After two days of thought-provoking, mind-bending keynotes, panels and hyper-networking at the British Council’s policy dialogue event titled “Social Enterprise: Impact and Opportunities,” a few common themes have emerged. Entrepreneurs and panelists across the board think that social enterprises have to come up with sustainable business models while also creating a greater impact.
Impact without sustainability and scale does not make sense anymore
Most of the social entrepreneurs and experts attended the double day gala of conversations and debates and recommended that social enterprises should come out of the conventional approach of depending on funding and grants, and should build more sustainable and scalable organisations.
Many of them argued it is futile to think about impact when you cannot not scale that impact and sustain them without being spoon-fed as an organisation. Entrepreneurs and panelists across the board think that social enterprises have to come up with sustainable business models while also creating a greater impact.
No regulation is no better than bad regulation, and social enterprises need legal and policy frameworks
It is hard for social enterprises, in today’s scenario, to have legal support and intellectual property rights since there is no specific framework present for them. There are organisations, arising in numerous forms, calling themselves social enterprises, and the absence of a framework makes it difficult to understand with their intent and value.
While it is holding back the growth of the sector, it is also making things difficult for the individual social entrepreneur to realistically make a difference. A conducive and flexible framework will help this sector grow and maximise the impact. So far, the sector or industry itself cannot be considered as a fully-fledged one.
On the other hand, it is also a challenge for policy makers and regulators to come up with separate policy and legal framework unless there is a clear conceptual framework of social enterprise.
To survive and flourish, social enterprises would need to transform
Most of the social enterprises are still lagging behind when it comes to competing with private corporations. However, that’s where social enterprises will have to be either today or tomorrow in terms of efficiency and need. They need to be solving more pressing and critical issues for the population and fill the demand-supply gap between the government and the private sector. If a social enterprise is not competent enough and can’t deliver something better than what exists in the market, it will struggle.
Create value, make money and grow
There is a negative connotation around the idea that social enterprises aiming to operate and make a profit at the same time. Social enterprises should build large businesses, make enough profit to scale their impact and evolve. However, making money should not be the intention and must not be achieved at the expense of impact and value.
Technology is the thing
Technology is no more an enabler. The challenge is how we can make these technologies available to a greater span of people or use it to deliver better services to the population.
Instead of trying to adapt to traditional methodology, which social enterprises often do, they need to be in the game and bring in disruptive technologies to tackle social problems.
Telling stories always help
There is a general lack of awareness about social enterprise in Bangladesh. Moreover, a huge misconception lies around the idea that social enterprises are essentially non-profit, small, voluntary organisations or NGOs. These entities do fall under the same bracket, however, it must be understood that they are not the only ones.
Social enterprises that are tackling global social issues must rethink of more sustainable ways to operate, with feasible business plans and creative financial models in place.
Experts and entrepreneurs recommended that we need to tell more stories of social enterprises and entrepreneurs in order to create knowledge, awareness, the right kind of motivation and at the same time, to inspire more people to start social enterprises. A conceptual framework must arise before legal ones are enforced, or the confusion of what social enterprises are shall last forever.
This year’s “Policy Dialogue on Social Enterprise,” a two-day conference, titled “Social Enterprise: Impact and Opportunities” is the second of its kind. The conference, including a combination of keynotes, talks, panels, and insightful conversations, took place at the British Council, 5 Fuller Road, Dhaka.
Reprinted from www.futurestartup.com