Beginning in 11th grade, my parents made several unsuccessful attempts to enrol me in classes on business fundamentals. It just wasn’t my “thing” and I instinctively shied away from everything business because I thought it ran counter to my pursuit of social justice. Business fosters the kind of greed that has made carnage of retirement savings lately, whereas social engagement is about organizing grassroots movements. Or so an idealistic teen thought.
A sunny Sunday morning in April of 2006 changed that view. With the support of a few community organizations, 3 of my peers and I drew over a thousand young Torontonians to Queen’s park in protest of the tragic (and continuing) atrocities in Darfur.
The experience was as exhilarating as it was appetizing, and probably cemented my personal commitment to the social sector. Yet when we reached out to the droves of rally attendants for follow-up action, we began to realize in the weeks and months after that something about social action just wasn’t having a strong enough grasp on mainstream youth. It is a question we have been pursuing ever since.
Young people were confidently modelling themselves as entrepreneurs and articulating visions of success in business, but far fewer were paralleling this identity creation as career social organizers. Why?
One answer that has emerged as we’ve begun to dig is a perceived (and real) lack of financial viability. An entrepreneur braces risk and bootstrapping in return for high reward opportunities. A social organizer parallels that sacrifice in return for what is no doubt a fulfilling reward, but also one where successes don’t prevent you from living as a “starving activist”.
We needed to make social change a viable career option with mainstream appeal. On a plainly pragmatic level, we began to look at social enterprise as a vehicle to deliver social value before we even knew about terms like social-purpose business, social entrepreneurship, etc. It just made sense if we wanted to make a lifestyle of doing good.
Social enterprise holds incredible promise because it’s emerged in the juncture of business and social sectors. It’s why we call young social entrepreneurs the Nexus generation. But it also means that young people will have to navigate two sets of practices, and for many like me, it means activists will have to learn to draw up revenue models. This should be interesting.
It’s time to venture into uncharted territories – something social entrepreneurs and innovators do by nature anyways. Over the next few posts, I’ll shed some light on what building a bridge between two worlds has been like so far, and on some of the struggles and successes we’ve had.
I invite you to add your own experiences, suggestions and contemplations!
Stay tuned.
Assaf
