Driving Social Changes?

Our society today is faced with many intimidating challenges and for this state to improve, those truly committed to improving it cannot shun away their individual responsibility and dwell in the easy languor of the past. Equal opportunity lies in front of each one of us to bring about a positive impact, individually or collectively. There are several examples of good citizenship on part of corporate today but not all of these efforts result in the intended success nor are sustainable.

More often than not an initiative ' one initiated for non-profit purpose, lacks in the rigor which can usually be associated with a profit-making business venture. Social initiatives aiming to have a magnitude of impact need to have clearly defined purpose, vision, objectives, milestones, sustainability and measures for success. It would be useful to categorize them under 'social entrepreneurship' as against the general 'do good' initiatives, for the results expected in both the cases are different.

The very first question we will need to ask would be in defining the right strategy for the kind of impact we want to create. The answer lies in a classical 'T decision', where the horizontal line depicts the breadth and the surface area it covers and the vertical line depicts the depth. For instance, the critical choice here may be between impacting the lives of say a million people by intervening or working at critical points of a process vs. a more in depth initiative of impacting the lives of few hundred by taking complete responsibility of the whole process.

Both kinds of initiatives have their merits, thus making this classical T decision very important from a visioning point of view, than execution, as it really does not matter how and where you start.

The second critical question to address is the issue of sustainability - long term sustainability, both in financial terms and in terms of the continuity of the initiative. Two models can be considered, which are quite distinct and again can be represented in the T form. The first model which is represented by the horizontal line can be equated with creating sustainability through partners collaborating for funding and execution. The second model depicted by the vertical line works on the principle that one organization or party takes on the ownership of bringing the change, not very different from how family owned business runs their operations. I truly believe that there is no limit to the amount of finance one can raise for such initiatives. The problem here has more to do with ideas and finding people with high credibility willing to roll up their sleeves for executing and scaling up the initiative.

The third critical question we need to ask is the value we intend to create through the initiative- value, which is unique and different and would thus impact people in ways it hasn't in the past. The search for this value and the investment model that will help create it is core to such social transformation, especially if this initiative has to be sustained in the long run. Such social entrepreneurship models can be scaled up successfully while the ones lacking value centricity at their core probably would lose out while facing execution challenges.

The fourth critical question to address is whether the impact of the initiative can be assessed and measured easily. Various studies and research available today outline principles of measurement that help evaluate the impact on a scientific basis that organizations can use.

The last question we would need to answer is about the organization structure to adopt that would passionately create a long term sustainable initiative. The definition may differ as it comes from an introspection and discovery of the kind of people you would like to work with and the kind of culture and value you want the organization to imbibe and be known for. It is good to have a result oriented outlook for such initiatives; however some thinking on the long term and the short term perspective will go hand-in-hand in bringing the feeling of joy, achievement and fulfillment to all the people associated with it.

While many social initiatives are being taken on and will continue to be taken on, my belief is that our effort should be directed more towards initiatives that are sustainable and scalable for maximizing impact on society.