure, clear, very likely quite small, and perhaps eve enchanting. By the time a major river finds its way t the ocean, it is probably less suitable for nature photographers than it was up there in the hills where it started, but much more useful in terms of shipping, with all that entails - a city, railroads and an airport, thousands of freight containers, large ships, wharves, cranes, scheduling and scheduling conflicts, security patrols, we all have a rough idea of the drill.

Beauty at one end, management at the other, if I can put it bluntly.

And I for one am extremely grateful for the beauty associated with freshwater springs and the natural environment, and no less grateful for the empowerment that the great world network of freight and transportation brings me, including the power to tap this post out somewhere in northern California and have you read it almost the next moment in Chicago or London or Lagos or Uttar Pradesh.

So its no dishonor to either "leaning" if I say that some of the posts here have leaned tn the spiritual, and some to the practical end of the spectrum that's inevitably proposed by our title: the Tao (way, path or flow, a predominantly "spiritual" concept) of Social Entrepreneurship (a highly results-oriented, practical, grounded approach to fixing the world -- or to give it a more "spiritual" name, "tikkun olam").

I very much welcome both, but I'd like to invite you to take things a step further.

The more "spiritual" posts have a lilt to them, a musicality almost -- they flow, as does a river, in natural curves rather than straight lines. And the more practical posts have a clarity and force to them that drives them from point (a) to point (z) in a way that takes care that the points in between are covered, as in a schedule, a checklist.

What I'd like to explore is the meshing of those two ways of seeing, thinking, and posting.

I think we may need to get anecdotal to do this, to present story rather than theory, whether the theory be spiritual-taoist or practical-entrepreneurial.

It's the confluence of best business practice with intuitive and compassionate flexibility that I'm hoping for - do you have a tale to tell?

And am I even making sense?

I know what I mean, but I may not have communicated it yet - in which case, please tell me what's confusing and ask me to explain...

And above all, thanks for posting, thanks for reading here, thanks for the work you all do, thanks for this community, let's keep talking!

Charles wrote, "I know what I mean, but I may not have communicated it yet - in which case, please tell me what's confusing and ask me to explain... "

I wonder how many others feel this way several times every day. Finding ways to communicate the ideas and visions that we see clearly in our own imaginations, so that others understand and add their own passion and talents and resources is something I've struggled with for many years.

I began to draw pictures of my ideas as a way of communicating. Then I began to find volunteers and interns to help me put these ideas on line, or animate them in more interesting ways.

The analogy of the stream at the top of the mountain where it emerges as a trickle of water, then grows to a river as it meshes with other streams, is real to me. It means my vision and the pictures in my mind are constantly being renewed, updated, and revised, by what I learn from others I meet along the way. It means that as others with better talent begin to try to communicate our shared ideas, we reach more people and the river gets bigger, and the current flows stronger.

There are even floods, when the water spreads over its boundaries across other land masses, and picks up new ideas, and new resources.

When you write "I'd like to explore meshing these two ways of seeing, thinking and posting" I would like to take it a step further and have people point to places where these ideas are being visualized, and communicated in different ways. Browse the blog posts at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com and follow my links and you'll see dozens of ways I've been doing this, along with the work of interns who are beginning to add their own talent.

I'm not sure if this is an answer to your question, or a path that leads to better understanding of the question, and the answers that are provided.

Charles, I encourage you to read this article by Valdas Krebs that illustrates how contact made several years ago on the Omidyar.net site has led to work that will be done next week in Chicago. http://www.thenetworkthinke[…]self-embedded-in-large.html

A similar map could have been created showing how you and I and others have connected on Social Edge, and how we've linked to people we've met here, with people we've met on Omidyar.net and other forums.

In my own blog article I show how this process can lead to greater support for social entrepreneurs and non profits who are working for social benefit.
http://tutormentor.blogspot[…]s-of-support-for-inner.html

I spelled a name wrong. The correct spelling is Valdis Krebs.

This is amazing, Dan.

I saw Valdis' article on his blog, which I follow, and read maybe half-way through it, but didn't get to the point where it became clear that "Daniel" in his example was you. And I also read a tweet (Twitter post) from Valdis, saying he was at a T/MC meeting, and tweeted him back that you'd been a friend of mine for several years here on SocialEdge. And now in come here and find this...

It's a small world. Social media work. And as so often, it turns out that our interests take us to very similar places!

Take care, and all best wishes of the season.

