Social Enterprise
I am taking a course at Vandy’s business school about Social Enterprise this semester. During almost every class I am jumping in my bones with ridiculous excitement about the opportunities in this emerging field! A social enterprise uses a business approach where the primary focus is to make positive social change, instead of to make profits for share holders. The profit is either put back into the enterprise or distributed to the people who are impacted. The most well known example of a social enterprise is Grameen Bank, but there are countless others who hold the idea of a “double bottom line,” meaning an inherent social as well as financial value.
Yesterday our professor sent an email about Jacqueline Novogratz’s efforts in a social enterprise called Acumen Fund which is working on a project called Jamii Bora — an affordable housing project outside Nairobi, Kenya. This is a piece of her email:
“Recently, I visited a development with 750 constructed houses along with thriving shops and a full-fledged school. More than 240 families – or about 1,300 individuals – have moved in, and many have painted the trim on their block houses, and planted gardens in backyards. Most thrilling to me was visiting Jane’s home, for I had spent time with her a year ago in her temporary dwelling in the Mathare Valley slum (here’s my TED talk on her journey). Her house was beautiful: trimmed in orange and green with sunflowers touching the roofline, it seemed a palace compared to the shanty where Jane had spent her life.”
After reading the email I watched the TED talk and discovered that this organization is truly doing amazing, sustainable, and authentic things to help people suffering from poverty. I also love the idea of poverty presented in the video as measured beyond income. Dr. Doug Meeks expands this idea beyond the physical domain and into emotional, relational, cultural, and spiritual domains.
Jacqueline wrote a book that was released yesterday called The Blue Sweater. I’m looking forward to reading it when classes slow down because I must continue to learn how I am going to change the world like Jane and Jacqueline — one step at at a time!
