Balasubramaniam (Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement).

Scaling up

India has many wonderful examples of social entrepreneurs who have improved the lives of people. A question often asked is: What about learning from the corporate sector, about how small start-ups grow into large enterprises, and how large corporations are run?

There is a fundamental difference in the concept of scale between the business-corporate and social enterprise sectors. Whereas the success of social enterprises must be measured by the impact they have on the lives of others. This concept applies to government too: minimum government, maximum impact.

The objective of the social entrepreneur must be to release the power within people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Collaboration

Another insight from the mentors is the power of collaboration among the intended beneficiaries of the social enterprises.

A principal thrust of enterprises to remove poverty must be to increase incomes for the people, by enabling them to form income-generating enterprises. The mindset seems to be to make the people partners in the government’s and social enterprise’s programme, rather than the government and social enterprise becoming partners in a programme owned by the community. On top are the “quick wins” and at the bottom are the fundamental institutional capabilities required to support a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem of social enterprises and SMEs.

Each of these institutions must focus on their own partnerships with the communities in the centre and win their trust.