Want to start a social enterprise?
It’s not what you think.
It’s a hot topic right now. Many people are starting projects where the profits or its actions directly benefit a struggling group of people.
Either that or they’re attaching a social element to their existing business.
The common view is that everyone involved in the project will contribute equally, people will understand what you’re doing (because it’s for a good cause), the team will do their jobs and you’ll feel great about the whole thing.
Wrong.
Unless you want to do it just for fun and ‘see what happens,’ then the same rules apply to social enterprise as for capitalistic business.
Outcomes must be set, rules explained and followed, roles defined and jobs completed. Otherwise no one benefits because nothing is achieved.
When social enterprise goes wrong.
Tomasz Forfa realised this the hard way when he added a social element to his existing education business. Tom is a medical doctor who also helps students pass the gruelling Australian medical school entrance exam.
When some of Tom’s students needed impressive community service and charity experience for their med school applications, he teamed them up with a Balinese NGO which cares for the poor rural children of Bali.
The result was a crowd funding campaign to clothe and footwear for 3000 Balinese school children. The students get the impressive experience and the Balinese children no longer have to walk barefoot to school. Everybody wins.
Everything ran smoothly until obstacles arose.
The Balinese contact was difficult to reach, donors were flaking on their promises and other priorities arose in the lives of the team. Due to the fact that many were volunteers and had minimal experience in running business minded projects, the campaign began to stall.
Getting things back on track
Before this happened Tom was taking a back seat to allow the students to develop important skills which will be useful in the future careers of these doctors-to-be. However, at this point he had to step in to come up with solutions and get the project back on track.
Creativity, problem solving and making things happen despite challenges will be your strength in a social enterprise. But what gets things moving is providing clear outcomes. Then deciding who will be responsible for them and by when.
These are everyday business processes which can be forgotten in the spirit of working in a charitable manner. But if you set them up as the expectations from the beginning, things are more likely to run smoothly, or at least work out well in the end. Just like Tom’s crowdfunding campaign, which is live right now. Check it out by clicking here:
