Anshu Gupta: “If I want to do a business then I will do a business. But
I will not teat social issues like business”
Anshu Gupta (Anshu) witnessed the harsh realities and hardships the poor underwent during winters
in the city of Delhi due to a lack of adequate clothing. Many had died of cold and Anshu discovered to
his dismay, that a kid was keeping herself warm by hugging dead bodies. Moved by these poignant
encounters, Anshu realized his calling and started a social enterprise called ‘Goonj’ that echoed his
vision of providing clothing to the needy with dignity. From a modest beginning in 1998, the social
enterprise had grown into a virtual cloth bank for millions of poor in India. Goonj collected discarded
clothes from urban areas of India and distributed value-added clothes to the rural poor as wages for
the developmental activities undertaken by them. Its other initiatives like ‘School to School’ (S2S) for
children, providing hygienic products to women and its phenomenal work done during natural
disasters were laudable in terms of reaching the needy in an efficient and effective way. Goonj had
pioneered a ‘trash-based, not cash-based parallel economy’ and in this business model, the profits
were accrued in kind to the rural poor of India. Nevertheless, the innovative social entrepreneurship
initiative of Goonj and its effectiveness in delivering its objectives could face challenges in terms of
scalability, sustainability and replication of its model in the face of growing public apathy towards
social issues.
Social entrepreneurs are playing a vital role in ameliorating adverse social conditions in developing
economies, especially in the context of resource scarcity and corruption that characterize these
economies. Akin to commercial entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs engage in the entrepreneurial
activity of recognizing and exploiting opportunities; however, their reaction to adverse contextual
conditions is significantly different from that of their commercial counterparts. Social entrepreneurs,
moreover, are heterogeneous and differ in their values and perceptions of the institutional
environment. Yet, there is little research on the dynamics of social entrepreneurship (SE), especially
in an emerging economy context.
Although substantial, the body of literature on social entrepreneurship is fragmented and lacks a
coherent theoretical framework to explain rather ‘untidy’ concepts. Common across various
definitions of social entrepreneurship, however, is the fact that the underlying drive for SE is to create
social value rather than personal or shareholder value and the activity manifests itself through a
variety of organizational forms across a wide range of sectors. Much of the academic literature on SE
appears to be devoted to an elaboration of the conceptual dimensions of SE and the creation of social
value, to the relative neglect of the processes through which social value is delivered. As one type of
entrepreneur, social entrepreneurs are risk-tolerant and proactive and engage in the entrepreneurial
process of recognizing and exploiting opportunities regardless of resource constraints. At the same
time, however, social entrepreneurs are subject to the constraints of the environment, sustainability
and social mission, and hence face a conflict between market-based and socially motivated criteria in
the venture creation process. Social entrepreneurs' unique values, perceptions of the institutional
environment, capabilities and social networks, moreover, translate into differing goals for their
ventures. This section draws upon the process model of entrepreneurship to outline the distinctive
challenges confronting social entrepreneurs at key stages in the entrepreneurial process, namely,
opportunity recognition, resource acquisition and growth. Opportunities for social entrepreneurship
are abundant as they are rooted in contextual factors and basic, long-standing needs that are
unfulfilled, and that social entrepreneurs intend to more effectively serve. Social entrepreneurs often
pursue opportunities to address social change not despite, but because of, an inhospitable context,
and endeavor to change the context itself as they address the social problem. The key challenge for
social entrepreneurs, therefore, is to define the appropriate scope of the opportunity based on
internal organizational capabilities.
Under a program called ‘Not a Piece of Cloth’, low-cost sanitary napkins were provided to women in
villages who could not afford commercial napkins. These were made of recycled cloth. School to
School was an initiative under which children from urban schools shared their school material with
their rural counterparts. Goonj played a major role in disaster relief and rehabilitation across the
country during floods, earthquakes, and other such disasters. It concentrated specifically on areas that
were prone to severe winters to supply kits containing warm clothing and other needs for winter.
Goonj created employment opportunities for women from poor communities and trained them in
different income-generating activities like stitching, making quilts, knitting, etc. From discarded and
non-usable material, these women made several useful things like bags, ropes, purses, mobile phone
pouches, files, etc., which were sold under the label ‘Green by Goonj’.
As the activities of Goonj grew, several volunteers joined Anshu and the organization received
donations from various individuals. It got widespread recognition from several international agencies
like the Ashoka Foundation, the Schwab Foundation, the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation, NASA,
Deutsche Bank, etc. Goonj made a difference in the lives of scores of people across the country. By
freeing up the meagre resources of households, it helped the people put the money to productive use.
