Reflections on Social Entrepreneurship after INSEAD ISEP Alumni Event

I am pleased that the term social entrepreneurship is becoming more well-known in the world. Social Entrepreneurs are individuals who have the mission of creating social value, not only economic value, and search for opportunities to fulfil this mission. They commit to a process of continual innovation, adaptation, and learning in order to create sustainable improvements in society, and they seek to improve communities in addition to providing an attractive social and/or financial return to their investors. Social entrepreneurship, in any form, aims to establish new and better ways of improving the world, so social entrepreneurs implement innovative programs and organizational structures, or use strategies and recourses to increase their probabilities of achieving  profound, wide, sustainable and cost-effective social impact.

In Berlin, at the conference and meeting of Social Entrepreneurs that INSEAD, and particularly their Social Entrepreneurship Program (ISEP) organizes annually in different countries, I had the occasion of meeting about 30 social entrepreneurs and their enterprises, two of which I would like to comment on. First, Betterplace.org, based in Berlin, Germany is a crowd funding platform that raises funds for social projects, institutions, causes, and social responsibility programs. Any person or institution can publish their project, program, or social cause on the site and begin receiving funds from people or organizations that want to support or collaborate. Betterplace describes itself as “people who actually create impact that is changing the world for the better. We keep talking to others about it. On our platform, you find people that want to get to know other people that need direct and transparent support”.

Another very interesting social enterprise is the Alternative Life Association, based in Istanbul Turkey. It is a social enterprise that creates alternative solutions and sustainable social change for those that have some physical handicap or suffer social exclusion. Their programs Alternative Camp, Dreams Academy, and Social Inclusion Band each offer opportunities to participate in sports (scuba diving, football, swimming among others) and likewise they offer programs particularly for children in art and music. The Association has changed the life of thousands of youth in Turkey.

I hope that these two examples serve as inspiration for all of us who are interested in changing our environments for the better. I cannot fully conclude without quoting Steve Jobs, someone who has made it into the pages of history precisely because of his capacity to innovate: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life….have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Claudia Valladares

Editors Note
Claudia Valladares, Executive Director, Banca Comunitaria Banesco; Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Venezuela, 2010.

Banesco’s Banca Comunitaria provides access to banking services, both savings accounts and micro-credit, to low-income individuals in Venezuela.

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