Social Entrepreneurship: The Ashoka Foundation
Introduction
Social entrepreneurship is the application of entrepreneurial skills to solve social problems. On the other hand, social entrepreneurs are the individual who use a business approach to formulate innovative solutions to societal problems in a bid to bring wide scale and positive change. Unlike conventional entrepreneurship that is aimed at maximizing profits and returns on investment, social entrepreneurship is more concerned with bringing positive change in the society (Brand 2011). Social entrepreneurs aim at introducing cultural, social, and environmental impacts. Also, social enterprises can be profit oriented or non-profit depending on the approach and purpose of the organization. This report will focus on a social enterprise known as the Ashoka Foundation which was founded in 1980 by Bill Drayton (Bornstein 2004). The report will outline the history of the Ashoka Foundation and explore its functions in the context of the society it operates it. Also, the report shall focus on the founder and his personal attributes that made him start the foundation. Finally, the paper will critically analyze the impact of the organization as an agent of change and offer recommendations on possible areas of improvement.
Analysis
The second section, the analysis, focuses on the characteristics of the founder that drove him to institute the Ashoka organization. Also, this section shall focus on the contribution of the foundation to the society it operates it and how it has impacted the lives of the people that it serves and the whole economy at large. Finally, this section shall examine Ashoka’s capacity and strengths to influence and implement changes in the society.
Characteristics of Ashoka’s founder, Bill Drayton
Bill Drayton is a renowned social entrepreneur in the United States. In 2005, he was ranked among the best 25 business leaders in America by the U.S. News and World Report (Drayton 2009). Bill is credited for the phrase “social entrepreneur”, which was first used in the print media in 1972. As a result, he is regarded as the father of social entrepreneurship in business circles. Bill changed the way businesses and societies interact and paved the way for future social entrepreneurs. He embodies the perfect living example of personal sacrifice for the greater good and has a high level of ethical fiber. Bill strives to improve the lives of people of all races and descent. He is a revered figure in the world of non-governmental and non-profit organizations for the good that he has brought to people across the globe.
A social entrepreneur is someone who helps a society when it’s stuck, offers an opportunity, or helps it to exploit an existing opportunity. Bill says that his passion for social entrepreneurship started when he was a kid and attributes his success to his parents who allowed him to do what he wanted to do. He describes his parents as hardworking individuals who toiled to provide for his upkeep in Manhattan. Growing up, he hated subjects such as Latin and Math but instead developed a liking for Geography and History as they required less memorization. Bill’s first entrepreneurial venture was a newspaper that he founded when he was in 5th grade (Keith 2008). Back then, there were no printers and copy machines, which forced him to use a typewriter and carbon papers to produce several copies of the paper. The market for the paper back then was his classmates. The activities involved in publishing the paper were so demanding that he was forced to skip classes. When his mother found out, she reported him to the school principal, who encouraging his entrepreneurial activities instead of punishing him. This egged him on and he developed more interest in entrepreneurship (Hammonds 2005).
After getting approval from the principal to carry on with the business, Bill recruited some of his classmates to help him run the newspaper business. He also bought a mimeograph and raised the number of pages from one page to thirty pages (Drayton 2011). Today, Bill is an ardent supporter of projects that encourage entrepreneurship among children. His organization, Ashoka, depicts this fact as its 700 of the 3000 fellows are dedicated to children oriented programs (Boyd 2007).). Bill believes that the children are the key to a prosperous future and more investment should be done to nurture their talents just as he was encouraged by the principal.
According to Calvo (2016), Bill attended high school at the Phillips Academy and then went to Harvard for his Bachelors degree. Later on, he did his masters at Oxford and he also completed a law degree at Yale. He has worked for several companies such as the McKinsey & Company in its environmental protection agency. He has also held teaching jobs at Harvard and Stanford. Bill lists his influencers as Mahatma Gandhi, Jean Monnet, and Thomas Jefferson.
Bill’s philanthropic trait was sired by his involvement in civil rights movements. His interest in civil rights was triggered by Bayard Rustin’s activities in New York. His admiration for Gandhi made him drive from Munich to India in the summer of 1963 to meet with Vinoda Bhave who was a follower of Ganghi (Sen 2007). Bhave was a philanthropist who helped the poorest in the society by giving them land. Bhave used to buy land and then distribute it to the poor who were unconsidered as untouchables (Townsend 2012). It was Bhave who instilled in Bill the idea of doing business for the sake of social good as opposed to profits. This led him to create the Ashoka Table at Harvard which enabled people to talk about ideas that could bring social change in the society. The ideas emanating g from the Ashoka Table were realized in the 1980s when bill founded the Ashoka Foundation (Stanghini 2013).
Bill has dedicated his entire life to creating a better world by teaching empathy-based ethics. By emulating Bhave, Rustin, and Gandhi, Bill chose a career path that would enable him serve other people. Also, his organization, Ashoka, is structured to produce leaders that preach and practice service to others (Dianne & Norris 2012).
