Overturning Boulders

So many things to love about Hillary's speech

2011-12-07T21:11:00.000-08:00

The last time I blogged about Hillary Clinton, I wasn't exactly complimentary. I'm happy to say that today I can change my tune.

For those who don't follow the LGBT mediasphere religiously, Hillary gave a 30 minute speech to the UN Human Rights Council on International Human Rights Day ENTIRELY DEVOTED to the fight for global LGBT rights and equality. It was greeted with a standing ovation. Rather than make poorly crafted attempts to paraphrase her, I'll simply point out my favorite quotes, and let you check out the full video and transcript here. (Or the NYT coverage of the new global US foreign policy implications here.)

On the costs of inequality:

"…in all countries, there are costs to not protecting these rights, in both gay and straight lives lost to disease and violence, and the silencing of voices and views that would strengthen communities, in ideas never pursued by entrepreneurs who happen to be gay. Costs are incurred whenever any group is treated as lesser or the other, whether they are women, racial, or religious minorities, or the LGBT."

On religious and cultural influences:

"[The most challenging] issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not to protect the human rights of LGBT citizens. This is not unlike the justification offered for violent practices towards women like honor killings, widow burning, or female genital mutilation. Some people still defend those practices as part of a cultural tradition. But violence toward women isn’t cultural; it’s criminal. Likewise with slavery, what was once justified as sanctioned by God is now properly reviled as an unconscionable violation of human rights."

"…no practice or tradition trumps the human rights that belong to all of us."

"…our religion and our culture are sources of compassion and inspiration toward our fellow human beings. It was not only those who justified slavery who leaned on religion, it was also those who sought to abolish it. And let us keep in mind that our commitments to protect the freedom of religion and to defend the dignity of LGBT people emanate from a common source."

"It is because the human experience is universal that human rights are universal, and cut across all religions and cultures."

On the overly self-righteous among us:

"Progress starts with honest discussion."

"… [anti-gay] views are unlikely to disappear if those who promote or accept them are dismissed out of hand, rather than invited to share their fears and concerns. No one has ever abandoned a belief because he was forced to do so."

On doing what is unpopular:

"Many in my country thought that President Truman was making a grave error when he ordered the racial desegregation of our military. They argued that it would undermine unit cohesion. And it wasn’t until he went ahead and did it that we saw how it strengthened our social fabric in ways even the supporters of the policy could not foresee. Likewise, some worried in my country that the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would have a negative effect on our armed forces. Now, the Marine Corps Commandant, who was one of the strongest voices against the repeal, says that his concerns were unfounded and that the Marines have embraced the change."

On the importance of the majority...

"LGBT people must help lead this effort… but often those who are denied rights are least empowered to bring about the changes they seek. Acting alone, minorities can never achieve the majorities necessary for political change. So when any part of humanity is sidelined, the rest of us cannot sit on the sidelines. Every time a barrier to progress has fallen it has taken a cooperative effort from those on both sides of the barrier. In the fight for women’s rights, the support of men remains crucial. The fight for racial equality has relied on contributions from people of all races. Combatting Islamaphobia or anti-Semitism is a fight for people of all faiths. And the same is true with this struggle for equality."

On the importance of communities...

"Eleanor Roosevelt, who did so much to advance human rights worldwide, said that these rights begin in the small places close to home: the streets where people live, the schools they attend, the factories, farms and offices where they work. These places are your domain. The actions you take, the ideals that you advocate, can determine whether human rights flourish where you are."

...and on the importance of the big guys.

"The Obama administration defends the human rights as part of our comprehensive human rights policy, and as a priority of our foreign policy."

And they're actually putting their money (a little bit, at least) where their mouth is: the administration has set up a $3M global equality fund to support civil society organizations working on issues of LGBT equality around the world.

3 big, rainbow-colored cheers.

I promise I'm not angry ALL the time...

2011-07-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

...just an endless pontificator. Today's tirade: the radicalism vacuum.

