Jaipur Mera Shehar

Aditya and Chintan are taking a session on social entrepreneurship during the unConference. 

             
             Chintan Bakshi                                                             Aditya Nath

Social entrepreneurs solve social problems through the for-profit route. A number of times social entrepreneurs start as a non-profit project and then figure out a sustainable business model. Social enterprises can be built to solve problems in areas like education, health, environment, waste management etc to name a few. Social enterprises need to start with an innovation (that solves a problem) around which a business model could be built. Some social enterprises retain a hybrid character – one part of the social enterprise function always remains as a non-profit while another part becomes a for-profit. For example, activities like awareness generation to create demand for a product, might need a lot of effort before results start and thus these can be sustained only through grant contributions, but once the demand gets generated, the for-profit model kicks in. For example, generating demand for an alternative model of education in rural India might take a lot of effort and time, but once the demand generation has been done, the process of providing education could be enabled through a for profit model.

Some social enterprises can be built around a common non-profit activity of community mobilisation. Say, the community in a village has been mobilised to work together and create a governance structure which has the capability to execute village level projects. Multiple social enterprises in areas like water harvesting, waste management, rural electrification etc can now get enabled to work in the village and provide products and services. Collectives also make possible the delivery of multiple services and revenue collection for B2C services and can further lead to development of new business models. Similarly, collectives developed through mobilising the residents of an urban cluster can provide the necessary demand for a lot of innovative social ventures in areas as diverse as urban farming, community centre management, sports, arts, waste management, water harvesting, to name a few.   

Social enterprise development essentially requires the following steps and processes:

1.       Identifying the social problem

2.       Understanding the problem in detail and empathising with the person facing the problem to                 understand the context of the problem

3.       Brainstorming on all the possible solutions

4.       Shortlisting the top solutions

5.       Creating the prototype or the minimum viable product (MVP)

6.       Designing the pilot testing project to test the MVP

7.       Raising resources for the pilot (ideally it should not need any external resources)

8.       Implementing the pilot project

9.       Collating results and key learnings

10.    Developing the scalable business model

11.    Implementing the scalable business model

Startup Oasis is looking to work with aspiring social enterprises and multiple social enterprises and help them with developing the right MVPs / business models and by providing them networks in rural and urban areas and advisory support.