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Working to scale up innovation
The municipality of Mumbai and the state government of Maharashtra may have been ‘the enemy’ for Mumbai’s pavement dwellers, but they were also crucial to solving their problems of homelessness and insecurity. Before the poor …
David and Goliath
Global institutions have to be reckoned with: they have resources and influence, and the capacity to bring about large-scale change. But sometimes a small organization can do for them what they can’t do for themselves. …
Bringing the heavyweights together
How does a small, not-for-profit company work with large corporations, governments and multilateral organizations at the same time? Answer: with difficulty. But it can be done. Though the organizational ethos and cultures of these giants …
Where the real power lies
In 1996, when he was elected an Ashoka Fellow, Rodrigo Baggio had a powerful idea and an equally powerful commitment to using it to close the digital divide across Brazil and the world. Rodrigo’s movement …
Learning in the round
Are social entrepreneurs born or made? Is their success more a feature of their attitude and behaviour or of a specific set of knowledge or skills? Is the role of formal learning to deepen their …
Finding the right successor
Are the problems of succession different for social entrepreneurs or is it just an acute case of founder syndrome? Are they the right people to implement and scale up an organization? At a breakout session …
What makes Gram Vikas entrepreneurial?
You could sum up Gram Vikas’s achievement by saying that they had an innovative idea and the ability to put it to work in the face of considerable odds. When founded in the 1970s in …
Learning from mistakes
Nobody wants to make a mistake, yet mistakes are a natural part of the development of both individuals and organizations, especially when, like social entrepreneurs, they are attempting new and complex undertakings. So what kinds …
The growth capital market in the US
With hundreds of billions of dollars given to charities every year by individuals alone ($180 billion in 2003), foundations with assets larger than most countries’ GDP,[1] and a culture that places a high value on …
From not-for-profit to ‘social profit’
On 15 June 2004, an unusual crowd gathered on the trading floor of BOVESPA, the Brazilian Stock Exchange in São Paulo. For the first time in its history, the centre of the capital market was …