The questions started when I signed up to be a straight ally coordinator for my b school's LGBT club, and have exploded since I became its co-president: why the gay rights movement, Joanne? Why do you care so much?

I got it when I spoke up in the first term of school during an ethics case, too. Taking a strong stand on the need for black and white ethics in the workplace, the obligation of employees to stand up to their bosses when they're doing something wrong? You're living outside of reality, little girl. Ah, it must be your 'social sector background' - let me teach you how the business world really works.

To be clear, I'm not trying to get all high and mighty here - I'm no saint. I certainly haven't consistently stood up for things I believe in. But these experiences are starting to get me thinking... a dangerous path to go down, to be sure.

At the risk of mass stereotyping, I'm coming to the conclusion that we, middle class Americans, live in this world where we don't think we have to stick up for anything anymore. We glorify the people who rocked the boat, idolize them and quote them, but when push comes to shove we'd rather do exactly the opposite - sit back, go with the flow, maybe chime in on the whining about the burgeoise and the conservatives a little, and at the end of the day take the path of least resistance. In fact, we're constantly encouraged NOT to rock the boat. And those who do are brushed aside as radicals, ungrounded, argumentative, naive. (Well, at least the ones who haven't made a name for themselves yet.) What happened to visionary, strong-willed, relentless, and outspoken being good things? When did those get bundled as 'contrarian', and conformatism get propped up as the path to success?

You say it isn't so, but look around you. How often do you thank a picketer for standing up for her beliefs? How often do you back up the outraged customer throwing a tantrum in the store? How often do you correct a stranger when they say fag, or nigger, or chink, or slut? (Think about how sexist that word is - what's the equivalent for men?) How often do you, yourself, call out your friend, family member, coworker or boss, tell them they're wrong, and defend why? It's much easier, and more socially acceptable, to just roll your eyes and change the subject.

Why are we so rarely proud of the people around us who refuse to let these things go, and so often embarrassed by them?

Maybe the real revolutionaries would laugh at me and say 'duh, that's what being a leader means - we all had to push against the current and annoy our friends to get to where we are.' Maybe it's just part of my learning process. But then why does it feel so strange, that all the ideals we wax poetic about as a society never get implemented in our everyday lives and conversations?

On defending your beliefs vs defending your employer

2011-07-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

As usual, Bill Easterly's got me thinking today. It's the 10th anniversary of the FT article that got him fired from the World Bank:

bill_easterly William Easterly

Ten years ago today, the piece that got me fired by the World Bank. Didn't expect it; No regrets http://bit.ly/lHRyCj

Not to make grandiose comparisons between esteemed professors and myself, but this reminded me of the time I got in a bit of a pickle with my employer for writing a negative blog post. Mine was a much less drastic scenario - the blog simply poked fun at the manner in which my organization was moving to a new office (rather than criticizing the organization's core operations), and got me nothing more than a slap on the wrist. But that kind of experience gets you wondering - to what extent is an employee's responsibility to cheerlead for the organization, versus to point out the mistakes it is making, in a public manner if necessary, in an effort to make it better?

No one knows better than the employees how effective an organization is, so no one is better positioned to provide constructive criticism. But at the same time, if the people who work for an organization can't even support it, what chance does it have to build a supportive constituency outside its walls? Sure, it's more politically correct to share reservations and concerns with your managers internally than on a public forum. But what happens when you've banged your head against your bosses' office doors so many times that it seems the only way to get through to them is to name and shame?

Do employees have more responsibility to make their concerns public when they have a social cause, or are funded by public money? What about when the issues are systemic and core to the organization, versus small but potentially personally problematic to the employees? (Easterly's gripe was the wastage of billions of dollars of public funds and the lack of social outcomes to dire issues of livelihood... Mine was moving in to an incomplete office space where women were encouraged not to walk to work alone from the bus stop because of safety concerns. You be the judge of what's more important... my money's on Easterly.)

