What connects Well Being and Social Entrepreneurship?
For over three years, the Mason Center for Consciousness and Transformation (cct.gmu.edu) has been the principal sponsor of social entrepreneurship at George Mason University. First, in an ongoing partnership with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public Good (ashoka.org), and, now, in active partnership with Mason Center for Social Entrepreneurship (massoninnovation.org). An example of this collaboration is the presentation of the inaugural, Social Innovation Champion Awards at the 2011 Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship Conference, which took place at the Mason’s Arlington campus on November 10. The awards recognized individuals for their groundbreaking work in developing and applying innovative, sustainable and scalable solutions to the world’s most pressing social problems. Three social entrepreneurship luminaries, Mason alumna Muna AbuSulayman (BA ’96, MA ’96), co-founder and chairman of Venture Philanthropy Partners Mario Morino, and President of Ashoka Diana Wells were honored.
Transformative leaders, like this year’s Social Innovation Champions, have been among us for a very long time. In virtually every field of human endeavor we have seen people with pattern changing ideas, which in their implementation have led to significant changes in the way people live. Mahatma Gandhi stands out among such leaders. Both spiritual and political, Gandhi’s life and work demonstrated clearly the linkages between ethical practice, truth seeking, social activism, and leadership. The capacity to change the world is not however limited to a few great souls. As Gandhi himself wrote, “I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.” In recent history, thankfully, we can find many examples of individuals who have engaged in this inner cultivation, which has enabled them to bring about substantive change. People like Martin Luther King Jr., John Muir, Florence Nightingale, Wangari Maathai, and many others.
But, was Gandhi a social entrepreneur? And, what is social entrepreneurship exactly? Further, in what ways does the investigation of consciousness relate to social entrepreneurship? Inevitably, in engaging in conversations about social entrepreneurship or consciousness we come to the messy albeit necessary work of precisely defining our terms. However, in carrying on a dialogue concerning consciousness and social entrepreneurship, I would argue that, what makes the most sense is employing working definitions for these terms that will help us to advance our inquiries and activities rather than distracting ourselves in the distinctions that sideline us in mere debate.
When it comes to defining social entrepreneurship misunderstandings abound. For example, over a recent lunch, a sincere and very bright individual asked me, “Social entrepreneurship, that’s entrepreneurs working on their networking and PR skills, right?” But, before offering a working definition, and looking for its intersections with consciousness and transformation, I offer a bit of biography about the man who popularized the term social entrepreneurship: Bill Drayton, the founder of, Arlington, VA based, Ashoka, one of the world’s leading organizations sponsoring social entrepreneurs. For in Drayton’s personal history we can see a strong connection between consciousness, transformation, and social entrepreneurship.
Born in 1943, Drayton is a Harvard alumni, who worked as an administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency under Jimmy Carter. At an early age he was greatly influenced by Gandhi’s work and Indian culture. As noted in the touchstone book on social entrepreneurship “How to Change the World”, in 1963 Drayton traveled to India where he was greatly influenced by one of Gandhi’s spiritual heirs Vinoba Bhave. Bhave was a social reformer responsible for leading the bhoodan or land gift movement, a nonviolent cooperative approach that provided untouchables in India with over 7 million acres of land. During Drayton’s visit to India, he spent weeks walking the countryside with Bhave and his followers as they carried out their mission of lifting the bottom of Indian society. “He was not only a political liberator, but a psychological liberator. He knew he had the ability to reach out and help people make heroic life decisions in a large part through his example … Today I would probably see him as a social entrepreneur” (Bornstein, 2007, 53). I offer this anecdote to make this point: When the so called “godfather of social entrepreneurship” traces his own ideational lineage to Gandhian philosophy and methods it becomes clear that the headwaters of social entrepreneurship run very close to the rivers of consciousness work, where improving the lives of all people has frequently been the central concern.
It is indeed at this practical level of human needs where consciousness, transformation, and social entrepreneurship meet. Bettering people’s lives is extremely hard work, which requires more than good ideas. To use a biblical metaphor it takes more than a sermon on the mount, it takes loaves and fishes. Or, in our contemporary context we might say, it takes more than persistent, instantaneous, global, wireless communication to better peoples lives, it takes drinkable water, sewage treatment; sustainable food and energy sources; affordable health care; accessible, high quality education; and democratic institutions.
So, what is social entrepreneurship? Putting it in its most accessible terms, Greg Werkheiser, Director of the Mason Center for Social Entrepreneurship described it this way, “social entrepreneurship is trying to apply sustainable business practices to our most challenging social needs.” (For an elaboration on the meaning of social entrepreneurship see: http://www.caseatduke.org/documents/dees_sedef.pdf).
Individuals deeply involved in the field of social entrepreneurship may be more familiar with scalable business models than with the research on positive psychology and the contemplative mindfulness practices that are among the hallmarks of contemporary consciousness studies. However, in the interdisciplinary domain of consciousness studies we also see a significant efforts towards practical solutions, as social enterprises are common for leaders in these fields. For example, in 1960 renowned Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh (www.plumvillage.org), author of international best selling books “The Miracle of Mindfulness” and “Peace is Every Step”, founded the School of Youth for Social Services (SYSS), which helped to re-establish villages, schools, and medical centers in his home country of Vietnam following the Vietnam War. Further, both mindfulness practitioners and social entrepreneurs seek to “be the change they want to see in the world”, or put more concisely to “lead from the front”.
To walk in such a manner individuals must develop the core competencies of changemakers, which are, according to Bill Drayton empathy, teamwork, and leadership. In other words, to be a successful in making the world a better place we must raise our levels of consciousness, engage effectively with others, and work together to elevate the lives of those around us. At the heart of these ideas and actions are the complex but undeniable interdependencies of environmental and social systems, and a belief in the potential of humanity to move forward.
Today, around the world, social entrepreneurship has become a powerful movement. Social entrepreneurs like Muhammed Yunusand (Bangladesh) and the recently deceased Wangari Maathai (Kenya) have won the Nobel Peace Prize for their social innovations. In the U.S. the Obama administration has established an Office of Social Innovation (http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/sicp) and there are calls for the development of such offices at the state level. Behind these visible symbols, can be found our highest aspirations for change, and our collective hope that current and future generations will make real progress in sovling the most intractable problems we face today.
Here at George Mason University we are very fortunate to have both the Center for Consciousness and Transformation, and the Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Together these Centers are working in practical ways to cultivate the next generation of transformative leaders. We warmly invite you to get involved in the work of social entrepreneurship, and to join us on the path of consciousness and transformation.
