Organizing social innovation

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Do curso por University of Cape Town

Becoming a changemaker: Introduction to Social Innovation

251 classificações

University of Cape Town

Becoming a changemaker: Introduction to Social Innovation

251 classificações

This free 6 week course is for anyone who wants to make a difference. Whether you are already familiar with the field of social innovation or social entrepreneurship, working for an organization that wants to increase its social impact, or just starting out, this course will take you on a journey of exploring the complex problems that surround us and how to start thinking about solutions. We will debunk common assumptions around what resources are needed to begin acting as a social innovator. We will learn from the numerous examples of social innovations happening all over the world. You will be challenged to get out of your comfort zone and start engaging with the diverse spaces around you. By the end of the course, you will have formed your own approach to social innovation, and you will have begun to develop the concepts, mindset, skills, and relationships that will enable you to start and evolve as a changemaker. You will be able to purchase a Verified Certificate if you wish to show evidence of your achievements, but this is optional, and you may apply for Financial Aid if you are unable to pay the certificate fee. The Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship co-created this course with RLabs, a social movement ‘born-and-bred’ in Bridgetown, Cape Town that is now active in 22 countries. The movement empowers youth through innovative and disruptive technology by teaching them vital skills and providing much needed support and a sense of community. Advocating and supporting initiatives such as RLabs forms part of the Bertha Centre’s mandate. The Centre is a specialised unit at University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business, and is the first academic centre in Africa dedicated to advancing social innovation and entrepreneurship. You can view the course trailer at www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcWYG64WO20 Tweet about this course using the hashtag #socinnMOOC

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What if it works?

In the end social innovation is about impact. We’re all trying to have a meaningful, positive effect on the world, whatever that might mean to us. If we do this and we’re actually successful, this is going to take us sooner or later to the question of scale. How do we grow that innovation? As social innovations mature, the forms they could take and the multiple ways in which you could organise around achieving impact increase. It used to be easy to label organisations according to non-profit and for profit, and government institutions based on their purpose, its organisational structure and the way it measured what it achieved. That’s all changing. There are different ways to diffuse and scale the work that we’re doing to achieve impact.

Rlabs: Journey of Hope Part 69:43

The evolving world of social innovation2:58

Organizing social innovation5:28

Financing social innovation5:45

Scaling social innovation7:32

Reflecting with RLabs: moving forward10:21

Conheça os instrutores

François Bonnici
Director
Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Warren Nilsson
Associate Professor
Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town
Marlon Parker
Founder
RLabs

[MUSIC].

Let's take a look at a spectrum of organizational forms.

On the left, we'll see, voluntary associations, trusts,

charities, non-profit organisations.

These have all been effective models in organizing around a social mission.

Ultimately, these organizations are accountable to their beneficiaries,

to their stakeholders, and funders.

And they measure their success, through the social impacts they achieve.

If there's any surplus in these organizations,

they are distributed back into the organization and into the community.

On the right hand side of the spectrum, you'll see traditional businesses and

private companies.

And there are many organizational forms around private corporations,

around the world.

We know these organizations are regulated and accountable to their shareholders.

They are driven by a profit mission, and

ultimately they measure their success in a unit of currency.

In some form of profit measurement, return on investment and if there's any surplus

or profit created on these organizations, it's distributed to private individuals.

So, we've seen mounting pressure

on both of the extremes of the spectrum in the last two decades.

The non-profit organizations and

charities have seen pressures come from donor organizations.

From a more competitive landscape, from increasing

demands on being performance oriented and measuring their success.

And also their own sustainability as organizations.

So they've started to move up the spectrum and think about how can they

start generating their own income, create more independence.

Be more performance oriented and open up new forms of capital fund raising?

The pressures on the business sector,

many people have seen as we as citizens asking business to be more responsible.

We see this certainly, for example, in the pharmaceutical industry where mounting

pressure has come from citizens and community organizations.

To drive access to essential medicines and make those more affordable.

Also mining companies have come under significant pressure to be more

environmentally responsible and sustainable.

So the pressure has mounted on private business to be more responsible socially

and environmentally.

And so practices corporate social responsibility and

sustainability and responsible business practice have started to emerge.

In the middle of the spectrum, we see the rise of the social enterprise.

Essentially a set of experiments around organizational form

trying to blend both the social and economic mission of organizations.

While keeping the social mission foremost in mind,

we are able to start thinking about performance orientation,

sustainability strategies, and bringing them together in one organization.

We've seen this play out in many different ways across the world

as people experiment with new organizational forms.

In many countries, there are hybrid organizations being created.

So organizations that look like they are something between a non-profit and

a for profit.

And sometimes they are hybrid in the way that there are multiple

organizations connected to each other.

So a non-profit organization, for example, owning a small business or

a large business setting up a non-profit or a trust.

As we saw in the 19th century regulation catching up to practice of non-profit and

for profit organizations.

We see new regulation emerging around legal structures and so it's fascinating

to see new legal entities being created in many countries across the world.

In France for example, we have the solidarity company In the UK,

the Community Interest Company, or CIC.

In Canada, the Community Contributions Company.

And now increasingly across the world,

something we've mentioned before, the Benefit Corporation, or B Corp.

The B Corp Is regulated in two ways.

The first is through a new legal structure,

which is available in the USA.

And in the rest of the world, through a certification mechanism, like Fair Trade,

for example, where companies are certified to be benefit corporations.

And we've seen this explode with none more than a thousand 700 companies in the world

being BCOP certified across 50 countries and a 130 different industries.

So, we can see now our playbook is more than just these two

extremes of this organizational spectrum, the non-profit and full profit.

But, we have a range of different ways of organizing around implementing

a social innovation.

But let's not forget that these are the only ways in which social innovations can

be implemented.

We can see social innovations emerge and arise through existing organizations,

like government departments or large corporations or

existing non-profit entities.

And continue to work and be implemented through informal organizing,

such as social movements.

In the next video, we're going to start looking at how we can start to measure

success in these organizations, and also how they can be funded.

[MUSIC]

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