Personally, I think an organization's willingness to accept public criticism, even from employees, is pretty key to making it better. That said, I've never run an organization and experienced my employees ragging on me in a public forum. And at the end of the day, I removed my blog post: better to work to change the organization from the inside than simply picket it from the outside, right? Easterly disagreed and has no regrets... I wonder how I'll feel 10 years from now.

A good day for human rights in America

2011-06-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

I teared up a lil bit reading this article today.

In 2008, I watched the numbers come in for Obama at 7am from a consulate gathering in India. After swelling with pride for my country for the first time in my voting-age life and taking a few euphoric calls from Kenya, I called home to express my excitement.

The tone of my mother's voice when she picked up the phone took the wind completely out of my sails: she said she couldn't be truly happy about the victory because California's Prop 8 had passed the same day. Coming from a woman brought up in the '50s in a Catholic household in Westchester, not her California-raised hippie liberal daughter, this sentiment reminded me how little the Obama victory actually symbolized a nation moving forward, and how much work there was to be done.

Two and a half years later, mom should be damn proud of her home state. NY has done what CA couldn't do: nurtured a champion of the cause (Andrew Cuomo), organized a coalition of disconnected lobbying organizations, garnered support and muscle across party lines and overpowered the formidable force of the Catholic Church. All this sure seems like it would be harder in an east coast state that contains Wall Street than a west coast state that contains the Castro*... so basically what I'm trying to say is, nice work, New York. California, get your shit together.

Also, a shout-out to my father's employer of 35 years, Xerox, which made a significant contribution to winning the first Republican vote by endorsing the bill. My school's LGBT club does a lot of work to promote and collaborate with companies that support equality for all their employees, and it's nice to see corporations standing up for what they believe in. (Hint hint, Exxon Mobil.)

*Obviously I know it's a bit more complex than this. But it's still embarrassing to be a Californian when it comes to this issue.

And now, to Nicaragua

2011-06-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

Oh, hey there blog. It's been a while. A year and a half, to be precise. Sorry about that - business school turned out to be a little busier than expected. But now that I'm back in developing country land, it seems only reasonable to start you up again for the moment.

The 5-second update is that I've been in my first year of the MBA program at Duke's Fuqua School of Business for the past 9 months. I'm concentrating in Social Entrepreneurship and Finance, participating in way too many extracurriculars, and taking advantage of every possible opportunity to go abroad. That has manifested itself in a two-week consulting trip to Brazil over spring break, and now my internship at an impact investing firm in Nicaragua called Agora Partnerships.

I'll save the long detailed update on Agora and my work for later, and for now will suffice with periodic random musings about life in Managua. Up first: the fascinating life stories of taxi drivers.

It seems that there are two types of cab drivers in Managua: super sketchy and super overqualified. The other interns and I have been warned over and over about the dangers of taking unknown cabs from the street in Managua (which we do anyway), so it's safe to say that there are a lot of bad cabs out there. At the same time, the economic situation here has worsened so steadily over the past few years that unemployment has taken its toll, particularly on the higher educated sector of the workforce.

Unemployment in Nicaragua

http://www.indexmundi.com/nicaragua/unemployment_rate.html

The result: people with PhDs driving taxis to make a living. In the past week I've met an agricultural engineer, a doctor, and a dance instructor who spent three years in San Francisco. Fascinating, vibrant people with amazing life stories, but rough times.

I'll pontificate more later on what this overqualification issue means for entrepreneurship and innovation in the Central American economy, since that's what I'm working on every day.

New fiesty blog post

2010-02-17T05:42:00.000-08:00

What do sleeping bags, neon green laptops, nipples and tricycles have in common? Hint: they're not going to collectively eliminate poverty.

http://www.indiadevelopmentblog.com/2010/02/another-innovation-really.html

Kind of reminds me of the brilliant lists of accessory items and luxury goods that are going to solve the world's human rights problems over at Wronging Rights.

The informed giving minefield

2010-01-28T23:06:00.000-08:00

Today my brother decided he wanted to start doing some charitable giving, and made the mistake of asking me for advice.

