"When combined with information and communication
technologies, microcredit can unleash new opportunities
for the world's poorest entrepreneurs and thereby revitalize
the village economies they serve." -- Madeleine K. Albright
and John Doerr
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"Founded
on the principles of private initiative, entrepreneurship
and self-employment, underpinned by the values
of democracy, equality and solidarity, the co-operative
movement can help pave the way to a more just
and inclusive economic order"
-- Kofi Annan
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"What
business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social
entrepreneurs are to social change. They are the driven,
creative individuals who question the status quo,
exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up, and
remake the world for the better."
-- David Bornstein
According
to the management expert Peter F. Drucker, the term
"entrepreneur" (from the French, meaning "one who
takes into hand") was introduced two centuries ago
by the French economist Jean-Baptiste Say to characterize
a special economic actor--not someone who simply opens
a business, but someone who "shifts economic resources
out of an area of lower and into an area of higher
productivity and greater yield." The twentieth-century
growth economist Joseph A. Schumpeter characterized
the entrepreneur as the source of the "creative destruction"
necessary for major economic advances.
-- David Bornstein
Social
entrepreneurs have existed throughout history. St.
Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan Order,
would qualify as a social entrepreneur -- having built
multiple organizations that advanced pattern changes
in his "field." Similarly, Florence Nightingale created
the first professional school for nurses and established
standards for hygiene and hospital care that have
shaped norms worldwide. What is different today is
that social entrepreneurship is developing into a
mainstream vocation, not only in the United States,
Canada, and Europe, but increasingly in Asia, Africa,
and Latin America. In fact, the rise of social entrepreneurship
represents the leading edge of a remarkable development
that has occurred across the world over the past three
decades: the emergence of millions of new citizen
organizations.
-- David Bornstein
"Entrepreneurs
have a mind-set that sees the possibilities rather
than the problems created by change."
-- J Gregory Dees
"Social
entrepreneurship describes a set of behaviors that
are exceptional. These behaviors should be encouraged
and rewarded in those who have the capabilities and
temperament for this kind of work. We could use many
more of them. Should everyone aspire to be a social
entrepreneur? No. Not every social sector leader is
well suited to being entrepreneurial. The same is
true in business. Not every business leader is an
entrepreneur in the sense that Say, Schumpeter, Drucker,
and Stevenson had in mind. While we might wish for
more entrepreneurial behavior in both sectors, society
has a need for different leadership types and styles.
Social entrepreneurs are one special breed of leader,
and they should be recognized as such. This definition
preserves their distinctive status and assures that
social entrepreneurship is not treated lightly. We
need social entrepreneurs to help us find new avenues
toward social improvement as we enter the next century."
-- J Gregory Dees
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"Change
starts when someone sees the next step."
-- William Drayton
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"Social
entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish
or teach how to fish. They will not rest until
they have revolutionized the fishing industry."
-- Bill Drayton
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The core psychology of a social entrepreneur is someone
who cannot come to rest, in a very deep sense, until
he or she has changed the pattern in an area of social
concern all across society. Social entrepreneurs are
married to a vision of, for example, a better way
of helping young people grow up or of delivering global
healthcare. They simply will not stop because they
cannot be happy until their vision becomes the new
pattern. They will persist for decades. And they are
as realistic as they are visionary. As a result, they
are very good listeners. They have to hear if something
isn’t working; and, whenever they do, they just keep
changing the idea and/or the environment until their
idea works. They are intensely concerned with the
how-to’s: How do I get from here to there? How do
I solve this problem? How do these pieces fit together?
-- Bill Drayton
The
biggest problem is getting beyond the “you can’t”
syndrome. The moment you figure that out, you’re on
your way to flying. Anyone who cannot see problems
around him or herself is utterly blind. All the problems
sitting there are an invitation for you to be creative,
make use of your skills and resources and find a solution.
Of course you can do it. It doesn’t require brilliance.
It’s just giving yourself permission and then being
persistent. Persistent in seeing the problem or opportunity
and persistent in thinking about it until you have
come up with some interesting ideas that might change
the pattern. It’s really a mindset, not anything in
the objective world — that is the problem.
