HBS Social Enterprise Conference 2007 Panel: Making People Care
by Catherine LaineMarch 7th, 2007
10:10 am
There were loads of panels, but this one, which ended up being standing room only, particular caught my eye.
Making People Care
Success and challenges in engaging public support for social enterprise and global development
Moderator: Tiziana Dearing: ED of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard
Colin Brady: COO, (Product) RED - No show. They might have their hands full with some of the bad press they’ve been getting lately.
Myrna Greenfield: Dir. of Communications and Ed, Oxfam America
Johann Olav Koss, President & CEO, Right to Play [Note: the site is .com and not .org]; Olympic Gold Medalist
George Roter, Founder and Co-CEO, Engineers without Borders, Canada
Most memorable things from the panel:
- EWB Canada goes Guerrilla. They were doing a cool campaign with newspapers dated March 1, 2025. Headline: Poverty Ended. The plan was to hand out 100,000 of these around town (not sure which Canadian town, I’m thinking big city with a Union Station). Anywoo, a train derailment occurred and you had a lot of angry commuters who were not very interested in listening to this message. Some clever EWB volunteers figured it was time to do some guerrilla theater. They staged an angry argument where a “cynic” vented his frustrations about poverty alleviation, development, etc. At the end, they turned to the audience and gave them materials. After that, they had many more takers.
- Oxfam hunger banquet and experiential marketing. You and your friend go to this banquet. At random, one of you is assigned to be rich, the other poor. The “poor” person sits on the floor and eats a simple meal. The “rich” person gets a cushy seat, nice drinks, great food. The funny thing is the person who is most disturbed by the situation tends to be the one arbitrarily assigned to be rich. Very effective strategy.
- Everyone cares, it’s getting them to do that’s the trick.
- Get people engaged once, they are more likely to being engaged in the future. Roter said that action is analogous to brand loyalty. He referred to the supporting effect known as the consistency principle. [In psychology, it’s the desire to be consistent, especially in attitudes and beliefs.] So if you buy fair trade coffee, you are more likely to vote in a way consistent with those beliefs.
- What motivates people to do and do often? The recycling movement gives some pointers. In Canada, a great percentage of recyclable goods are recycled. It’s easy, you can work it into your everyday routine, it’s public. Those bright blue bins definitely draw attention to themselves and you too if you are an evil non-recycler. So social pressures also play a role.
- Koss states that he is tired of the constant repetition of how bad things are. The development industry emphasizes disaster, disrespecting communities that they work with. At Right to Play, they state the facts, but try to focus on the positive. This is the guiding principle of their marketing.
Related News: Paul Wolfowitz, new President of the World Bank on Africa’s bad rap
Oh and I really really really hate the project (red) RAZR commercial with Ron Livingston (Office Space). Did I mention really?
A really interesting that wasn’t answered satisfactorily for me: How to get local elites in a developing country to care? How do you foster local philanthropy/action?
Org to watch out for: Gratis Ghana. I was talking to George Roter after the discussion and he told me about their work.
Mission statement: The Gratis Ghana Foundation exists to promote Industrialization by developing and disseminating technology to Industry, particularly small and medium-scale enterprises.
March 7th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I cannot speak for the rest of the world, but in Latin America, the elite’s disaffection towards the less fortunate is a timeless problem. One guess is that social lines are not divided so much on ethnicity, but on cold hard social classes, with a huge gap between them in many cases. I think it cuts both ways: the rich don’t care because they are well off, and the poor once they move up the ladder often develop social resentment which makes the situation even more polarized.
I was once told by someone well off from my home town studying in the States, that ICTs are not generally a good idea because instead of feeding kids, you are simply providing an outlet into a world they can never have. Unfortunately, a lot of these nearsighted individuals (who are not bad people!) are the ones that actually get the foreign education that the developing country relies on to propel it forward—so the cycle continues. They come back, start businesses, industries, but not with corporate social responsibility in mind.
Perhaps the trend for more action based programs (like AIDG!) as opposed to local policy think tanks attracts more of these people towards social entreprenuership–because it helps people, but also because it’s fun and rewarding.
March 10th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Sorry, it took me so long to reply. Overall I think you’re right. Because I lacked any other data though, I did a quick data search and found this research from the Institute of Development Studies in the UK (http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/bulletin/bull302abs.htm)
Elite perceptions of poverty: Bangladesh
Naomi Hossain and Mick Moore
The Bangladeshi national elite are distanced from and unthreatened by poverty and the poor. Medium-term solutions to poverty resting on a belief in the importance of ‘increasing awareness’ through education, rather than in direct public action, are favoured. The poor are viewed as homogenous, and generally deserving. These benign perceptions may not accord direct anti-poverty action a high priority on the national agenda, but they also suggest little of the fear which can lead to repressive measures against the poor. The authors conclude with a discussion of means through which national elite support for more direct anti-poverty programmes may be built.
Elite perceptions of poverty: South Africa
Noushin Kalati and James Manor
Elite perceptions of poverty in South Africa are affected by the distinctive character of social segmentation there. The huge size of segments and the immense distances (social, economic and psychological) between elites and the poor people within their segments. They look instead to government to help the poor in general. The ruling ANC elite, is fully prepared to tackle poverty. But it faces a cruel choice between pursuing growth and redistribution. It seeks both, but the emphasis has been on growth - so far to little effort.
I find the South African case really interesting. It’s true that it is the government’s job to deal with poverty. However, given that the government is having trouble doing that job, why haven’t the public stepped in more? The whole thing does make me want to learn more about trends in social entrepreneurship and philanthropy in developing countries though.
The comment made about ICT’s is a troubling one. Mostly because it shows a lack of imagination (the same could be said about books in general) and a wee dose of paternalism (the po’ folk might get depressed b/c they’ll know what they are missing). [Man, I can’t wait until the rest of the OLPC story starts to unfold so this question can be put to rest one way or another.]
Hopefully corporate social responsibility & social entrepreneurship is going to start being more common. Business schools like HBS are starting to put more stock into it and I’m assuming that the ripple effects will start being felt in boardrooms throughout the word over the next few years/decades.