He opened up something of a minefield. A couple potential work projects have gotten me interested in thinking about informed/strategic giving and trying to work out the best ways to help philanthropists give better. This deviates significantly from my "the market will solve everything" social entrepreneurship approach to development, but maybe that's a good thing.

My off-the-cuff, unresearched response is below - I'd be interested in other perspectives on how to advise people on giving now, as the social sector struggles to get up to speed on creating a process for giving effectively.

Dude, big question. The development sector is still very much working out how to help people sift through the mass of organizations asking for money to find the ones that will give the most bang for their buck. There are two main categories of issues here - accountability (whether or not an org is corrupt) and effectiveness (how well the money you donated gets spent).

For now, I'd probably suggest going one (or both) of a couple ways. For bigger organizations, there are a few groups that evaluate and rate charitable groups to help individual donors give. One that has a good rep (and their methodology looks pretty solid) is Charity Navigator. They don't actually enable you to donate on their site, which other charity aggregators do, but frankly you're better off finding charities you're interested in and donating directly, rather than allowing some of your money to go into the aggregator's operating costs. This site will help you donate to big organizations ($1M+) that depend a lot on individual donations ($500k+ per year). One Indian counterpart to this is GiveIndia, which focuses heavily on the accountability and transparency aspects (since those are arguably a bigger deal in the Indian social sector than the US one).

The other way is to donate to smaller organizations, which are less often rated on sites like this and have lower impact, but your money goes further and they often need it more. I tend to donate to friends' causes during their fundraising drives (assuming accountability based on my personal knowledge of the person), or occasionally to Kiva (I find their gift certificate program to be a particularly appealing donation slash awareness building mechanism for friends who don't give). The Causes app on Facebook is also interesting (mostly because we all love a good social media gimmick, and I have a friend who works for them), but I don't know how much gets ciphoned off for their operating costs (see above note).

One other piece of advice I feel compelled to drive home as an organizational development consultant is that uninformed givers often go for organizations that list lower overheads, thinking that more of their money will go directly to programs instead of to salaries and office clipboards. This sounds great but really just keeps organizations from developing the proper infrastructure and talent to be able to do their jobs better, so they end up being much less effective in their work.

Can't you imagine how much my brother must have enjoyed getting that response after asking the simple question "hey bleeding heart sister, what kind of stuff should I be looking for when I want to donate?"

CSR in India has a lot of catching up to do

2009-12-12T16:32:00.000-08:00

The first ever Asian CSR Congress, hosted by the Centre for Social Responsibility and Leadership in Mumbai, has proven to be a bit of a disappointment. Maybe I was just coming off my high from the Khemka Forum for Social Entrepreneurship (which also looked to be disappointing until a couple of dynamically interactive late sessions), or maybe I’m noticing a starker difference between the social innovation crowd and the corporate crowd than I used to… but I have a feeling it’s more because in India, corporate social responsibility is still in a very early stage with a lot of catching up to do.

The event started by getting my hopes up with two of its pieces of distributed literature – the first CSR rating of Indian corporates, by Karmayog, which boosts companies’ rankings if CSR embedded in their business operations; and an announcement of the upcoming global tour (including India) by the purported father of CSR 2.0, Dr. Wayne Visser of CSR International.

However, it then proceeded to dash those hopes with a painfully prepubescent viewpoint of CSR expressed by many of the delegates. Case studies by the corporate foundations that dominated the conference were embarrassingly blatant in valuing brand building over strategic CSR (really, you’re building another set of schools and hospitals to slap your name on? That’s, like, so last decade). The peanut gallery of CSR heads of major corporations made a field day of bashing efforts to improve profits through sustainable business strategy – when one speaker tried to discuss the difference between “CSR” and “sustainability” in his company’s efforts, an audience member termed them something like “doing good for good's sake, vs. making money off of doing good.” As if the second option was some slimy, underhanded workaround, rather than just good business. For real?

Even my excitement about the 25 case studies on CSR in Indian companies in CSRL’s publication “CSR Excellence,” was destroyed when I heard a rumor (unconfirmed)* that the cases aren't picked from independent research - companies PAY to write their own case studies and have them published. To the tune of $1000 a pop.

