A new project about innovation, social entrepreneurship and sustainable development!

Sustainable development is about climate change, equity, human development, capability as a freedom (A. Sen theory) and, as Robert Chamber said, it is a change for good.

I am committed to give my contribution and I feel I could do more for our world, at least I wanna try! :p

What is social entrepreneurship?

According to wikipedia the definition is “identifying or recognizing a social problem and using entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a social venture to achieve a desired social change”.

And what is a social entrepreneur?

According to Ashoka, a nonprofit organization based in USA, that supports social entrepreneurs through social venture capital, a social entrepreneur is “an individual with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to take new leaps.”

Actually more than a definition social entrepreneurship could be the answer.

Social entrepreneurship could be the chance of changing some ineffective processes that are stuck and are not useful anymore, could be the opportunity to overcome to the current crisis, could be the opportunity to create new way of business based on collaboration, co-working, co-creation, co-operation. Could be the way to integrate sustainability into the business processes and not only into a nice CSR plan, that most of the times has the unique aim to clean a brand or to improve the customer perception.

I personally see social entrepreneurship like a bridge that connects several stakeholders and potential partners to the civil society and sectors that need to be empowered.

On one hand the private sector needs to show its commitment regarding many social aspects and in order to show its participation, commitment and action needs to collaborate with the government, the civil society and the third sector.

On the other hand the third sector parties need to engage private companies in order to get investments and financing for their educational and social projects, while showing governance, accountability and transparency.

Unfortunately these two worlds are still too far, they speak different languages, have different priorities  and timing and an effective and long term relationship is still missing between them.

Maggie Black, a specialist in international development issues and author of the book  The No-nonsense guide to International Development, writes:

“The economy in which the donors operate and the economy in which the poorest people live are so far that they barely interconnect. Bridges are needed to cross the gap.”

Therefore bridges are needed and necessary. There are the good tools, the investments and the possibility to get to a more sustainable world, but there are frontiers that slow down the process.

How to solve these issues then? As I said at the beginning I wanna try to give my contribution and I am working on a new project..

Bridge for good is a new social entrepreneurship project aimed to overcome to the current issues that affect the development fields. It is a platform that will connect companies and foundations to the right social project. It is a group of passionate and young people willing to apply the international professional experience acquired while working with private companies and the knowledge about the sustainable development area, in a real, open and useful project.

Bridge for good is a Bridge aimed to change the world for good!

Bridge for good will be launched soon, in the meantime for more info on the project, input, ideas, way of financing… you can send an email to: bridgeforgood@gmail.com.

You can also follow Bridge for good on Twitter: @BridgeForGood and on Facebook:

“I JUST HAVE SOMETHING INSIDE ME THAT TELLS ME THERE IS A PROBLEM AND I MUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, SO I AM DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT” (WANGARI MAATHAI)

 

3 comentarios / 21 Jan 2013 por Veronica Recanati
IMSD /

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