SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP — some notes from Oxford / UK — March 2007 vivian Hutchinson Social Innovation Investment Group New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship

THE 2007 SKOLL WORLD FORUM ON SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP 27–29 MARCH 2007 THREE DAYS AND NIGHTS, 650 INNOVATORS, FROM OVER 40 COUNTRIES, WORKING TOGETHER TO TIP THE SYSTEM SPECIAL FOCUS: SOCIAL INNOVATION The next Skoll World Forum will major on social innovation, asking how we overcome the social innovation gap, drive up downward accountability as we scale initiatives, and how social entrepreneurs can better align support for breakthrough models? This year, we also: Run applied workshops where changemakers can probe the ways new ideas work in practice and how they apply to their own ventures 

Sustain a growing international debate about innovation in the supply of finance for social change 

Advance academic enquiry into the issues that will ensure social entrepreneurship is a force for good for the long term 

The Skoll World Forum has rapidly established itself as the leading event in the social entrepreneurship calendar where individuals in the social sector, business and government can take a passionate and critical approach to resolving the planet’s biggest challenges. The Forum sells out early. So book the dates. Contact [email protected] if we don’t have your details. And watch this space for further news through the Autumn.

some notes from the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship  Said Business School, Oxford University 26­29 March 2007  vivian Hutchinson  Executive Officer  Social Innovation Investment Group  New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship  Summary  •  This was easily the best conference I have been to in a long while ... it was well run, it  attracted a unique diversity of participants, the content had a great deal of depth to it, and  there was robust debate that was engaging and extending.  •  There were 700 participants from 40 countries including a rich mix of social  entrepreneurs, human rights activists, academics, business leaders, philanthropists and  funders. Many of these people could be counted amongst the most remarkable change­  makers of our generation. The Forum provided an unique opportunity for the exchange of  legitimacy, insight and creativity between the different communities of these participants.  •  The conference lived up to its reputation of being the main World Forum in the field of  social entrepreneurship. As part of developing our projects with the Social Innovation  Investment Group and the New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship, I have been  researching and studying who are the key “movers and shakers” in the international scene  of social entrepreneurship. Almost all of them were present at this gathering.  •  There was so much going on, with up to seven workshops happening at the same time  as well as breakfast sessions and Master Classes at the lunchtime breaks. But it still hung  together well, particularly around the main plenary sessions which were held in Oxford’s  historic Sheldonian Theatre.  •  Highlights for me included:  — sessions from Geoff Mulgan, Bill Drayton, Charles Handy, Muhammad Yunus and  Larry Brilliant  — the inevitable sharing of inspiring stories from the many social entrepreneurs, but  particularly Gillian Caldwell and Peter Gabriel, Karen Tse and Taddy Blecher.  — the widening of the sense of social entrepreneurship from elite “celebrity” stories  towards recognising the social innovation and entrepreneurship that is also found in  groups and movements.  — a sense of the growing literacy about just what makes up the process of social  innovation, understanding the life cycle of innovations and how to foster innovation  more effectively in many different sectors.  — the “open source” example of Ashoka Changemakers, which represents a  innovative model for sharing emergent knowledge and practice.  — the practical sessions aimed at Foundations and philanthropy about how to be  more venturesome in giving financial support to new ideas and programmes.  •  I’ve come away with an immense amount to think about, as well as links, contacts and  ideas to follow up on. I’ve also had the opportunity to renew some of the international  contacts I made at the gathering of “outstanding social entrepreneurs” organised by the  Schwab Foundation at Davos last year, and at the Innovation Funders meeting in San  Francisco.  •  This report contains my personal diary notes from the Forum. It is a combination of a  description of the sessions I went to, my thoughts at the time, and the links and research I  have been doing on the people and their projects since the Forum took place.

