The Gen Y Social Entrepreneur Wave: Part I

Nick Fellers | February 24, 2010

Talking about social entrepreneurship in our sector is like talking about clean energy in the energy sector… tons of chatter and conceptually, not new. Up until recently I’ve dismissed much of the conversation as ‘change chatter’.

To be clear, I LOVE the concept of social entrepreneurship… the idea of people thinking creatively and with an entrepreneurial attitude about changing the world! I actually feared (and maybe still do) that all the hype will elevate to a level of buzzword jargon (and maybe it has).

Lately, I have a new perspective on ‘change chatter’. And this perspective is that it IS our future. Social entrepreneurship (esp the young SE’s) will define or re-define the ‘change sector’. It will probably continue to wash away traditional lines of not-for-profit and for-profit and continue to organize around ‘for-impact’ or any other jargon – I’m open.

Last summer I had a chance to be with Robert Egger in New York. He shared a narrative about how the activism of the 60’s and 70’s gave rise to today’s nonprofit sector. The passion that was seen in the form of protests and marches matured to result in much of the nonprofit sector growth in the late 70’s and early 80’s.

This got me thinking about all this ‘social entrepreneur’ stuff and ‘change chatter’. From Ashoka to David Bornstein’s book to the Stanford Innovation Social Review… a lot of stuff. From what we, at The Suddes Group, are seeing in-the-field there is CLEARLY a swell from those in their 20’s.

Literally, out of nowhere, we’ve had a number of new young-social-entrepreneur-movement-type-orgs pop up on our radar – either they’ve attended boot camp or we’ve met up with them in the field.

Sparkseed
PEPY Ride
The Unreasonable Institute
Better World Books (BWB hasn’t been to boot camp but Xavier, one of the founders was my first business partners at Notre Dame so I stay close with Xavier).
Invisible Children

As a side note, if you ever get to hang out with any of these orgs or any other Gen Y social entrepreneurial orgs – do it. Incredible energy, passion, enthusiasm. Pretty damn refreshing.

It’s cool to think about the nonprofit sector as we know it today and think about the DNA injected from the chatter of the 60’s and 70’s and then think about what it will or won’t be in 10-15 years.

Who cares how one defines ‘social entrepreneurship’? I’m up for the downstream effect of the ‘chatter’. Here comes a generation that only knows of the world as flat and one that isn’t caught up on for-profit or not-for-profit but going at the goal to save lives, change lives and impact lives in the best possible way…. That simply by using the word ‘entrepreneurship’ entertains an entirely new vocabulary and way of thinking.

They’ve already given a cache to the movement. In and of itself, that is an achievement. We have two new Notre Dame grads working with us The Suddes Group. When I came on board ten years ago (also out of ND) people seemed to look at me with pity for ‘wanting to spend my life with charities’. Pat and Mark – they’re like rock stars – jumping into the new world of social entrepreneurship!

Read The Gen Y Social Entrepreneur Wave: Part II

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5 Comments So Far

Teju Ravilochan - February 24th, 2010 6:35 pm

Thanks so much for the great post Nick! I think you’re right: there’s an amazing number of unbelievably inspiring, deeply passionate young entrepreneurs emerging onto the scene in a big way. Having only grown up in this generation, it’s hard for me to make any claims about this being a unique time in human history in terms of generational comparisons. But it is interesting to think about why there are so many young people who hunger to tackle the world’s greatest social and environmental challenges.

I think the emergence of information and communication technology has truly transformed our sense of community. Benedict Arthur proposed the idea of “Imagined Communities”, in which people can exist in community with others they never meet. Humans first experienced this phenomenon just after the printing press developed. As literacy spread, people could read about others in their community they had never met – their struggles, their triumphs, etc. And they began to care about them. It’s this concept of “imagined communities” that led to the formation of nations. And today, it’s this concept that allows us to connect with Haitians, Somalians, and Iranians. Because we’ve grown up in an age of unprecedented human connectivity, I think young people today know they can’t take the reins of the earth unprepared to tackle the world’s greatest problems.

Combining this sense of community with emerging ideas about entrepreneurship’s application in combatting poverty, and we’ve got a veritable force of nature on our hands in this young generation.

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Mike Del Ponte - February 24th, 2010 8:29 pm

Nick,

Thank you for this great post and for mentioning Sparkseed. You’re right to point out that this is an exciting time with lots of opportunities for young social entrepreneurs. Right now there our student innovators dreaming up the next Kiva, Better World Books, etc. They need our help. It’s inspiring to see For Impact, Unreasonable Institute, Think Impact (http://www.thinkimpact.org/), StartingBloc (http://startingbloc.org/) and others join together to add momentum to this movement.

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Daniela Papi - February 25th, 2010 11:19 am

Thanks Nick!

I agree, it’s exciting to see so many people living their passions and being willing to work towards the changes they want to see in the world.

I agree with Teju that connectivity is a key to this movement, but I also think it is a few generations of “having enough to live”. My mental image of what the 40’s and 50’s was like has a lot of people working hard to improve their lives. Those people were less able to think globally about change as they had the goal of improving the future for their own children in mind. For many of us, our grandparents (or parents) worked hard to send their kids to college and made sacrifices to do so. Many of our parents were raised with enough to eat and a chance to study – perhaps with a mindset of more would always be nice, but we don’t have to worry about how we are going to feed the family. In many cases, they DID make more, and they continued to set their goals higher and higher. A lot more of the next generation which you are writing about, grew up in American or Canadian or British communities surrounded by people who had a lot, but were still fighting for more. Seeing that on TV, in out media, and in our suburbs from a young age makes you wonder if that is really worth growing up for.

I grew up in a suburb, on what my mom refers to as the “teacher street”. My mom is a teacher and so many others on our street are two. “Tiny” houses amongst monstrosities. It’s not until you grow up, go further down the street, or down the continent, into the cities or rural areas or anywhere that does not have a public school which sends a half of its kids to Ivy League schools, that you realize, I’m lucky. Like Teju said, all we have to do is search the internet to realize how much we have and how reliant our lives have become on those who don’t. We realized we don’t NEED to keep fighting for more for US.

Why not make a future for ourselves which allows us to do something we love while fighting that age old battle of making the world a better place for our kids. Lucky for many of us, we have the luxury of knowing we will always be able to find a way to make money to support our own kids, so we can turn outward towards the world and rejoin the fight for the future, this time with all of the worlds’ kids in mind.

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