As I see it I'm a social innovator - but not yet a social entrepreneur. Given that "social entrepreneurship" is a comparatively recent concept, its meaning is still somewhat fluid. I'll therefore explain how I'm using these terms for the purpose of this extended blog, and what I mean by the difference. Then I'll explore some organisational models, including ones where people work "for free", and see what lessons I can learn.
1 - Innovation and enterprise - similarities and differences
As I understand it, both social innovators and social entrepreneurs address social issues (i.e. people-related issues) in creative and innovative ways.
The key difference is that the social entrepreneurs have adopted successful business-like approaches to fulfil the social need. They have worked out a business model for their innovation which will enable it to be financially sustainable, and will enable them to work on it as their "day job".
Social innovators don't have that crucial business model to sustain their social innovation. They have started off (as indeed many successful social entrepreneurs also do) with no funding. They have not developed a sustainable business model and are simply using their own resources and balancing the demands of their socially innovative "real work" with whatever other demands they have on their time regarding "paid work".
One of the reasons that social innovators burn out is because they have no strategy for sustainability. They have vision, and they may well be delivering good, socially-innovative services of some kind, but they simply don't have the energy and resources to continue doing what they are doing. If they did have resources then they might well be able to hand over to someone else. But no-one else is likely to take over from them if there is no long-term model of sustainability.
2- Generalisations or specifics
I'm in favour of specific examples rather than broad generalisations. An example acts like a prototype. You can poke it and prod it and make changes. Generalisations are much harder to get hold of. The best examples for me to give are the ones that I know from experience. I started this blog with a specific, personal statement about being a social innovator but not a social entrepreneur, and now I"m going to return to my personal story.
3 - Working "for free" as part of a network
Social innovators (like me) are working "for free".
Most of the work I do "for free" I do under then name of Dadamac. I use the name Dadamac when I'm collaborating with at least one other person from the Dadamac core team or wider community. It would be neither accurate nor appropriate to talk about initiatives as "my" work when I am working with other people. All my practical work is done with others. The thinking and analysis is largely my own, but even that is accelerated through discussion with friends and contacts.
Because all my early work was done in a network, and no money was involved there was no need to decide what kind of organisational framework best described it. Even now I'm uncertain about how to classify what I do.
Other people work "for free" so it's worth looking at some of the existing models and how I relate to them.
4 - Volunteering
Volunteering is the obvious example of people working for no financial reward (sometimes called "true volunteering"). I've done voluntary work for various organisations in my time, but what I do as a social innovator is different. My social innovating - mostly under the name of Dadamac - is more pro-active, independent and ... innovative.
5 - Charities, volunteers and Dadamac
Volunteering is usually associated with registered charities.
Dadamac does have a small, related registered charity, Dadamac Foundation and I'm a trustee (which in such a small charity takes very little time). Dadamac Foundation hasn't got a fundraiser, and my attempts to recruit volunteer "ambassadors" have been fruitless. At present Dadamac Foundation simply sits in the background until it's needed by someone with the right energy and purpose. The Fast Tractor initiative last year would have been impossible without the organisational umbrella of Dadamac Foundation and its online giving.
The majority of the unpaid work I do with people in the Dadamac community could be seen as volunteering for Dadamac Foundation. My work certainly supports the Foundation's aims, which are fairly broad and relate to education, welfare and development.
However, my unpaid work isn't about fundraising in order to supply the kinds of physical goods and support services which many traditional charities supply. My work is about sharing information and enabling collaborations - thanks to the opportunites of the Internet.
John Dada gets a different window on the world through Dadamac and the ongoing evidence of his work visible on dadamac.net has supported his funding bids. Other people are also supported, though in less visible ways due to our limited resources.
6 - Accounting for information
Given that the work I do regarding information and collaboration is done "for free" and doesn't involve any financial transactions it doesn't appear on any accounts. That is fine as long as I am the person doing the work. but what if I need someone else to help me? And I do need someone to help me.
What if I need to pay someone to do what I do for free? The money to do that will need to be raised, and it will need to be accounted for. Is it possible that I can make that happen as part of Dadamac Foundation? I certainly cannot continue to do it without help.
7 - Pro-bono work and free offers
Professionals of many kinds do voluntary "pro-bono" work. According to Wikipedi
"Pro bono service, unlike traditional volunteerism, uses the specific skills of professionals to provide services to those who are unable to afford them....Corporate pro bono efforts generally focus on building the capacity of local nonprofits or mentoring local businesses."
I've attended courses (for start-ups) where people, such as accountants, help with the training and offer some pro-bono work in the hope of gaining long-term clients. Lots of businesses do introductory free offers. I'm not sure where the cut-off point comes between pro-bono work and free offers.