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 3 of 39 

— I have created a “blog” website of this report which contains live internet links of all  the contacts and references mentioned in this document. You can also view video of the  conference directly from these webpages at http://vivianoxford07.blogspot.com  — An online album of photographs which I took at this conference can be found at the  Flickr photosharing website at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8063917@N06/  •  There was an obvious pressure from the sheer numbers of people around the world who  would have liked to have attended this Forum, and the Skoll Foundation had an interesting  process in stage­managing just who was going to be there. You could apply to go on a pre­  registration list, and the organisers obviously did some digging into backgrounds before  inviting a core group of people to come. After this, the formal registration gates were only  open for a very short time before it was announced that the Forum was full.  •  Beyond the 700 people attending at Oxford, there was a large “virtual” participation at  this Forum, thanks to the live streaming of the plenary sessions and the blogger  contributions of many people involved with the socialedge.org website.  •  One of my roles as Executive Officer of our Investment Group and the NZSEF is to help  build our international links and relationships with other social entrepreneur networks and  philanthropic foundations that are fostering social innovation. At our first NZSEF Fellowship  retreat in February, there was some discussion about how our local work in New Zealand  needs to be put more into an international context ... and that there was much that we  could learn from in the good ideas and practical strategies for change that are emerging  overseas. Participating in the Skoll World Forum is an excellent entry point into these  opportunities to network and learn.  •  Beyond this learning and networking, the Skoll World Forum is providing a very timely  focus of hope in a world faced with deep­seated and complex problems. It is nearly  impossible to feel cynicism and despair when surrounded by the stories and examples of  literally hundreds of inspirational people who are just getting on and making a practical  difference. 

vivian Hutchinson  Social Innovation Investment Group  New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship  www.nzsef.org.nz  April 2007 Resources. — The website for the Oxford Said Business School Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship is at http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/skoll/ — The Forum website homepage at the Skoll Foundation is at http://www.skollfoundation.org/skollcentre/skoll_forum.asp — The Forum website homepage at Social Edge is at http://www.socialedge.org/features/skoll‐world‐forum/skoll‐world‐forum‐2007

— a PDF copy of this report (40 pages, 1.5MB) can be downloaded from www.nzsef.org.nz/dox/pdf/vivianoxford07.pdf

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 4 of 39 

Academic Network for Social Entrepreneurship  meeting in Nelson Mandela Lecture Theatre, Said Business School  Monday 26th March 2007  •  This was a pre­gathering meeting held on the day before the main conference started. I  thought I would arrive at the Forum early and check it out. This Academic Network brings  together universities that are fostering social enterprise in their various courses. It aims to  develop social entrepreneurship as a vocation and as a field of intellectual endeavour, and  to carry social entrepreneurship principles into other disciplines and sectors. The Network  also acts as a professional clearing­house of resources that will be useful to both  academics and practitioners.  There is now quite a large network of universities connected in this academic network,  including all the major “brands”: Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, etc as well as  Universities from Asia and Latin America. Ashoka is also one of the founding partners. 

Gregory Dees speaking to the University Network meeting in the Nelson Mandela  Theatre, Said Business School, Oxford University 26 March 2007 — photo Hutchinson 

•  Once the session opened, the speakers on this day got right into the controversies on  how things are going to be defined, how to judge effective management of social  enterprises, and how all this can be fitted into and assessed within a mainstream  university system, and marketed toward students. It all felt like quite a healthy and  contested space of inquiry.  Curiously enough, many of the university representatives remarked that it is the interest of  students in this whole area of social entrepreneurship which seems to be one of the main  drivers of the establishment of the university courses. Many of the universities are racing  to keep up with the interest and demand of students for these course options. This is  further in evidence by the growth of independent university clubs and student voluntary  organisations that are about supporting social enterprises and connecting with social  services in their local area. This was all very encouraging to hear.  •  The explosion of academic interest is also obvious in the growth of the serious literature  that is now available. The Skoll Centre’s leading Oxford scholar, Alex Nichols, reported that  up until recently there were hardly any academic books available on the subject of social  enterprise. But in 2006 alone, six academic volumes were published. And at this Forum,  Oxford University Press held a book launching of Alex Nichol’s own tome — an edited  collection of many of the contributions and papers presented to earlier Skoll Forums.