It provided employment to several women and made an impact on improving the fabric of society
through collective development work in the villages. Indirectly, its activities made a huge impact on
the environment with tons of material that would have ended up in landfills being recycled and
reused. But Anshu was of the view that much more needed to be done. Also, there were several
locations to which Goonj had not reached out as yet. As Goonj embarked on a path of growth, Anshu
faced challenges like maintaining the ethos of the organization, controlling the operational costs as it
reached the hinterlands, and, most importantly, coming up with a business model that could sustain
the organization, taking the concept of charity with dignity ahead.
I agree and disagree with this sentence as I do not believe that a social issue should be monetized to
the extent that we exploit the issue, people and environment affected by it. It is important to not lose
sight of the actual good that the social entrepreneur set out to do over the money making process.
The nascent field of social entrepreneurship is growing rapidly and attracting increased attention from
many sectors. The term itself shows up frequently in the media, is referenced by public officials, has
become common on university campuses, and informs the strategy of several prominent social sector
organizations, including Ashoka and the Schwab and Skoll Foundation foundations. The reasons
behind the popularity of social entrepreneurship are many. On the most basic level, there`s something
inherently interesting and appealing about entrepreneurs and the stories of why and how they do
what they do. People are attracted to social entrepreneurs like last year`s Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Muhammad Yunus for many of the same reasons that they find business entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs
so compelling, these extraordinary people come up with brilliant ideas and against all the odds
succeed at creating new products and services that dramatically improve people`s lives. But interest
in social entrepreneurship transcends the phenomenon of popularity and fascination with people.
Social entrepreneurship signals the imperative to drive social change, and it is that potential payoff,
with its lasting, transformational benefit to society, that sets the field and its practitioners apart.
Although the potential benefits offered by social entrepreneurship are clear to many of those
promoting and funding these activities, the actual definition of what social entrepreneurs do to
produce this order of magnitude return is less clear. In fact, we would argue that the definition of
social entrepreneurship today is anything but clear. As a result, social entrepreneurship has become
so inclusive that it now has an immense tent into which all manner of socially beneficial activities fit.
In some respects, this inclusiveness could be a good thing. If plenty of resources is pouring into the
social sector, and if many causes that otherwise would not get sufficient funding now get support
because they are regarded as social entrepreneurship, then it may be fine to have a loose definition.
We are inclined to argue, however, that this is a flawed assumption and a precarious stance. Social
entrepreneurship is an appealing construct precisely because it holds such high promise. If that
promise is not fulfilled because too many “non-entrepreneurial” efforts are included in the definition,
then social entrepreneurship will fall into disrepute, and the kernel of true social entrepreneurship
will be lost. Because of this danger, we believe we need a clearer definition of social entrepreneurship.
It makes it possible to determine if the activity is "in the tent". Our goal is not to compare the
contributions of traditional social welfare organizations to the achievements of the social
entrepreneurial spirit, but simply to emphasize their differences.
The word entrepreneurship is a double-edged blessing. On the plus side, this means a special innate
ability to find and acquire opportunities, combining unconventional thinking with a brand of unique
determination to create or create something new in the world. On the downside, entrepreneurship is
an ex post facto term. The entrepreneurial activity takes time before its true impact becomes
apparent. Interestingly, we have all the personalities, opportunities, unconventional thoughts and
determinations of an entrepreneur, but we don't call anyone a miserably unsuccessful entrepreneur
in his or her business. We call him or her a business failure. Even someone like Bob Young, famous for
Red Hat Software, is only called a "serial entrepreneur" after his first success. That is, all his previous
failures are called the work of a serial entrepreneur only after his first success has occurred. The
problem with post-definition is that they tend to be poorly defined. It's hard to figure out what hasn't
been proven. An entrepreneur can certainly claim to be one, but at least without a notch on his belt,
he would have a hard time convincing investors to make a bet. These investors are willing to take
greater risks in assessing the credibility of potential entrepreneurs and the potential impact of
formative ventures. Despite these considerations, we believe that the diversion of entrepreneurship
to the term social entrepreneurship means a struggle against what we really mean by
entrepreneurship. Is it simply alertness to opportunity? Creativity? Determination? Although these
and other behavioural characteristics are part of the story and certainly provide important clues for
prospective investors, they are not the whole story. Such descriptors are also used to describe
inventors, artists, corporate executives, and other societal actors. Like most students of
entrepreneurship, we begin with French economist Jean-Baptiste Say, who in the early 19th century
described the entrepreneur as one who “shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into
an area of higher productivity and greater yield,” thereby expanding the literal translation from the
French, “one who undertakes,” to encompass the concept of value creation. Writing a century later,
Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter built upon this basic concept of value creation, contributing
to what is arguably the most influential idea about entrepreneurship. Schumpeter identified in the
entrepreneur the force required to drive economic progress, absent which economies would become
static, structurally immobilized, and subject to decay. Enter the Unternehmer, Schumpeter`s
entrepreneurial spirit, who identifies a commercial opportunity, whether a material, product, service
or business, and organizes a venture to implement it. Successful entrepreneurship, he argues, sets off
a chain reaction, encouraging other entrepreneurs to iterate upon and ultimately propagate the
innovation to the point of “creative destruction,” a state at which the new venture and all its related
ventures effectively render existing products, services, and business models obsolete. Despite casting
the dramatis personae in heroic terms, Schumpeter`s evaluation grounds entrepreneurship inside a
system, ascribing to the entrepreneur`s function a paradoxical impact, each disruptive and generative.