Bill has followed his conscience in making business decision and stayed true to his character. For example, when he chose to work with civil rights activist Rustin, he felt that it was right to fight for equality for all. Also, when he travelled to India to work with Bhave, his main intention was to combat and possibly eradicate poverty. These instances show Bill’s dedication to align his professional activities with his character. An example of a story that illustrates Bill’s ethical fiber is an incident that occurred early in his career when he was still working for McKinsey & Company (CSR News 2016). Bill was designing a tax collection system that would have seen some companies remit more money in form of taxes to the City of New York. Some corrupt officials in the mayor’s office tried to influence him so that he could favor certain organizations that did business with the government. Bill stood his ground and refused to bow to pressure even though he was berated by a partner in his firm. A founding partner, Marvin Bower, supported him and even dropped the City from the clientele (Sterling 2012).
According to Bill, an employee should put the interest of the client above the profitability of a venture. He should tell the plain truth and have courage to challenge and oppose crooked clients and corrupt deals. Also, he should only accept work that he feels his company can perform well. Bill worked at McKinsey for ten years before moving to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Sean & Kwame 2014). He chose to move to EPA because he felt the need to protect the environment. From these two organizations, he developed a circle of associates who would later help him launch the Ashoka foundation. His inner circle consisted of individuals of high morals and ethical fiber. Today, Ashoka maintains a strategic partnership with McKinsey & Company (Schultz 2013).
Contributions of the Ashoka Foundation to the society and economy
Bill Drayton founded the Ashoka Foundation jointly with his co-workers from the McKinsey & Co. The foundation is a non-profit organization with a “Social Venture Capital” approach. The main aim of the foundation is to identify, nature, and assist people who have ideas that can improve lives of people in the “citizen sector” and raise it to the same quality just like that of people in the business sector (Budinich 2012). Today, Ashoka has over 3000 fellows drawn from 70 countries who are involved in various projects aimed at the citizen sector (Shapiro 2013). Ashoka brings together social entrepreneurs and helps them actualize their ideas in a global scale. The foundation provides startup financing, business support and consulting services, and access to a network of other global businesses and social enterprises. Also, the foundation acts as a launching pad for people committed to changing the world for the greater good. Nicholls (2006) asserts that Ashoka is credited for initiating and making social entrepreneurships a mainstream line of business by involving multi-sector partners globally who identify with and nature entrepreneurial talent that can solve social issues (Koch 2015).
Bill Drayton mentions Georgetown University as a major driving factor for the success of “Youth Ventures”, a program that educates the youth on entrepreneurship. The university funded and offered strategic support to the program. Bill’s attitude to life is that everyone is a change maker and he strives to empower others to be change makers. With this attitude, Bill believes that even the poorest in the society can be empowered to thrive and survive without getting marginalized by strong business interests in the society (Sampson 2011).
Bill, and the whole of Ashoka Foundation, categorizes change into four different levels at which change can occur. He states that the highest level for effective change is at the framework level. Also, Bill believes that there are several levels of change and social entrepreneurs utilize the “social jujitsu” to realize it. Ashoka’s four levels of change are listed as:
Direct Service, which is situation whereby one person serves another person directly and impacts change in the process (Patil 2009).
Scaled Service
Pattern Change; in this type of change, change occurs when a team is formed, trained, and starts to directly serve people. As a result, the change reaches more people and impacts more lives. Also, other people start to emulate the direct service because it is efficient and works better that the other methods.
Framework Change, this occurs in institutions when practitioners realize the pattern is creating positive change and therefore implement it in their operations. An example of a framework change can be given as a teacher who devises a new way of teaching math. He then trains other teachers on his newly discovered teaching style and they adopt the new technique. Other teachers from other schools pick up the style and implement it in their lessons. Later on, schools adopt the method because it’s recommended by the state board of education. Then lawmakers, such as the United States Congress, passe a legislation that affects the whole Department of Education, which then trickles down to the States’ board of education (Patil 2009).
Ashoka has empowered many individuals who have in turn made national policy changes to their countries. Ashoka empowers people by instilling in them certain core skills that can help them relate with people’s predicaments. These include empathy, ethics, teamwork, and leadership (Brooks 2009).
Ashoka realizes that achieving change at the national level is difficult. Therefore, the foundation teaches its agents social jujitsu which capitalizes on the interested parties and used them to “flip” the system. For example, for Ashoka to successfully implement its vision in a society, the educational institution such as the universities should teach social entrepreneurship. Also, businesses should practice social entrepreneurship especially business consulting firms. Ashoka targets 10% of the most influential institutions and convinces them to adopt its vision and propagate to future generations through educational systems. Ashoka has high regard for the future generations as agents of change. The foundation empowers this segment of the population by training them on how to work in teams, to deal with people, and equipping them with core leadership development skills (Ashoka 2009).