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 5 of 39 

•  The most impressive speaker at this session was Gregory Dees, of Duke University, who  is the man credited as being the leading academic in the discipline of social  entrepreneurship. Dees presented a paper summarising his interviews with many social  entrepreneurs, and his thoughts on how to strengthen the field of social entrepreneurship.  (Refreshingly, he wasn’t into splitting academic hairs on how things were defined. “The  academics and funders are more interested in this than practitioners...”)  Dees remarked that the university network needs to recognise that  they need a whole new model of how their knowledge is shared ...  because so much of what is going on just doesn’t fit the academic  paradigm. He pointed out that social entrepreneur practitioners  were not reaching out to the academics in search of the knowledge  that is being gathered within the university courses.  Not too many of the academics at this meeting were recognising  the growth of “peer learning communities” and Fellowships amongst  social entrepreneurs as an innovative and entrepreneurial response  to their own learning needs. Very few of the social entrepreneurs I spoke to at the Forum  were interested in going on a structured academic course, or even felt that they wanted to  get more “qualified”. At the same time, they are obviously learners who want to do their  work better ... and are looking to one another to get to the edges of their learning.  •  The University Network has struck up a collaboration with the Social Science Research  Network to provide a forum where all the recent papers, research and reports and course  material on social entrepreneurship can be gathered in one place. I’ve taken a look at it ...  and while you have to do a bit of digging to get to the relevant social entrepreneurship  section, it does hold potential to be an important place for sharing and commenting on the  research materials as they are generated.  •  Hardly anyone I had spoken to at the Forum had heard of the recently­published  Canadian book “Getting To Maybe” which I was able to recommend as a great example of  how academics have taken up the challenge of making their research, wisdom and insights  more useful to practitioners.  •  During this day, there was quite a bit of emphasis on scoping, mapping and defining  social entrepreneurship in terms of what they are promoting as a new academic field of  endeavour. This is something I’m personally not too convinced about ... or rather, I think  there is far too much talk about all this being “new”.  My own view is that social entrepreneurship has always been with us in many different  guises, although it is “new” to brand it in the way that it is framed within these  conferences. I do agree, however, that we seem to be on the verge of a growing literacy  as to the practice of social innovation. The academic research has a great deal to  contribute in this regard ... but, for me, this is not so much about the creation and  branding of a whole new academic field — it is more about noticing and developing the  language to describe just what is making a difference. It is about developing this literacy  on how fundamental sustainable social change is achieved. Resources. — the website for the University Network is at http://www.universitynetwork.org — Gregory Dees leads the Centre for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/centers/case/ — The Social Science Research Network archive of papers is at http://www.ssrn.com/update/erpn/erpn_social‐entrepreneurship.html. — “Social Entrepreneurship: New Models of Sustainable Social Change” edited by Dr Alex Nicholls. (book pub 2006 by Oxford University Press) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0199283877/nzsef‐20 — “Getting to Maybe: How The World Is Changed” by Frances Westley, Brenda Zimmerman and Michael Quinn Patton (book pub Random House Canada 2006) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0679314431/nzsef‐20 vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 6 of 39 