I don’t want to rub salt in the wound by blasting the facilitation of the conference, but… people cutting each other off, speakers refusing to let delegates finish their questions and telling them they “are free to not listen to what I’m saying,” sessions lasting an hour into the lunch break – is this really what happens when you let the corporates play in the social sandbox, or vice versa? I thought this fusion of the two sectors was supposed to be the new age, not the way to back track to petty, last-generation arguments?

I’m still holding out hope that this is just a small, biased crowd among a larger movement towards strategic CSR that will keep up with the global tidal wave. But in my first foray into the Indian CSR community, it’s not the promising scene I had imagined.

*Please note that this has been modified from its original posting - I originally claimed that I had learned this as a fact. Rather, it is a rumor I heard from a delegate at the conference, and I am still in the process of verifying.

But where do the women do their business?

2009-11-17T19:32:00.000-08:00

Every morning, like a silent, stolid army, the fisherman families and slum residents living on the beach come down to the breakers to take their morning toilet run. A trove of squatters spots the landscape, some relieving themselves quickly and rushing off to work, some taking their time, staring out at the horizon like it’s a good bathroom reader. As I run along I dodge as many turd piles as trash pieces. It’s one way to get a rough gauge for the amount of diarrhea in the community.

I noticed this morning that while seemingly all the men and most of the children (male and female) participate unashamedly in this ritual, the women are entirely absent. Where do they do their business in the morning? How do they get rid of it? And more importantly, if there’s a way for them to use the toilet without using the ocean turning the beach into what is surely every public health professional’s nightmare, why couldn’t the men and children do the same?

The much-acclaimed World Toilet Organization is tackling some of these issues. It sees the “toilet taboo” as one of the biggest barriers to improving sanitation, and seeks to popularize the work of building and maintaining toilets for the 2.5bn people it estimates lack them, through such kitchy marketing campaigns as World Toilet Day and The Big Squat. There’s also the World Toilet College for toilet design and maintenance capacity development, and the annual World Toilet Summit & Expo. It seems to be working – they’ve gotten a ton of press and a number of avid followers – but these things take time.

Without much knowledge of the subject, my guess is that the biggest issue is the social one – convincing people that they need toilets, that open defecation is unsanitary and will lead to disease. Is there some opportunity here in the disparity between women’s and men’s pooping routines? I guess it depends on where the women really go, and whether their methods are any more sanitary than the beach. Until then my neighboring slums will continue to use the ocean as their toilet-cum-garbage can, and I will continue to dodge the turds.

The magical formula to becoming an entrepreneur

2009-11-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

I finally broke through months of procrastination and started posting to the India Development Blog, my organization's unofficial blog on India, development, microfinance, and whatever else pops into our researchers' heads - which happens to get about 200 hits/day. Re-posted below, and original post can be found here.

I have a gripe with all this buzz on entrepreneurship.

Don't get me wrong - I love it. As a closet wannabe social entrepreneur, I follow the blogs, read the articles and attend the conferences when I can find an excuse. The latest was today’s IFMR entrepreneurship summit, Strides (shameless plug), which featured panels on starting up and sustaining enterprises, plus a rousing presentation by Manish Tripathi of the Mumbai Dabbawalas. What I’ve noticed in these forums is that, in a commendable effort to be inspiring, the stories of successful entrepreneurs tend to glaze over the challenges and obstacles associated with starting a venture. The profiles present such a glowing picture: all you have to do is be walking along minding your own business, have a defining moment where you discover some great gap in society, put your mind to filling the gap, develop an innovative solution, and voila: you’re showered with capital, partnerships, technical support and awards. Sure, there’s the requisite list of ways to avoid the pitfalls: believe in yourself, think outside the box, take risks, persevere through the rough spots, and the ubiquitous 'every failure is a stepping stone to success.' But beyond these vague conceptual insights, it is very difficult to discern what exactly makes Steve Jobs or Ratan Tata succeed while thousands of others try and fail.

