One of the reasons this is an exciting project is because it gives me a chance to showcase some phenomenal people and organizations, who are using particularly innovative approaches to creating change. Social entrepreneurship means many different things to different people. For me, it has meant communicating a vision, having disproportionate impact, a tendency for action without having all the answers, and pulling together the people and resources required to follow through. It also needs an element of creativity and innovation. With this in mind, I’d like to highlight some organizations that are doing this, every day. I’ll start with a few I know of, but please, send my your suggestions and I’ll post them up as well. If you’re looking for a place to contribute some money (after passing along three bucks!), these are some great bets.
Engineers Without Borders Canada
The organization that has had the biggest effect on me and my path, bar none. Started about 7 years ago by two 22 year olds, EWB has grown by 60-70% a year since. Throughout, it has been driven by the passion, drive and creativity of young Canadians, engineers and otherwise. A powerful combination of naivety (to not know what ‘can’t be accomplished’), confidence (to have outrageous goals) and humility (to understand that they don’t have all the answers along the way) has allowed EWB to scatter highly effective volunteers throughout Africa and change Canadian policy at home.
Kiva.org, which enables people around the world to provide loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries has quickly become a darling of the social enterprise world. It’s no wonder: their online platform connects people with resources with those that need it. Lenders can see exactly what their money is being used for. And here’s what I love about it: it manages to communicate, on a very personal level, some of the challenges and hope within developing communities, and the impressive people who are working hard to change it.
One Water is a ‘non-for-profit’ UK business. Their model is simple: sell bottled water to fund clean water projects in Africa. A simple idea, maybe, but with staggering results. One Water has basically doubled in size every year since it was started in 2005, and has now funded over 1000 clean water projects. Its innovative business model allows it to (very legally!) funnel all of its revenues into the charity side, without paying taxes. And it has drawn in high levels of pro bono support from everyone from British actors, to lawyers, to the BBC. The next potential direction? One Condoms. I sought One Water out to work with them on a class project this year. The experience (and the glimpse inside) left me nothing but impressed.
Who else can I highlight? Please send me your ideas, and I’ll do my best to showcase them.
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