Changemakers Ashoka Network Meeting  meeting in Nelson Mandela Lecture Theatre, Said Business School  Tuesday 27th March 2007  •  The next morning there was another pre­  conference session from Bill Drayton and the  Ashoka Network. Bill Drayton is considered the  “elder statesman” of the social entrepreneurship  field, and is credited with popularising the term  itself. He has a remarkable track record of 30  years of supporting social entrepreneurs through  the Ashoka Network, as well as establishing and  leading many innovative projects himself.  •  Most of you will know that, in New Zealand,  The Jobs Research Trust (of which I am a  trustee) has launched a new initiative which is  also called Changemakers. There are many  groups around the world calling themselves  changemakers ... so it is probably just as well  that there is plenty of opportunities for change  to go around! Our New Zealand group is based around a 5­10­5­10 strategy to foster more  active citizenship in our communities. (For more information see  http://www.changemakers.org.nz)  This Jobs Research Trust project was partly inspired by Bill Drayton’s speech at last year’s  Skoll World Forum. At that time, Drayton remarked that until recently, Ashoka has been  stating its mission chiefly in terms of “building a more entrepreneurial and competitive not­  for­profit sector”. But more recently, he has come to re­assess this goal: “ The most important contribution any of us can make now is not to solve any particular problem, no matter how urgent energy or environmental or financial regulation is. What we must do now is increase the proportion of humans who know that they can cause change. And who, like smart white blood cells coursing through society, will stop with pleasure whenever they see that something is stuck or that an opportunity is ripe to be seized. Multiplying society's capacity to adapt and change intelligently and constructively and building the necessary underlying collaborative architecture, is the world's most critical opportunity now. Pattern‐changing social entrepreneurs are the most critical single factor in catalysing and engineering this transformation ...” — from “Everyone a Changemaker”, by Bill Drayton (2006) •  In his opening speech at this Ashoka Changemakers session, Bill Drayton re­iterated  many of the key points of his “everyone a changemaker” world­view. He believes that the  next big step in the field of social entrepreneurship is tackling the question of how we do  entrepreneurship together. He sees this as complementary to the fostering of an elite  leadership model that so many of the Fellowships (like his own Ashoka) are focussing on.  The Ashoka team then went on to outline their latest initiative in “open­sourcing”  innovations in various fields of social change. Their Changemakers approach is a strategy  of sharing ideas for innovation as they are happening, and in a way that entrepreneurs can  easily adapt them to their own local conditions.  Changemakers sets up thematic “collaborative competitions” between local groups from all  around the world which are asked to present their ideas and projects for change on  complex social areas. These ideas and projects for change are all placed on an open  website at www.changemakers.net. A panel of key decisionmakers and investors (from the  leading philanthropic foundations) then assesses the applications, and picks the 10­12  finalists which they then bring together to collaborate on an overall plan for the whole  social area.

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An interesting tool being used in this collaborative process is the use of a “Changemakers  Mosaic” of the innovative solutions generated by each competition. The Mosaic serves as  an intellectual framework which maps at a glance the most powerful emerging principles of  innovation against the underlying factors that drive a problem. It helps social innovators  see how their work fits into a larger picture and demonstrates that the collective impact of  their solutions is greater than the sum of the individual projects. It also gives you a great  overview of the challenges in a particular field ... as well as a sense of how systemic  change can really take place.  At this workshop, the finalists in two recent competitions on “Health for All” and  “Entrepreneuring Peace” gave summaries of their various projects, and then talked about  how the collaborative process was helping them accelerate innovation and improve impact. 

The Said Business School at Oxford — photo Hutchinson 

•  There is much we can learn from this approach which applies to the process of  fostering innovation in New Zealand. The Ashoka Changemakers model spells out many  processes which could be used by the various grantmakers and foundations in fostering a  common and systemic approach in specific social sectors.  It’s certainly got me thinking: What if there was a source of philanthropic funding in New  Zealand aimed at fostering innovations, and all the project applications were open­sourced  on a website in this way ... and the finalists challenged to work together on a common  approach. That would be something completely different from the current approach to  grant­making. And it would be a way to blast through the whole concept of “patch  protection” — and to focus on how we might improve each other’s work for the common  good. Resources — “Everyone a Changemaker”, by Bill Drayton (2006) published in Innovations (MIT Press) Winter 2006 ‐ download from http://www.ashoka.org/files/ChangemakerInnovations.pdf — “Health for All” Mosaic at http://proxied.changemakers.net/journal/300603/mosaic.cfm — “Innovating Peace” Mosaic at http://proxied.changemakers.net/journal/peace/mosaic.cfm