Schumpeter sees the entrepreneur as an agent of alternate inside the large economy. Peter Drucker,
on the alternative hand, does now no longer see marketers as vital sellers of converting themselves,
but as a substitute as canny and dedicated exploiters of alternate. According to Drucker, “the
entrepreneur constantly searches for alternate, responds to it, and exploits it as a possibility,” a
premise picked up by Israel Kirzner, who identifies “alertness” because the entrepreneur`s maximum
important cap-potential. Regardless of whether or not they forged the entrepreneur as a step forward
innovator or an early exploiter, theorists universally companion entrepreneurship with possibility.
Entrepreneurs are believed to have an outstanding cap potential to peer and capture new
opportunities, the dedication and force required to pursue them, and an unflinching willingness to
undergo the inherent risks. Building from this theoretical base, we accept as true that
entrepreneurship describes the aggregate of a context wherein a possibility is situated, a fixed of
private traits required to become aware of and pursue this possibility, and the advent of a specific
outcome
The starting point of entrepreneurship is what we call the entrepreneurial context. For Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniak, the business context was a computer system that relied on the mainframe for users
to be controlled by central IT staff who protect the mainframe like a shrine. The user has completed a
computer task, but only after waiting in line and using software developed by IT staff. If the user wants
to do something special with the software program, he is told to wait 6 months for the programming
to complete. From the user's point of view, the experience was inefficient and unsatisfactory.
However, with only the centralized computing model available, users embraced it and incorporated
delays and inefficiencies into their workflows, which were inadequately balanced. System dynamists
describe this type of equilibrium as an "equilibrium feedback loop." This is because there is no strong
force that can cause the system to deviate from a certain equilibrium. This is similar to an air
conditioner thermostat. When the temperature rises, the air conditioner turns on, the temperature
drops, and the thermostat eventually turns off the air conditioner. The centralized computing system
that users had to endure was a certain kind of balance. It was inadequate. The thermostat setting
seems to be too low by 5 degrees and everyone in the room is cold. People simply wear extra sweaters
because they know they have stable and predictable temperatures, but of course, they may want to
not have to. While it is clear that global philanthropy is generally on the rise, measuring the impact
on social value and the effectiveness of aid has only recently become a priority. Increasing demands
on transparency and accountability from donors and governments have created hundreds of
competing ways to measure social value. External aid is measured primarily in terms of total capital
investment, not how many people are actually being aided. In the past, reports on the effectiveness
of aid consisted of unreliable individual anecdotes and testimonies. Without accurate financial and
impact data, it is difficult to say exactly where the donor's funds are heading. Unfortunately, this
information is very complex and expensive to obtain. In addition to quantifying the concept of utility
and value, we also need to exclude external factors that affect the validity of the study. Many donors
want to know how their money is spent, but most donors do not like the idea that they have to pay
the administrative costs associated with creating such statistics. Hmm. Most charities want their
money to be spent on foundation work, not paperwork. The Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) is the leading international organization for collecting and analyzing aid
effect data. The OECD is a coalition of 34 countries working to promote global economic growth and
international trade, coordinating agreements between donors, developing and private stakeholders
through the Development Assistance Committee (DAC). We support the governments of developing
countries. Based on the principle of "trade, not aid," DACs are designed to ultimately improve local
systems so that developing countries can respond to economic growth without relying on foreign aid.
Much of the DAC's data suggests that assistance works best when properly directed and managed.
Some estimates suggest that raising $ 100 in the United States costs an average of $ 33, and up to 80%
of nonprofits' time and energy is spent raising money. Socially Return on Investment (SROI) is an
increasingly popular method of measuring impact. SROI is basically a cost-benefit analysis that
measures the value of non-financial (social and/or environmental) created in comparison to invested
resources. This approach is sometimes accused of being oversimplified. "Hard results" such as the
number of children who have passed the literacy test can be easily measured, but "soft results" such
as happiness, self-confidence, and improvement of communication skills are immeasurable. Weighed
against the number of dollars. SROI usually applies to charities and non-governmental organizations,
but many believe that this method is most effective when applied to for-profit businesses established
by social entrepreneurs. Supporters of the SROI point out that organizations are forced to engage in
meaningful discussions with stakeholders.
