When meet an entrepreneur is adamant if s/he is primarly driven by the collective good or personal gains. They are not mutually exclusive but what comes first matters. However, it seems some experts are not sure about such a difference and find difficult drawing a line.
As the weather was pretty cold and gloomy during the Queen’s jubilee – what a surprise! – I didn’t indulge in the festivities as the natives but instead thinking about a blog entry in the Startup Week-End on the topic that Marco Traversi, founder of Italian Social Innovation Network, sent me last week.
Despite the success of the Social Startup WE Marco organised in Naples 2 weeks ago the Kaufaman Foundation – sponsor of the international event – decided to stop including social entrepreneurship in the program as a separate categoy. How did they come to that decision?
The main arugments in the blog centre on: 1) social entrepreneurship implies moral values that are subjective and perhaps conflicting, making buiseness complicated if not a mess 2) every enterpreneur is social has s/he creates wealth beyond personal gains eg employment.
This is the best part: ‘We are all after a better society, a better economy, with more shared prosperity. There are many different ways to get there: for-profit, nonprofit, technological, whatever. Much of the work that seeks to distinguish “social” entrepreneurship is premised on a subjective value judgment about what is “good” and what does or does not constitute a virtuous pursuit. Entrepreneurs of all kinds are out taking risks and trying to solve problems big and small. To draw lines of virtue would introduce, in most cases, a distinction without a difference, something we are unprepared to do with Startup Weekend. Giving something an irrelevant label introduces needless bias and tension, which is destructive to the broader entrepreneurship movement. Let’s focus on the doing component of it, not deciding if something is virtuous or not. The results will speak for themselves’. You can read the full article here.
In my very modest experience this is naif if not blantly wrong. Some people want to do good, others want to do bad, the majority want to have a better life for themselves and their families without possibly hurting the others.
I don’t have to name the endless list of people who sacrified theri fellows for personal wealth as well as their counterparts who sacrified themselves for the common wellbeing.
Enterprenerus are not different. Not everybody is an entrepreneur: can or want to be. Not every enterpreneur is a social entrepreneur. social entrepreneurs put public good before their own gains. The line might be difficult to draw but the difference is clear to me when I meet the former and the latter.
Tomorrow, I’m in Brussels for the first meeting of Commissioner Barnier’s expert group on social business. I hope the Commission will keep in mind this distinction because it doens’t seem to do so at the moment. Is it a fact or my interpretation?
The officials proposed to set up a digital platform for social enterpreneurs and investors as a subcategory of Europe Business portal. Actually, as members of the group, we have already been asked to contribute in that platform.
This is a mistake weakening an emerging industry that has concrete and new solutions to the crisis in Europe, and will water down the message of the Commission. Let’s see if I can help the Commission again to regain the right path.
Cosa fa VITA?
Da 30 anni VITA è la testata di riferimento dell’innovazione sociale, dell’attivismo civico e del Terzo settore. Siamo un’impresa sociale senza scopo di lucro: raccontiamo storie, promuoviamo campagne, interpelliamo le imprese, la politica e le istituzioni per promuovere i valori dell’interesse generale e del bene comune. Se riusciamo a farlo è grazie a chi decide di sostenerci.