Social Entrepreneurship around the world
The thing that makes social businesses different from others is that they solve any kinds of social problems or helps the socially vulnerable, for example disadvantaged teenagers, or the homeless. Its success is not measured by income or the annual turnover, but rather its social impact. Another important point is that a successful social entrepreneur is not someone who earns money without doing any harm to others, but rather someone who helps others and can afford to do this without having to get another job on the side.
Social entrepreneurship existed since the Russian Empire, where the homeless and poor could come to work in the so-called «House of Hardwork» and earn a bit. In its modern form, it started to take shape in the eighties, along with the increasing number of non-profit organisations. So, government agencies, as well as private companies began to pay more attention to the social sector. However, there is still no «golden standard» to define social-oriented businesses, there’s no fixed percentage of income that must go to charity, and even the term «social entrepreneurship» is yet to be legislated in Russia. A bill was submitted to the state Duma three years ago, then the Ministry of Economic Development proposed a new version, but work on it was suspended after public hearings.
In different countries, social entrepreneurship looks different, explained Yuri Kuporosov, a representative of the Social and Entrepreneurship Center at ITMO University. Americans find it easier to relate to the idea of starting your own business, and have a better understanding of how it works. Therefore, their acceleration programs for development of social entrepreneurship don’t teach them how to make money, but how to do good, to adapt their business to the needs of society. The American approach is associated with direct support of target audiences. For example, one of the projects of the International Festival of Social Entrepreneurship at ITMO University in 2015 was dedicated to the sale of t-shirts, with designs that were drawn by prisoners. After some time, the demand began to drop, so the entrepreneur had a choice to make, either to increase the quality of the shirts and develop sales or to promote the project as something that helps prisoners to socialize and earn some money to keep them going after their release from prison. He chose the latter just because it was more effective: in the United States, a social mission can be an important sales engine.
China is developing a manufacturing approach and production of tools to improve the quality of life — the companies are trying to fill those niches where the state is unable to cope. From this point of view, Russia is also a favourable environment for non-profit organizations and companies that help different categories of citizens, especially in times of crisis. But the domestic entrepreneurial environment scares entrepreneurs who are just starting out. Those who want to help others often don’t even think about the development of their project in terms of a business.
«When we were teaching our students to participate in the international festival, we had to deal with the fact that they didn’t understand what social entrepreneurship is. They could devise excellent social projects that deal with problems in society without thinking about how they will live off this,» comments Yuri Kuporosov. «But this approach has one drawback: such operations will soon burn out. They get some results and then rarely force themselves to continue onto the next year. This is connected with the lack of stable financial support, as well. Switching from social design to social entrepreneurship helps solve this problem.»
Examples
According to Yuri Kuporosov, typical projects in the field of social entrepreneurship can be divided into several categories. In the USA, the problems of the hungry and homeless are not so acute as in other countries, so young people there are committed to helping prisoners and prostitutes. They find ways to help prisoners earn money without committing crimes and also contribute to society. For example, in California there is a cafe where all the staff are prisoners. They also create special educational centres to help them to find a new profession. Another priority is increasing environmental awareness and contributing to its betterment. So there is a number of startuppers who devote their projects to urban planning, solving environmental issues and combating vandalism. For example, Flavios Abellan, a student of the University of California in Los Angeles, invented a spray for «live» graffiti, which instead of having paint in it, has a mixture of glue and seeds which germinate on the walls.
Chinese social entrepreneurs, in turn, try to solve social problems through technology. At the same international festival they presented a bot-psychologist, with whom you could discuss pressing questions and learn how to make friends and work on relationships. Students of Zhejiang national University decided to create a feature on slot machines which would contribute part of the earnings to charity. Yuri Kuporosov adds that in Finland this has been implemented at a state level: half of casino profits are spent on youth politics.
Russia, as usual, has its own approach. A significant portion of projects in the field of social entrepreneurship are focused on education. Some work with adults. For example, one of the projects presented at the festival works with the legal department to raise legal literacy among young people in areas in which students face most challenges — like scholarship legislation, financial support from the state, consumer rights protection and travelling abroad. The following year, they switched to older people and began to engage in legal and financial literacy of pensioners. There are others who are trying to adapt new teaching methods for preschoolers or make up for the shortage of kindergartens, like the project team «Fly to the Yard» from St. Petersburg State University. They decided to revive the Soviet outdoor life with games so as to keep kids away from their gadgets. With this project, the students won the federal competition «People Need You!» this May.
Despite their sincerity and usefulness, all Russian projects in the field of social entrepreneurship have one thing in common- almost no one knows about them. One of the few well-known companies in St. Petersburg is a second-hand franchise called «Thank you!». And no one knows about how the artist Vladimir Voloshin teaches the deaf to paint and sell porcelain- only on the Internet you can find some bits and pieces of information about it. The trouble is, there are lots of crooks making money on «social disadvantages». While you’re having lunch in a café, someone tries to sell you trinkets allegedly made by someone with disabilities, and fake volunteers raise money «to help sick children.» However, these individuals have no connection to these children or the disabled, nor to charities or other non-profit organizations.
Mr. Kuporosov explains that most people and social groups are inclined to help children. In fact, they get a huge amount of support from the state, companies, adhering to the principles of corporate social responsibility, various funds, including foreign. But there are still some pressing problems that need to be worked on.
«The „Grandma's recipes“ project is trying to deal with one of them — they work with orphans raised by their grandparents. Because of their attitude, grandmothers are often extra protective of their grandchildren, and because of this excessive attention the children can either grow too dependent, unable to take care of themselves, or become rebellious. While teaching the kids how to cook, the project’s members communicate with them and help them psychologically», — says the expert.
Social and Entrepreneurship Center at ITMO University truly believes that socially-oriented initiatives must get financial support which will give their authors the power to develop them. So this fall, the University will be launching the first accelerator for social startups. The educational program will last two months, and during this time participants will learn to understand the thoughts of the target audience, research the market, create unique selling propositions, legal entity registration and bookkeeping issues. There will also be business games that will help one to better understand a project, learn how to present it and communicate with investors.
