Currently sitting on a busy train and decided to start my first (real) blog entry…
I want to share a video with you, which became the turning point for me to start adoseofpersonalwhim. It basically sums up everything I believe about social enterprise, philanthropy and alternative career paths.
Dan Pallotta is probably one of the most engrossing speakers that I have found through TEDtalks. He stresses the importance of business strategy in the non-profit sector, and that it should (in many respects) use for-profit sector models to achieve results and the big bucks.
I will leave you to listen and won’t give too much away… However I would like to make a few comments on my favourite ideas and on the criticms that that Dan Pallotta recieved for the ideas he shared.
Firstly, many of the criticisms revolve around how the for-profit sector strategies would ruin social enterprise and turn them into a business, forgetting the cause.. However these people clearly havn’t really listened to what Dan is saying.
To quote, “When you prohibit failure, you kill innovation. If you kill innovation in fundraising, you can’t raise more revenue. If you can’t raise more revenue, you can’t grow. And if you can’t grow, you can’t possibly solve large social problems.”
It’s the passion for a cause, mixed with the business strategy, that leads to results – not just a profit maximisation mentality. What I think is really important to realise is that if you start making these claims now, social enterprise will never take off… We aren’t at that stage yet where we need to worry about it – first let the firms take off and reel in the money for their cause on a large scale. Then, start regulating and changing things to make social progress sustainable.
Pessimism is the thief of success.
Secondly, something quite relevant to me, is Dan’s views on students and their perceptions of their own careers… He pins down perfectly the dilemma of socially passionate students who would love to apply their knowledge to the non-profit sector but feel that doing so would leave them worse of than their degree qualified them to be. To quote Dan – ‘it becomes a sacrafice between the wellbeing of their family or the wellbeing of the world…’. This is definitely how a number of students across a disciplines feel about their place in the Global arena.
So to conclude, although I am not an expert on the non-profit sector, I do know a bit about the problems my generation face when approaching the world of social enterprise. I thoroughly recommend you watch his TEDtalk and realise the potential of non-profit and philanthropy.
Over and out!
ADoseofPersonalWhim 