Also, the organization empowers its agents to be people of courage, conscience, and character. Bill is a living example as a leader at Ashoka as he exhibits all the character traits that he teaches others. As a leader, he practices moral leadership, has an unsurpassed ethical fiber, and lives to serve others. The citizen sector is a sector whereby people help themselves in the process of helping others. Bill and other members of the Ashoka foundation are luminaries in this sector. Bill can be compared to William Wilberforce who changed social systems in the United Kingdom. Bill is revolutionizing how the people do business and the way people give back to the society as a way of creating a better world. Wilberforce sought to change the social systems right from the bottom to the highest levels of the society. In his lifetime, he tackled social ills such as slavery and advocated for the reformation of social manners. Bill was inspired by William’s philanthropy and he set out to implement positive social change in the society. He sought and focused on ways through which he could make better human beings to fellow humans through empathy, teamwork, and better leadership skills (Newton 2014).
Ashoka’s approach and contribution to social change
Ashoka’s main aim is to support social innovators. The organization’s main objective is to spur social change in three levels, at the individual level, group, and in the whole sector. At the individual level, the foundation identifies social entrepreneurs and helps them unlock their potential through training and financial support (Vasconcelos 2016). This enables them to implement maximum social benefits according to their capacity. With regard to groups, Ashoka supports group entrepreneurship by connecting entrepreneurs in the same line of business and encouraging them to cooperate for mutual benefits and growth. Finally, the foundation supports growth in the social entrepreneurship sector by building the necessary infrastructure required to support a global network of changemakers (Ashoka n.d.). The foundation develops social entrepreneurship framework by enhancing access to financing, academia, and offering business support and consultation. Also, Ashoka develops and encourages partnerships that enable social growth (Singh 2013).
The Ashoka Foundation focuses on various spheres of the human life that it seeks to improve or change. These include Youth Venture for All, Law for All, Nutrients, Empathy, and Full Economic Citizenship. The Youth Venture department in the organization helps the youth to create change through social ventures. Also, the Youth Venture instills entrepreneurial confidence in young people by helping them realize that they can initiate change and manage it by themselves. The “Law for All” branch of the organization lays emphasis on giving legal representation to changemakers (Koch 2015). Also, the branch encourages a pro bono culture in the legal business and ensuring access to justice for all members of the society. “Nutrients For All” is focused on ensuring that everyone has access to a full nutrition diet. Also, this department focuses on enabling a healthy environment, wellness and vitality in people, and nourishing foods. The Empathy department in the foundation is meant to ensure that children develop a sound sense of empathy and in a way that can ensure innovations in life. Full Economic Citizenship ensures that all the members of the society are in a position to participate in the global economies as consumers, producers, or creators of wealth (Ashoka n.d.).
Analysis of Ashoka’s strategies and achievements
Achoka’s approach in creating social change is supporting social entrepreneurs through training, connecting likeminded people, and equipping them with the necessary tools needed to influence change. By doing so, the organization assigns all the mandate of creating social change to its alumnus. Therefore, the organization plays no direct role in implementing change and depends solely on its agents to carry out its vision. As a result, Ashoka has no direct control over the activities carried out on its behalf by the concerned parties. This method of operation might be inefficient as the social entrepreneurs engaged by the foundation might have visions and objectives that differ from those of the company. As a result, Ashoka has little control over the outcome of its undertakings, which can limit its efficiency as an agent of social change (Social Entrepreneur n.d.).
On the other hand, the approach used by Ashoka has helped it acquire a wider reach geographically. Currently, the foundation operates in 70 countries. If the foundation had chosen to run activities in those countries by itself, it would have ran into financial difficulties or faced other technical barriers. Also, by engaging groups of social entrepreneurs, the foundation is able to tap various ideas from the entrepreneurs, which broadens its capacity to implement change (Chandrasekhar, 2007).
The problems that Ashoka seeks to solve are important to the society and have the potential of improving human life. However, there are more socially relevant issues that the organization can tackle which would have more impact on the lives of the disadvantaged in the society. These include areas such as basic healthcare in developing countries, education, poverty eradication, and food security among others. The issues that Ashoka currently seeks to solve are wide and undefined and therefore might pose a challenge in trying to solve them.
Recommendations Conclusion
Ashoka is a nonprofit organization that founded by American Bill Dryant in 1980. Bill is regarded as the father of social entrepreneurship and is highly respected in social entrepreneurial circles. He is a man of high morals and ethical fiber and a proponent of social good. In his early formative years, Bill was inspired by Gandhi, Bhave, and William, who inspired him to seek the greater good in life over financial gains. He demonstrated a high level of ethics while working at McKenzie & Co and he also gained an inner circle of friends who were instrumental in helping him launch Ashoka. Ashoka seeks to create social good in areas such nutrition, access to justice, ethics, and youth empowerment. The foundation has grown over the years and currently has over 3000 fellow and operates in over 70 countries.
In order to exercise more control over its business, the foundation needs to undertake projects with direct results to the people it wishes to uplift or the areas it seeks to change. This is the only way that the foundation can maintain close control over its affairs. Also, the foundation can contract social entrepreneurs to deliver its vision on its behalf in countries that it operates it while it the same time incorporating the ideas from its pool of social entrepreneurs.
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