Social Entrepreneurs: Doing Sustainable Development - Ashoka

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Key characteristics
of the Ashoka social
entrepreneur
Dispassionate
analyzes drive
passionate bets
The community is
the compass, but a
compass without a
map is pretty useless
Capacitate citizens
to take charge
Adaptive discipline
Equity needs
ecology and ecology
needs equity
win," says Allan. And this success may spread far beyond the town with the
swarming mosquitoes. Through Allan's influence, the Provincial Governor has
banned the export of raw logs until better monitoring systems are in place.
What is driving the social entrepreneur?
The basic model of the social entrepreneur working in sustainable development
is fairly simple. Assess a problem, understand the environmental,
social, and economic dimensions. Figure out the leverage points, then execute
like a pit bull being told to eat every T-bone steak in a butcher's shop,
that is relentlessly and efficiently. Not quite as easy as it sounds, but not
rocket science either.
This having been said, there are some at first contradictory characteristics
that crosscut leading social entrepreneurial efforts in sustainable development
that appear to be distinctive traits. Part of what differentiates the
social entrepreneurial project from your garden-variety sustainable development
effort is the ability to balance and harness a set of these potentially
opposed notions to drive better and better results.
Dispassionate analyzes drive passionate bets
Leading social entrepreneurs have the ability to evaluate the system dispassionately,
but then have the vision to make a passionate bet on a leverage
point and a strategy to tip that leverage point. Allan's project frontloads
tremendous energy into mapping the ecosystem and identifying what the
maximum sustainable yield will be before venturing into the harvesting and
manufacturing stages-all this while keeping his boots firmly planted in the
clouds.
The community is the compass, but a compass without a map is pretty useless
Community needs and preferences must fundamentally drive social entrepreneurial
efforts. But these efforts must also be pragmatic and opportunistic
about external realities. A classic example is Jadwiga, driven by the
desire to preserve the institution of the traditional Polish family farm, yet
quick to capitalize on an emerging taste among urban professionals for
alternative forms of tourism.
Capacitate citizens to take charge
A key to long-term sustainability is community control over natural resources.
However, a reality faced by many communities is that traditional control and
decision making systems may need to be revived or may be strained when
encountering previously non-existent threats. Therefore intervention is
sometimes necessary. But the intervention, to be lasting, must be aimed at
capacitating local control as opposed to simply solving the problem at hand.
ToxicsLink puts not only data in the hands of communities impacted by toxic
pollution, but also the knowledge and ability to continue monitoring, to
assess the resulting data, and to identify the most promising strategies to
address future problems.
Adaptive discipline
The protagonists you have met are focused, disciplined, and unrelenting, yet
simultaneously adaptive to changing circumstances and new information. It
is a unique temperament that allows one to be single minded without being
narrow minded. Clovis, in his decision to engage Fabio with his buffalo chal-