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 8 of 39 

The Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford — photo Hutchinson 

Skoll World Forum Opening  Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford  Tuesday 27th March 2007  •  All this already ... and now the Forum starts  officially. The opening of the 2007 Skoll World  Forum was held in the heart of Oxford, — the  historic Sheldonian Theatre, designed by Wren in  1662 in the style of ancient Rome. This is the  building used by the Oxford Colleges for their  graduation ceremonies.  The Forum was launched with music from Pakistani  musician Salman Ahmad, who is a UN Goodwill  Ambassador for HIV/Aids, and the founder of South  Asia’s most popular rock band Junoon.  Junoon is made up of Lahore natives Ahmad and Ali  Azmat, who are Muslims who follow the Sufi  teachings of Islam, and New Yorker Brian O'Connell,  who is a Christian. Dubbed the “U2 of Pakistan” by  the New York Times, the rock band bridges East and  West, Islam and Christianity. Resources. — Streaming video of the “Skoll World Forum Opening Plenary” featuring music by Salman Ahmad, and remarks from Stephan Chambers, Jeff Skoll, John Hood, Geoff Mulgan, Rushanara Ali, Charles Handy, David Galenson, Muhammad Yunus and Her Majesty Queen Rania Al‐Abdullah of Jordan can be found at http://streaming.oii.ox.ac.uk:554/ramgen/archive/sbs/skoll_2007/270307_opening.rm — YouTube videos of Salman Ahmad’s performances at the 2007 Skoll World Forum can be found at (part 1 of 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nShfbxTC3s (part 2 of 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePun3h5E7k (part 3 of 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6rlr83oQgM — YouTube video of Junoon Documentary (hosted by Susan Sarandon) can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhIkCH4sScM

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 9 of 39 

•  After opening remarks by Jeff Skoll and John Hood (the New Zealander who is also the  Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford) the keynote speeches started. Geoff Mulgan  spoke on the main theme of this year’s conference: Social Innovation — what it is, why it  is important, what are the barriers and how can it be accelerated.  Mulgan is one of the people who started the Demos Think Tank  which has been a major intellectual influence on the Blair  government. Mulgan went on to become head of Strategy and Policy  in the Prime Minister’s office, but more recently has left government  to head up a revitalised Young Foundation. (This Foundation is  inspired by the work of the most successful British social  entrepreneur in the 20th century, Michael Young).  A major focus of Mulgan’s current work is research and promotion of  the process of social innovation. He has produced several reports on  this for the Young Foundation, and the latest version (now published  by the Skoll Centre in Oxford) is one of the best summaries of this  field that I have read so far.  •  In this report, Mulgan points out that economists now estimate that 50%­80% of  economic growth comes from innovation and new knowledge. While there are no reliable  figures, innovation appears to play an equally decisive role in social progress. Social  innovation also plays a decisive role in economic growth, and there are signs it will do so  even more in the future. Mulgan says that the key growth sectors of the 21st century  economy look set to be health, education and care ... accounting for around 20­30% of  GDP.  But surprisingly little is known about social innovation compared to the vast amount of  research into innovation in business and science. After an extensive survey undertaken by  the Young Foundation, Mulgan says he found no systemic overviews of the field, no major  datasets or long­term analyses, and few signs of interest from the big foundations or  academic research funding bodies. He argues that this lack of knowledge impedes the  many institutions interested in this field, including the innovators themselves,  philanthropists, foundations and government.  •  Mulgan’s speech was a call for a more concerted approach to social innovation. He  talked about “Social Silicon Valleys” to describe the future places and institutions that will  mobilise resources and energies to tackle social problems in ways that are comparable to  the investments in technology made in the original IT Silicon Valley in California. “ Although social innovation happens all around us, many promising ideas are stillborn, blocked by vested interests or otherwise marginalised. The competitive pressures that drive innovation in commercial markets are blunted or absent in the social field and the absence of institutions and funds devoted to social innovation means that too often it is a matter of luck what comes to fruition or displace less effective alternatives. As a result, many social problems remain more acute than they need to be ...” — Geoff Mulgan •  I thought Mulgan’s presentation was an excellent start to the Forum. It was also  encouraging to hear the contributions of many earlier British social entrepreneurs (Robert  Owen, The Rochdale Pioneers, Michael Young) being name­checked, and also an emphasis  being put on the importance of historical British social movements (such as the co­  operative movement) in fostering social innovations. The example of how various  movements worked together to create a climate for the abolition of slavery in the 1800s  was mentioned several times — the Skoll Forum was taking place during observances to  mark the 200th anniversary of the passing of legislation outlawing slavery in the British  Empire.