-- Bill Drayton
What
is the most powerful lever you can imagine? A big
idea, but only if it’s in the hands of a truly outstanding
entrepreneur. It starts with the person and the idea,
and then grows to the institution. All three are intertwined.
-- Bill Drayton
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"What
we need is an entrepreneurial society in which
innovation and entrepreneurship are normal,
steady and continuous."
--
Peter F. Drucker
"the
entrepreneur always searches for change, responds
to it, and exploits it as an opportunity."
-- Peter F.
Drucker
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If
they [companies] believe they are in business
to serve people, to help solve problems, to
use and employ the ingenuity of their workers
to improve the lives of people around them by
learning from the nature that gives us life,
we have a chance.
~ Paul Hawken
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“Social
entrepreneurship needs to become a mass activity,
not just the domain of inspirational mavericks ...
Entrepreneurship usually comes from teams, not heroic
individuals. Social entrepreneurs thrive on interdependence,
learning and borrowing resources from the public and
private sectors.”
-- Charles Leadbeater
"Microloans
enable the poor to lift themselves out of poverty
through entrepreneurship."
-- Pierre Omidyar
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A
social entrepreneur is somebody who knows
how to make an idea reality, and one of
the great ideas of our time is pluralism.
Can people from different backgrounds live
together in mutual peace and loyalty? And
what we need is a generation of young social
entrepreneurs who know how to make that
great idea reality in an historical moment
where religious extremists are, frankly,
making their idea reality.
-- Eboo Patel
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"Fair
Trade is a market-based, entrepreneurial
response to business as usual: it helps
third-word farmers developing direct market
access as well as the organizational and
management capacity to add value to their
products and take them directly to the global
market. Direct trade, a fair price, access
to capital and local capacity-building,
which are the core strategies of this model,
have been successfully building farmers'
incomes and self-reliance for more than
50 years."
~ Paul Rice
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"The
entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of
an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity
and greater yield."
-- Jean-Baptiste Say
"the
function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize
the pattern of production... by exploiting an
invention or, more generally, an untried technological
possibility for producing a new commodity or producing
an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source
of supply of materials or a new outlet for products,
by reorganizing an industry and so on."
-- Joseph Schumpeter
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"The
world must become aware of the fantastic
transformational power of social entrepreneurship
and the Foundation will work as a catalyst
in this effort."
~ Klaus Schwab
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Social
entrepreneurs come from all levels of society
and from communities in nearly every country
of the world. They all share the same underlying
drive and passion to see their ideas through.
Many of them have had a huge effect on the
world, yet most people have not even heard
of them – a trend we hope to change!
-- Jeffrey
Skoll
a
little bit of good can turn into a whole
lot of good when fueled by the commitment
of a social entrepreneur
-- Jeffrey
Skoll
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Not everyone can be Gandhi, but each of us has
the power to make sure our own lives count – and
it’s those millions of lives that will ultimately
build a better world.
-- Jeffrey Skoll
The
developed world has a vast, under-utilized asset
that is not being leveraged to its best advantage:
idealistic people who want to make the world a
better place. For most of a century, idealistic
people have been encouraged to use anger, protest,
lobbying, and legal action in order to make the
world a better place. While most certainly some
of these behaviors and activities were necessary,
we have reached the point at which the social
benefit of such behaviors is decreasing. We have
reached the point at which creation, rather than
attack, ought to be the first obligation of reformers.
The social entrepreneurship movement is the first
tip of this iceberg. We want to create a world
in which all idealists realize that the creation
of new enterprises is the most powerful way to
make positive change in the world. If all the
energy that is currently invested in zero-sum
political conflict was gradually transferred to
the committed creation of sustainable enterprises,
the cumulative impact on behalf of the good would
be extraordinary.
-- Michael Strong
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“Entrepreneurs
are risk takers, willing to roll the dice
with their money or reputations on the line
in support of an idea or enterprise.”
-- Victoria
Woodhull
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