We’ve changed our name from Encore.org to CoGenerate! Join us at cogenerate.org to bridge generational divides and co-create the future.

We’ve changed our name from Encore.org to CoGenerate! Join us at cogenerate.org to bridge generational divides and co-create the future.

If you spend any time with David Bornstein, as I have been lucky to do recently, you will likely start thinking that the world is a place filled with altruistic people who dedicate their time and talents to fixing what’s wrong. As one of the leading experts on social entrepreneurship and social innovation, Bornstein, a senior fellow with Civic Ventures, has written three books and interviewed hundreds of leaders in the field.

His latest, Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know, is essential reading for anyone who wants to learn more about how people around the world are crafting solutions to big problems and how the growing social venture field is changing the dialogue about social change.

Below are excerpts from a recent conversation I had with Bornstein in the wake of his new book and the launch of his new website, Dowser, a source for news about social innovation and the people behind it.

Q: Let’s start with some definitions. You spend a whole chapter on this in the book, but can you give us a brief definition of social entrepreneurship?

A: I think of it as a process by which people advance ideas for social change and that usually but not always involves creating an institution to carry that idea forward or transforming the way an existing institution operates. It’s useful to borrow a term from the business sector because people associate the word entrepreneurship with innovation, dynamism and pattern changing, and that’s quite different from the way people have historically viewed social organizations.

Q: You have spent much of your career as a writer chronicling the experiences and patterns of successful social entrepreneurs. Around the time you wrote this last book, you started a venture of your own, Dowser. Have you changed your perspective on social entrepreneurship now that you’re running Dowser?

A: I’ve seen that every idea goes through dozens of iterations before people really get it right. Everyone I’ve interviewed has stories of being refused 20 or 30 times for the funding they’ve needed. Now I’m actually seeing what it’s like to come up with an idea, have to change it and realize that your original assumptions were wrong — that you expected funding to come in on this time frame and it’s going to come in on that time frame, and you have to adjust and figure out how to do all the things you promised with a quarter of the resources that you expected.

It’s hugely challenging, but having written about it and seen this pattern so many times in the lives of people, I genuinely think are tremendous entrepreneurs, it’s reassuring because I realize that these problems are part of the process. Even the most famous social entrepreneur, Muhammad Yunus, his first efforts failed. Same with Bill Gates.

Q: Many people want to do something to change the world, but don’t even know where to start. What’s your advice to them?

A: Causing any social change takes a lot of time and there are a lot of disappointments. So you want to try to pick something that you’re not going to get tired of. Usually the indications of your deep interests will be there in the history of your life. You’ll find them in your upbringing perhaps, or in your education or work years. People don’t just come up with new ideas of who they are in their 60s. So it’s useful to do a kind of life inventory of what your cares are because so many people in our society get pushed in to the direction of their marketable competency that they forget what their cares are.

Q: What do you see as the key differences between younger and older social innovators, and where do you see the greatest opportunities for encore entrepreneurs?

A: The biggest difference is that social innovators in the encore stage often have a large network of people to call upon, so with a phone call and a lunch and you can get something done. You also understand how a system works so you’re in a powerful position to see how one or two small changes can have an impact. The tendency for young innovators is to want to start something from scratch. But people who have worked for many years can often seize the great opportunities available through intrapreneurship — advancing new ideas and approaches within existing institutions.

Q: That brings me right to my next question. In your book, you make it clear that these intrapreneurs can still think of themselves as a social innovators even if they aren’t creating a new organization. Does that mean people should think long and hard before rushing to start something new?

A: Yes. People should ask themselves, does something already exist that could be influenced to do this? Or to put it more simply, is there an army you can borrow?

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