Year: 2010

As the term social enterprise gains traction in the marketplace, more and more organizations are using that term. There is a real risk that this expansion will dilute the meaning of social enterprise to the point that it means any organization that can claim social as well as financial goals, no matter how vague or meaningless. This has already happened in the environmental realm, where trash haulers call themselves recyclers and oil companies outdo each other claiming to be “greener” than the next.

On that point is a recent blog written by Dionne Chingkoe, where she lists the following “Six Sins of Social Enterprise.”

1. The Sin of the Hidden Tradeoff – Much like a glittering generality, this sin involves presenting a person, product, firm, or service as social by highlighting a single social attribute. For example, an investment that touts a single social factor such as job creation cannot be classified in the same range as a deal with a wholly integrated social mission.
2. The Sin of No Proof – As the name suggests, this sin refers to making claims that have no evidence to back them up. Over time, standardized metrics and a common language will be created, making it more evident when social enterprises are not making a measurable impact.
3. The Sin of Vagueness – This sin involves feel-good language that’s so vague as to be meaningless. For instance, there is a growing trend in the private sector to publish CSR reports that do not contain specified goals or practices.
4. The Sin of Irrelevance – Making a claim that’s truthful but unimportant or unhelpful.
5. The Sin of Lesser of Two Evils – In the social enterprise context, this relates to a greater yet relevant debate on who can list on a social investment exchange. Can tobacco companies that train and employ marginalized people be considered social enterprises?
6. The Sin of Fibbing – This really doesn’t require much of an explanation.

A comment from Jed Emerson mentions a 7th sin, hubris, which involves not only the hype sometimes heard around social enterprise — that it will solve the world’s problems and enable nonprofits/NGOs to stop chasing grant dollars — but also believing that hype. A certain amount of humility is a good thing, that we can actually create all the change we want to see in the world.

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Copyright © 2010 Rolfe Larson Associates – Fifteenth Anniversary, 1995 – 2010. Author of Venture Forth! Endorsed by the late Paul Newman of Newman’s Own. Read our weekly blogs on Social Enterprise and Business Planning. Subscribe to our free social enterprise listserv.

To ensure that capacity building by a non-profit will be successful and actually achieve the outcomes that it plans to accomplish, there are things it must do for this to happen.

• Consult with target population – Non-profits are created to fill a need, and so it is important that the initiative be driven by the people who will use the services provided by the non-profit. They are the experts on what the issues in the community are and hold the key to how these problems can be resolved.
• Involve the community – It’s important for your target population to feel a sense of ownership of what your organization is trying to accomplish. So, encourage them to get involved by volunteering for events, as board members, as volunteer manpower to get things done that the organization can’t afford or in whatever capacity they wish to be involved.
• Build Trust – The constituents of your organization must trust you to be willing to provide input and to participate. You build trust by not making hollow promises that you may not be able to deliver on, by following up to ensure that tasks being done by others are completed, and by building positive relationships with your clientele. If you show sincere interest and caring, you will begin to build trust.
• Set achievable goals – Your target population will generate a whole list of issues they want dealt with. However, it is important that you choose your first issue as something that is achievable without it taking too much time. You want to be able to work with your constituents to achieve a goal quickly and successfully because success breeds success. The more people in the community that hear you and community members have successfully achieved goals; the more likely they are to buy into the organization and want to be a part of that success.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Nonprofit Capacity Building.

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Twitter continues to prove its worth as a crisis management tool, often surpassing traditional media sources because of its flexible and easily accessible nature. In a recent blog post, Jessica Ziegler, social media strategist and Vestor Logic’s Director of Social Web Design, described how Twitter took the lead during last week’s Colorado wildfires:

From where I sat it took a while to get any of that information. The TV station websites were on it pretty quickly, but it was bare bones info, a few sentences. The newspaper sites had nothing until much later.

Enter Twitter. Immediately the hashtag #boulderfire was pumping out up-to-the-minute information and photos. The Twitter community in Boulder immediately rallied and began putting residents in contact with people who could help. They kept the information flowing in a constant stream.

By the next day local businesses began using Twitter to offer goods and services to residents displaced by the fire: offers of meals, places to temporarily house pets, hotel rooms. Soon messages of encouragement and thanks to the local firefighters and police began appearing.

Examples like this can be found with nearly every crisis and disaster these days. Whether the incident is local or worldwide, someone has started a hashtag and volumes of information, first hand reports and images are being distributed via Twitter long before traditional media can get on the story.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. , an international crisis management consultancy, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]