These stories get everyone pumped up, but my hunch is that they gloss over some components of what it really takes to be successful as a start-up. How much of it involves natural networking capability and charisma, or extraordinarily hard work, or simply being in the right place at the right time? Are the examples replicable, or unique to the person and situation? This line of thinking leads to the question business schools have been trying to answer for decades: can entrepreneurship be taught?

One potential consequence of these inspiring but potentially oversimplified examples is the kind of message they send to aspiring entrepreneurs. Bill Gates didn’t graduate from high school – does that encourage people to drop out in the hopes of following in his footsteps? The Mumbai Dabbawalas built an empire despite being largely illiterate, and their founder wasn’t educated past class 2 – great, but does that mean they didn’t have some other innate ability that enabled them to succeed? On the one hand these images say 'it's possible to do it even without education,' but on the other they say 'don’t bother with school, you don’t need it.' It almost seems like a modern 'get rich quick' scheme. Sure, it works for the precious, lucky, talented few, but what about the rest of us mere mortals?

It would be great to see an emphasis on the hard parts of climbing the ladder alongside the motivational stories. If everyone experiences rough patches, what specifically have these entrepreneurs done to overcome them? What makes these stories different from all the stories of failure? How much of it is really just up to chance? This reality check might help set expectations and remind the next generation of entrepreneurs that while there are outliers, for most of us entrepreneurship is hard. It takes more than a bright idea and a little diligence to become a successful entrepreneur.

Kenya’s corruption and what it means for India

2009-10-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

I recently got my hands on a book that is being referred to as “Kenya’s Watergate” (by Chris Blattman, at least), banned in the nation according to some accounts: It’s Our Turn to Eat by Michela Wrong, former Africa correspondent for the FT. The book names and shames members of the current administration and brings to light some interesting (though not totally new) insights about the state of corruption in Kenya. Since said administration’s election shenanigans got me evacuated from the country last year, needless to say, I was fascinated.

I also recently chatted with an Indian acquaintance who used to work in western and central Africa about the differences between corruption in daily life in India vs. Africa (disclaimer – I hate generalizing issues about “Africa” as if the whole continent is one homogeneous country. That said, the similarities in corruption attitude among different African countries are often shockingly close). His impression was that Indian corruption is a little less blatant, a little more under the table - something unusual for a culture known for its bluntness. He also asserted that Indians tend to be more “content” with the level of corruption in their lives – because, for example, the fees for paying off a cop are usually lower than the official fines for petty offenses (as argued here). In Africa, on the other hand, corruption is much more over the table. And when people get fed up with it, they riot.

Of course, the rioting rarely produces solutions. I certainly wouldn’t advocate it as the appropriate strategy for India. But in both countries, I wonder what can be done to make people madder about the everday corruption they face. Mad enough that they will do something about it, and do that thing consistently. In both countries you see the momentum behind anti-corruption flare up now and again, just to subside as quickly as it erupted. Take the aftermath of 26/11: I remember seeing Indian citizens, particularly the youth, stepping up to combat the corruption and security issues that had led to the tragedy, through mediums from Facebook to traditional media to business plan competitions! Today, as we approach the first anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, I wonder where that outrage and drive to action disappeared to. And I wonder how to bring it back.

Chief hippie?

2009-08-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

I can’t decide my take on this “chief guru of life change” executive naming trend. Some of the most exciting emerging social ventures seem to enjoy coming up with creative yet somewhat ridiculous-sounding titles for the people who run their companies. This was brought to light by a somewhat recent McKinsey interview of Adam Werbach, who seems to know a lot about this stuff. He highlighted two cool sustainability-focused for-profits, method and Seventh Generation. Seventh Generation’s founder calls himself the “chief inspired protagonist” (seriously?), and method’s is the “chief greenskeeper” (seriously.). These guys are arguably two of the major players in the triple bottom line/social venture/sustainability space, and this is what they call themselves? I know they’re run out of San Francisco and Vermont and all, but really. I’m trying to figure out what the next guy down gets called – vice inspired protagonist? Semi-inspired protagonist? Chief inspired realist? The hierarchy could get really confusing.