8 - Dadamac and pro-bono work
John Dada and I have worked together, one way and another, for approximately ten years. We are continuously seeing the value of the high-trust networks we have, the administrative and communication structures that we've developed, and the knowledge we either have already or can tap into. I'm deeply saddened when I see money wasted on "development" projects or academic research that could have been done much more effectively with our help. Obviously, if we are to give help to outside projects we need to charge a fee in order to give such help in a sustainable way.
John and I set up Dadamac Limited, a registered company, with this in mind. Through Dadamac Limited people planning relevant projects can collaborate with us from the earliest stages. I'm convinced that the knowledge gained and the cost efficiencies achieved would more than compensate for whatever fees we would need to charge our clients.
I could consider all my "working for free" to date to have been pro-bono work for Dadamac Limited.
9 - Learning, researching and working
As a child I was incensed to discover that teachers were paid to go to school while I was expected to go there and work for nothing.
Learning - formal or non-formal - is often hard work. Some learning comes under the heading of research. In higher education some people pay for the privilege of doing research while others are paid.
What if I think of my work in Dadamac in terms of research and knowledge creation? That makes much more sense to me. The individual projects that I have done have all been worthwhile, but it is when they are put together, that their unique value emerges. It is the insights, the recognition and description of patterns behind the projects, that make for the unique intellectual contribution generated within Dadamac.
I don't get paid for my work in Dadamac, but I do get richly rewarded, intellectually and emotionally. I have wonderful opportunities to learn. I'm involved in useful practical projects. I connect deeply with amazing and inspiring people. I have time to reflect and draw lessons from what I'm doing, and from what others are doing. I have plenty of ingredients for my own creative thinking to feed off. I've been to places I would never otherwise have been to, and been included in the lives of people I would not otherwise have known.
It would be ludicrous to suggest that, simply because I have not been paid, I have not been rewarded for the work I have done in Dadamac. I should be ashamed of myself if ever I think in that way.
10 - P2P and Open Knowledge
Much of my theoretical learning online is in the public domain - in discussion lists and such like. I learn by asking questions, of myself and others. This is learning through experience, supported by reflection, discussion and following links - not through set courses of any kind. It is peer-to-peer (P2P) learning, where "peers" are people with a shared interest who have respect for each other - but do not necessarily all have the same kind of knowledge.
I've been much influenced by people and groups who advocate working in the public domain, transparency, and collaboration. Influencers include P2P foundation, Andrius Kulikauskas, Gary Alexander, David Pinto, and various people in the Open Source and open knowledge communities (I use open knowledge in its general meaning - not the narrow meaning of sharing academic research).
11 - Gift economies, paying forward, and generally paying the bills
There is much ongoing heart searching about how P2P and Open Knowledge approaches relate to the real world of paying the bills. Discussions include gift economies and paying forward (expressions that still have very fluid meanings).
I won't go into the issues here, except to maek a couple of observations about change. Although we no longer live in an agricultural society we do still eat food and use land, however our relationships to food production and land use is different to the relationships that existed before the industrial revolution. For most of the people I know, our direct relaitonship with land has been less important to us in than our relationships to money - earning it and using it. I believe we are now part of an invisible revolution that is taking us into a world where our direct "relationship to information" will be more important to us than our direct relationships to money or land - but we will still need to buy some things, just as we still need to eat.
The ideas of realtionships to information are culturally appropriate to the work I do (partly because so much of Dadamac relies on the Internet and it could not have started before the turn of the century). Relationships to information influence my thinking about the Landscape of Change, which I've mentioned in other blogs (try the Dadamac.net search box if Landscape of Change interests you).
12- Social enterprise and monetising knowledge
Now I'm back to where I started. It's the issue of recognising the financial value behind social innovation (and the related knowledge that has been generated through practical work in Dadamac) and the possibility of being sufficiently enterprising to turn any of it into sustainable products or services.
I'm planning to learn more about that through active membership of the Hub Westminster community. I'm hoping for some P2P learning that could help me make a leap from pure social innovation to some financially sustainable social entrepreneurship. This would mean
- Taking on some new projects in a financially sustainable way.
- Sharing what I know, but applied in other organisational contexts.
- Funding some of my ongoing work so that it could be extended and handed over to others.
I shall go to Hub Westminster simply as myself, not as Dadamac - but I can go confidently not only beecuase of what I have learned through Dadamac, but also because I remain actively embedded in the relationships, knowledge and networks of Dadamac which I can call on when I need to learn something new or create a collaborative team.
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