Why do we even think about something called ‘social entrepreneurship’?

Because there are systemic dysfunctionalities in human behavior that damage one another, one anothers’ groups, and the rest of Nature.

Social entrepreneurship is the remedial instrument we have developed to address and reduce such damage and reverse it.

But this is to miss the real opportunity inherent in social entrepreneurship, i.e., to put an end to dysfunctional human behaviors that generate our need for the remedial instrument of social entrepreneurship in the first place. The real goal of social entrepreneurship must be to eliminate the need for remedial instruments like social entrepreneurship.

This real goal calls for another direction of focus for social entrepreneurship. That of identifying and eliminating the upstream causes of the systemic dysfunctionalities in human behavior, so that the conditions that generate the problems that are currently being addressed by social entrepreneurship, are themselves eliminated, and society no longer produces behaviors that generate effects that call for social entrepreneurship.

This is tough. Because the root causes of our behavioral dysfunctionalities are located in our conceptual interpretive subsystem. And conceptual content, hidden away in our minds, don’t lend themselves easily to scrutiny, let alone improvement.

As long as social entrepreneurship continues to focus primarily downstream of our dysfunctional behaviors, we continue to allow the factors that generate these behaviors to thrive, and this keeps our goal to end the need for the remedial instrument of ‘social entrepreneurship’ unattainable.

Wake up, social entrepreneurship! Wake up to our higher, more upstream calling, that of working toward ending the need for such a remedial instrument at all.

Ravi:

QUOTE:
This is tough. Because the root causes of our behavioral dysfunctionalities are located in our conceptual interpretive subsystem :UNQUOTE

I think this is very basic, foundational even. And it makes me think we need to very consciously position a category alongside "Hunger" "Health" "Education" and the like, for "Mind". And then give it high priority -- because you're right, everything stems from thought.

Creative thinking, critical thinking, systems thinking, non-judgmental awareness -- there are various aspects of nourishing, focusing and calming the mind that have a tremendous impact -- but they don't seem as "obvious" as the need to eliminate poverty, hunger, slavery, child warfare or other crippling problems.

And yet we desperately need ton focus on them, too -- to change the mind and all that flows from it.

This is focused upstream and ready to burst the dam!
http://matterofchange.wordpress.com/[…]/

You make sense Charles, if the river is a metaphor for humanity and that river is under threat - from drought, famine, water shortage, war, terrorism, illiteracy and so on - a SE is like a canoe willing to navigate, eddy in and out of streams, currents, channels, bottlenecks and snags etc, to assist, while hopefully not being swept away, gathering an accumulation of pathways, for access.

Within any current, rivulets and droplets that flow into a concourse, (to create the confluence) are the harmonizing aspects of the unity, yet it also means, part by part, the meshing into the whole, is a struggle between limitation and possibility. Creativity too, can arise out of the tension between spontaneity and limitation. The Tao's way of seeing the two - spiritual and practical - as two streams of this confluence into one, like the Tikkun olam, aims to "act decisively against injustice" to empower the right action, yeah.

For a whole, bigger than its parts, I agree with Daniel, there's a force at work in our lives, although I think the traditional religions have sought to put limits on this force (as a consequences of being divisive) nonetheless, the force is there, as a unifying principle for all. But like Yoda said, "beware the dark side."

What amazes me is that each of us is walking around supposedly only using about 10% of our brains in a 100+ billion neuron cell sac-suit, with at least 4 billion years of evolution behind us, in a 100+ billion star galaxy universe, that has 96% dark matter in it - which is both too mind-boggling to contemplate, yet so unbounded by unlimited possibility - that within this context of the whole it's reassuring to know, when the flow of energy (toward the goal) has a synchronicity, it's a sign one is on a self-realized path. So to my mind, fixing the world, means finding ways to give everyone the chance to be on, or catch up on, their own path.

It's also good to remember though, if a path doesn't have any obstacles, it's probably not going anywhere. As Yoda said, with it, "you must feel the force."

Unknowingly or knowingly we converge at Sir's initiatives for us to come together. Friends, good to read you through the posts.

Abundance of issues to be understood, addressed and followed up, one life is not enough to do so, so need to leave this amazing world with path for people to take or differ and identify new ones.

Continuity depends on energy and its intensity, this will be ensured for those who go through the process to define, to execute and leave the learning’s behind.

Madness is what matters as we are left behind by those who are in a hurry and what I learned is that do not disturb these, if they are disengaged they become detrimental to society.

