I found an article on dowser.org, the website started by David Bornstein; it’s entitled Eight trends in social entrepreneurship to watch for in 2011. I found two of the “trends” to be particularly relevant to our class reading this week. The first is “Improvement of Metrics and Increased Adoption Rates.” The article discusses the fact that tools and metrics that will be able to effectively measure the impact of organizations are beginning to be fully developed and will become more widespread throughout the coming year. The second is “The Democratization of the Movement,” in this portion of the article Amy Clark of Ashoka say that organizations, and social entrepreneurs, are moving away from viewing the individuals they serve as recipients of services/charity, and attempting to receive greater amounts of feedback from them. Rather than simply using this knowledge to meet the guidelines established by supporter and funders, they plan to use the information they obtain to “inform their efforts going forward.” An improvement on many of the cases the reading addressed. I found it particularly interesting to hear these comments coming from someone that is part of Ashoka, since it seemed to me that many of the individuals they support (who were discussed in last semester’s books…so I apologize for the reference for those who were not in the class) were great examples of how to “listen” and gain information that will lead you towards greater results, results that may not have been possible had “listening” not occurred.
* The article is interesting and quite SHORT *
I agree with what you said. Listening applies to all process of social work. Before starting a program, it is important to listen and find out what is needed. In the process, listening helps the organization to make the right decisions and adjustments. After the program, listening lead to improvements for the next possible program.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was interesting and am particularly interested in #4 - the closing gap between for-profit and nonprofit. In another class we have done some readings that have included case studies on businesses that have created their own nonprofits or partnered with nonprofits to conduct projects which benefit society and the business. For example, Chiquita teamed up with the Rainforest Alliance to work on new agriculture related to bananas. This benefitted the society where people grow bananas, the environment where this takes place, and the business of Chiquita, as the "Rainforest Alliance" sticker on its labels may compel individuals to purchase them and they will cost more. Although it is less directly related to this week's readings, I do think it makes the muddy waters of accountability that much worse. Businesses have different rules for accountability so their involvement in nonprofit programs and funding can create a lot of confusion for the nonprofit sector as a whole.
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