The dark side of social entrepreneurs
Social entrepreneurial critics are paying attention to the potential for promoting hypocrisy in
businesses and consumers. Social philosopher Slavoj Zizek often states that supporters of "conscious
consumption" are trying to address the main negative externalities of the capitalist economy, such as
poverty, inequality and environmental degradation. It states that it is. But from Zizek's point of view,
it is a clear self-contradiction to believe that by engaging in more capitalism, one can overcome the
shortcomings of capitalism. For example, TOMS shoes are made by poor people in overseas factories.
When their infamous weak designs wear out, they go to landfills. There is evidence that conscious
consumption can produce surprisingly counterintuitive effects. A 2010 study published by the
University of Toronto found a negative link between altruism and ethical behaviour. Student
volunteers were divided into groups and instructed to visit two online stores. One mainly stocked
green products and the other mainly stocked traditional products. Half of the students in each group
were asked to buy the product and the other half were just asked to rate them. Second, in the money
sharing game, students who rated only green products shared the most money, and students who
purchased green products shared the least. In addition, those who bought green products were not
only fooled more often than other groups in computer games trying to trick students, but also extra
when asked to pay for themselves from an envelope on their desk. I took the money. Researchers
have found that mere exposure to environmentally friendly products (experienced as ethical conduct)
promotes prosocial behavior, and engaging in ethical shopping reduces the likelihood of future ethical
behavior. I concluded that there is a possibility. Humans seem to have a limited amount of ethical
motives that can be exhausted. This bias is called a single-action bias and has been identified as a
potential resistance to charitable donations. According to a University of Michigan study, two
consumers were given the opportunity to buy the same product, but if one manufactured the product
as an "opportunity-related" purchase, that consumer's charitable donation was higher than the other.
It will be less. Social entrepreneurial critics also cite the so-called halo effect. This is a cognitive bias
that we assume that if you are good at one area, you are good at another. The term was coined by
psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1920 and describes how commanders generally judge whether a
soldier is good or bad. When consumers believe that business has a positive impact on society through
social entrepreneurship, we may assume it is ethical throughout, but it may not be so.
Boundaries of Social Entrepreneurship
When defining social entrepreneurship, it is also important to set boundaries and provide examples
of activities that may be of great value but do not fit our definition. If no boundaries were drawn, the
concept of social entrepreneurship would remain so free that it was essentially meaningless. There
are two main forms of socially valuable activity that we believe must be distinguished from social
entrepreneurship. The first type of social venture is the provision of social services. In this case, a brave
and devoted individual, like an AIDS orphan in Africa, identifies an unfortunate stable balance, such as
a school to ensure that children are cared for and educated. Implement the program to deal with. The
new school will certainly help the children it serves and will enable some of them to get out of poverty
and change their lives very well. But unless it's designed to expand significantly, or if it's convincing
enough to create an army of imitators and replicators, it's unlikely to lead to a new and better balance.
These types of social welfare companies are stuck in a limited framework. The impact remains limited,
the scope of service remains limited to the locals, and the scope is determined by the resources they
can attract. These efforts are vulnerable in nature and can lead to disruption or loss of service to those
who provide them. There are millions of such organizations around the world, with good intentions,
noble intent, and often exemplary practices, but don't confuse them with social entrepreneurs.
It would be possible to reorganize schools for AIDS orphans as social entrepreneurs. But that would
require a plan for the school itself to create an entire school network and secure a foundation for their
continued support. The result is stable new equilibrium, and even if one school is closed, there will be
a robust system for AIDS orphans to receive routine education. The difference between the two types
of businesses, one is social entrepreneurship and the other is social welfare services, is not in the
context of early entrepreneurs or in many personal characteristics of the founders, but in the results.
Imagine Andrew Carnegie just building a library today instead of designing a public library system that
serves millions of American citizens. The only library of Carnegie is well benefited from the community
that provided it. However, it was a vision of the whole library system that ensures a permanent new
balance that ensures access to all citizens' information and knowledge of the people who secure his
reputation as a social entrepreneur. The second class of social companies is a social activity. In this
case, the motivation for the activity is the same, a disappointing and stable balance. Also, some
aspects of actor characteristics are the same, inspiration, creativity, courage and strength. What is the
difference between actors-oriented? Instead of taking direct measures, social entrepreneurs are
trying to create social activists who are trying to create revisions by interstitial measures by taking
other governments, NGOs, consumers, workers, and so on. Social activists can create or create
ventures and organizations to facilitate search changes. If the activity is successful, existing systems
have a major improvement, and even a new balance is possible, but the strategic nature of the
behavior is focused on its influence and is not direct action. Do not give these people to social
entrepreneurs. That wouldn't be a tragedy. But such people have long had names and lofty traditions:
Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Vaclav Havel traditions. They are social activists. To describe
them as completely new, I am. H. A confused social entrepreneur, and thus the general public who
already knows what a social activist is, will not help the cause of the social activist or the cause of the
social entrepreneur.