Global social enterprise - the same old conversations?

Last week, I was one of 3 panelists at the Canadian Conference on Social Enterprise in Vancouver, BC. The topic of the panel was Lessons From Abroad and focused on what we can learn from social enterprise initiatives in other parts of the world as well as what's the same and different about working in North America versus other parts of the world. The main things I learned from this conversation are:

1) The barriers to social enterprise are virtually the same the world over: lack of appropriate & sustainable types of financing, public policy that doesn't support or understand social enterprise and lack of effective and accessible management support/technical assistance - which happens to be my big passion and the push behind getting Sustayne, our sustainable business planning methodology scaled as broadly as possible.

2) Many large global philanthropies are the major funders in developing countries and there is a dependency on these dollars. However, most of these organizations are bureaucratic and not very entrepreneurial themselves, so they often don't understand how to support social enterprise and the innovative solutions stemming from social entrepreneurs.

3) Meeting communities where they are at continues to be an issue. Developing countries are often facing very core issues such as hunger, basic education, water sanitation and rampant theft. So, some solutions we might seek in North America are often not appropriate for where a specific community is at in terms of the very real constraints they have to work in. One example that was given is a funder who gave computers to a nonprofit in South Africa. The community had a major theft problem and computers were often stolen quickly. Additionally, having a computer put a person into a different social "status" than those without computers. So, there were many issues behind the receipt of computer equipment than just being a solution to a specific problem.

A question that was raised that really made me think was "these sound like the same conversations I had in graduate school 20 years ago in terms of community development and micro enterprise - has anything changed?" Hmmm. I had to admit, these are many of the central issues I learned as a Peace Corps Small Enterprise Development volunteer in Mali, West Africa many years ago. He's right. The conversation does sound the same. I guess for me what's changed is my understanding of what these issues mean and how an entrepreneurial approach to solving tough social and environmental issues can actually be applied for effectiveness. And, the world has changed. We are living in a very different place with much more communication than 20 years ago. Thanks to technology, women in small villages can sell their art around the world. We can see, hear and practically feel what's going on in the farthest reaches of the world. So, yes, much of the conversation around global social issues is the same....I just hope we are all getting to a deeper level of understanding what these issues mean and how to approach them.