In an industry like social enterprise that is trying to be more professional, more respected and a bigger player, I would expect this kind of stunt to be laughed off stage. What kind of private sector CEO would call herself a chief inspiration nurturer? What kind of investor would give his money to the chief flowerchild? It makes me angry because it seems that some of the best emerging social ventures are making light of the space and encouraging mockery at best, reinforcement of a flaky and poorly managed sector image at worst.

But then, despite myself, there’s something I unwittingly like about this fad. (Don’t tell my future investors.) There’s something Google-esque about it. It implies a work environment where incredibly bright minds come up with groundbreaking ideas over fooseball and beanbag chairs. (Perhaps this has its own challenges, but it seems to have worked for tech.) And maybe that’s what attracts the bright minds to the social sector – the idea of business without business as usual.

Socially responsible business, India, and the long view

2009-08-24T00:12:00.000-07:00

I’m starting a research project on socially responsible business strategies, so a blog post seemed like a good way to dive in. In talking to people about the concept of companies in India going “beyond corporate social responsibility,” I’ve gotten a few different responses – on one hand those who feel that there is a huge class divide and the elite of India pay little attention to the poor; on the other those who think India has huge potential to be a leader in sustainable business. With Ramalinga Rajus (of Satyam fame) and Nandan Nilekanis (of Infosys, Imagining India and now Universal ID project fame) in the same country, it’s understandable that people would have varying perspectives.

I can also see the appeal of either approach.

India

’s non-inclusive growth over the past decade is well known, and the elite have gotten fabulously rich through the information revolution, while the poor have stayed poor and/or gotten poorer. But poverty is blatant here, slums intermingled with posh neighborhoods, garbage littering the streets – surely people have motivation to develop the country as a whole? Besides,

India

is a young economy, free to build businesses with better strategies and learn from the mistakes of the West? Maybe this is a naïve viewpoint, but I have hard time getting away from it. In the states we joke about finishing our food because there are starving kids in developing countries. Here, we can just go outside and give it to them.

Regardless of motivation, there is a debate raging in the international community over the responsibilities of the corporate sector, how and why companies should contribute to society, and whether social values detract from or enhance the profitability and sustainability of a company. Do Indian companies take the long term view more often or less often than their foreign counterparts? Can social and environmental practices really contribute to the bottom line? Did the financial crisis expose a need for more sustainable business practices, or just make everyone tighten their purses and revert to conservative thinking? I don’t know, but I hope to find out.

Linguistics

2009-08-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

Where better to start a new blog than with a boring commentary on lexicon?

This whole social venture space seems to have some real issues with standardizing its terminology. Is it social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, social ventures, social business, earned income, socially responsible business, corporate social responsibility...? Oh and my favorite - "nonprofit entrepreneur." Isn't that an oxymoron?

What's the difference between any of these terms? Fine, it's a new field, but we really ought to be clear on what we're talking about - I have enough trouble explaining this stuff to my mother without a constantly changing lexicon.

Jerr Boschee at the Institute for Social Entrepreneurs actually tried. I won't say I agree with all his definitions, but I commend the effort. And his "five essential concepts" aren't bad:

"Dependency": The traditional business model for nonprofits, in which they depend solely or almost entirely on charitable contributions and public sector subsidies, with earned income either non-existent or minimal

"Sustainability": The ability to fund the future of a nonprofit through a mixed revenue stream -- a combination of earned income, charitable contributions and public sector subsidies

"Self-sufficiency": The ability to fund the future of a nonprofit through earned income alone

"Social entrepreneur": Any person, in any sector, who runs a social enterprise

"Social enterprise": Any organization, in any sector, that uses earned income strategies to pursue a double or triple bottom line, either alone (as a social sector business) or as part of a mixed revenue stream that includes charitable contributions and public sector subsidies

Full 80-term glossary available here - let's hope he continues to update it.