A recent December gathering of accelerators, foundations and social enterprises stressed the need for social entrepreneurs to go more digital, to play to the growing expectations of stakeholders who today are more connected, more mobile and more used to “instant access.”
The gathering, called the Sinag Accelerate 2017 and hosted by the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) Foundation, awarded ten small and medium businesses that are not only financially sustainable but have also made significant impacts in their communities throughout the ASEAN nation.
Why This MattersIt is the dawn of 2018, nearly eleven years since the Apple iPhone was first announced and nearly forty years since Bill Drayton first put the words “social” and “entrepreneur” together in 1980.
In a way, social entrepreneurship’s birth was sandwiched between entries into modern society of the personal computer in 1975 and the smartphone in 2007, two inventions that have really revolutionized the individual’s relationship with their devices.
These have led to the current reality where digital is pervasive, influencing all aspects of humanity’s lives whether in the realms of politics, social, economics and industry.
As children of the same period (1980’s), it is not surprising that social innovation and technology are influencing, even “interacting” with each other in ways that are elevating persistent human issues, like the ill-treatment of children in third-world countries over social, and democratizing ways to mitigate those issues, such as, say, the rise of crowdfunding and peer-to-peer digital lending and payments (bypassing traditional banking).
As a result, social entrepreneurship continues to blossom, connecting practitioners in remote corners of the world with an ecosystem of academics, policymakers, volunteers and most importantly, funders, all supporting these entrepreneurs in their efforts to change the world.
Yes But …
More than half of social enterprises in the ASEAN country continue to struggle not because of excluding digital but because of difficulties in obtaining capital, in a survey published in October 2017 by British Council, the European Union, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission in Asia and the Pacific.
“A rapid assessment of the data would show that the nature of the most pressing issues for social enterprises in the Philippines are financial or monetary. This is followed by human resource concerns,” a copy of the study, which is freely available online, read.
As to what constituted a “substantial barrier to growth,” 53 percent of the social enterprises said it was obtaining capital, 46 percent said it was grant funding, while 32 percent said it was cash flow.
It thus may be tempting to divert capital to those social enterprises whose business models leverage the digital consumer or stakeholder, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of solving real problems rooted at causes that may not be solvable by the next innovations in Voice, Blockchain or Augmented Reality (AR).
The British Council study noted that in Southeast Asia, the Philippines included, the youth bulge, arguably the most digital among generational groups, potentially can bring demographic dividends but can also spell disaster if the young cannot find economic opportunities.
Read More
“Reaching the Farthest First”, British Council, October 2017.
“Study: Getting capital is biggest barrier to growth of PH social enterprises”, Inquirer, November 2017.
“Rise of Voice and AR among key digital trends that companies should take note of in 2018, Ogilvy says”, Inquirer, December 2017.
“BPI Accelerator Reveals Top 35 Social Enterprises,” Phil Star, August 2017.