Greetings once again, Prakash:

It is always a pleasure to read you here. And today, I can only agree with you whole-heartedly that the pace, the sheer speed of modern life is part of what makes it so difficult for many of us to see one simple truth that is right in front of us: the need to build a culture of caring..

Charles,

The Tao of Social Entrepreneurship is that it is a paradox. The flow happens when we acknowledge that we are neo-capitalists, who can handle money and meaning co-existing in a tensile state. We must speak the triptych language of mantra, mission, and money. The mantra is for ourselves only, to answer our doubts, as we make the journey to realize a social enterprise. Never let them see you sweat! The mission is for our non-financial backers and supporters and beneficiaries. And the money ... I haven't met a single investor yet who cared as much about the cause as he did the return on his investment. To unblock the flow, to attract more funding, I think we need to "deromanticize" social enterprise and view it as a business problem to be solved. In Graham Greene's novel, The Quiet American, Greene describes our (American) tendency to remake the world. "He was in his element now, with the whole universe to improve." The flow comes when we see our work as a reason for being, without anyone knowing how important it is and how good we are for doing it.

Gail Vida Hamburg
founder@rainworksomnimedia.com

Charles, thank you for your initial powerful post launching this discussion, and thank you to all others who have responded for adding your beautiful words and insights as well...what a joy to read through the conversation.

For myself, I find that one way to keep the flow of enthusiasm going is to live in the present moment and to practice gratitude. Right now, can I think a positive thought? What is going well? No matter how tough it gets, there has to be some thing that is going well. Thank you that the sun is shining. Thank you that I have a great father, or wonderful relationship with my sister. If you are in America, thank you that I have the right to vote, that I have the right to choose hundreds of places to eat from everyday.

For the challenges that seem to stop that flow of enthusiasm, I have to remember, it will pass. The mountain will pass and at some point, you get to start walking downhill. So keep climbing, keep being grateful, and…keep going.

My 97 year old Oma and grandmother, one of my best friends, once told me, "Whenever I feel down I find something to be grateful for, and I find someone else who is in a worse situation and help them. It helps me be grateful.”

Gratitude also leads to confidence. Gratitude brings a sense of joy, peace and then confidence so that we can maintain our course. This then is valuable when seeking funding. Any great investor is inspired by both the leader and the challenge at hand. Your job is to be upbeat; inspired, stating your request in a compelling way. Don’t fundraise from need. Fundraise from strength and specificity.

Charles, I love your metaphor of braiding together the practical and the spiritual, and envisioning a flowing river to express the two concepts. This is in many ways what social entrepreneurship is all about--braiding together the spiritual, the world-changing vision, with the practical, business skills that can make it happen. The spiritual stream gives the energy to make the practical river flow, and the practical river creates the change that the spiritual stream envisioned. Not only are both valuable, but in many ways, they can't be separated--and shouldn't be.

All my best,
Pamela

Pamela Hawley
Founder and CEO
UniversalGiving

www.universalgiving.org
phawley@universalgiving.org

Living and Giving Blog:
www.pamelahawley.wordpress.com

My apologies: sometimes I read posts and feel the need to wait and digest them before responding - and this time I got swept up in a rush of other writing including one tough deadline, followed by thanksgiving and a birthday - and in the meanwhile you've been posting up a storm, and I've been absent.

I'm trying to feel my way towards describing the sense I have that many of us "know" the tao of social entrepreneurship, but that articulating it, we still tend to come down leaning one way or the other, towards flow and spirituality, or towards practicality and getting on with the job.

And yet it's as though we can't quite run the two together -- like someone who can practice the left-hand bass notes of a piece of music, and practice the right-hand notes, but hasn't yet quite got the knack of playing both at once.

Perhaps it's me I'm sensing this in, or perhaps its just a function of the way the brain works, in terms of binary opposites -- or maybe it's a way of understanding one of the deeper ways in which our culture and training presents us with problems.

Ravi would say that with clarity, there would be no problem. Let's work on clarity, and see, eh?

I'm struggling to launch the most innovative way to reroute wasted money from banks, state governments, and big business and get it to worldwide charities chosen by each individual! Can you please go to this blog and quickly read it. A comment would be great as well as passing it on but just reading it will suffice. I thank you in advance and look forward to have everyone as individuals come together as one voice and change the world!
http://matterofchange.wordpress.com/[…]/