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 10 of 39 

Resources. — “Social Innovation: What It Is, Why It Matters and How It can be Accelerated”, by Geoff Mulgan with Simon Tucker, Rushanara Ali and Ben Sanders (Oxford Said Business School 2007) http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/skoll/research/Short+papers/Social+Innovation.htm — “The Process of Social Innovation”, by Geoff Mulgan, published in Innovations Spring 2006 (MIT Press) http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/itgg/1/2 — “Extreme Makeover”, by Geoff Mulgan, The Guardian 26 April 2006 http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,,1760923,00.html — Good and Bad Power: The Ideals and Betrayals of Government by Geoff Mulgan (book pub Allen Lane 2006) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0713998822/nzsef‐20

Charles Handy speaking at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. — photo Fruchterman

•  I was certainly looking forward to hearing Charles Handy. I last heard him speaking on  “The Future of Work” at an Economics conference at the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland  in 1983. His speech at that time talked about the rise of entrepreneurship and self­  employment as a growing sector of the economy ... and it directly influenced me to return  to New Zealand and start up the Skills of Enterprise business courses aimed at  unemployed people.  Since the 1980s, Charles Handy has gone on to become a prolific author, broadcaster and  speaker on the business circuit. And he has gained a well­deserved reputation as a social  philosopher.  He’s just published his latest book, called “The New Philanthropists”, which  profiles 23 business people who are using their skills and resources to work for the  common good and for social change.  •  In his speech, Handy gave some of the stories from his book and explained why he  thinks they are examples of an emerging new generation of practical philanthropy. Many of  the people he has profiled are young ... still in their 40s. They became wealthy from their  business interests at an early age, and now want to invest in a social vision. They are quite  different from earlier generations of philanthropists who put their money into buildings,  universities, hospitals or churches. They want to directly address the causes of social need.  And they want to be hands­on in doing it themselves.  Handy has hopes that this group of new philanthropists represents the seedlings of a new  type of capitalism ... where altruism and capitalism are not seen as wildly antagonistic to  each other. Handy: “Wouldn’t it be nice if one day all businesses saw themselves as social  enterprises?” 

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 11 of 39

Resources. — YouTube video of Charles’s Handy’s speech at the 2007 Skoll World Forum can be found at (part 1 of 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCtVrOEPJYU (part 2 of 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wvoLJY827Q — “The New Philanthropists” by Charles Handy (book pub Heinemann 2006) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0434013455/nzsef‐20 — “The Serious Business of Philanthropy” by Charles Handy in The Financial Times September 19 2006 (Reader) http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d90131f8‐4803‐11db‐a42e‐ 0000779e2340.html —Charles Handy Interview on “The New Philanthropists” (Expertsonline) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlvFTTRld0M

2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus  — photo Fruchterman 

•  Muhammad Yunus has long been a hero of the social entrepreneur community for his  work in creating the Grameen Bank, and transforming the micro­credit movement. Now  that he has been awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for this work, Yunus has been  virtually canonised by the social entrepreneur movement. Not that he is going to rest up  on the conference circuit as a “living saint” — Yunus has now put his hat into the political  ring in Bangladesh ... a move which was often commented on in the different workshops at  the Forum (with several participants expressing fears that the most prominent hero of the  social entrepreneur movement would be tainted by the political involvement). “Many of the problems in the world remain unresolved because we continue to interpret capitalism too narrowly. In this narrow interpretation we create a one‐ dimensional human being to play the role of entrepreneur. We insulate him from other dimensions of life, such as, religious, emotional, political dimensions. He is dedicated to one mission in his business life ‐‐‐‐ to maximize profit. He is supported by masses of one‐dimensional human beings who back him up with their investment money to achieve the same mission... I think things are going wrong not because of "market failure". It is much deeper than that. Let us be brave and admit that it is because of "conceptualisation failure". More specifically, it is the failure to capture the essence of a human being in our theory.” — Dr. Muhammad Yunus •  In his presentation, Yunus described how he had been able to attract private capital to  fund a variety of socially driven businesses in Bangladesh. GrameenPhone, a for­profit  telecom outfit, is 51% owned by Norway's Telenor (TELN ). It works with the not­for­profit  Grameen Telecom to provide bulk airtime for village phones which are built from simple  handsets and solar chargers. Funded by loans to individual women, these systems function vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 12 of 39

as pay phones in many rural areas. Nowadays the idea of a “village phone lady” is catching  on in other parts of Asia and Africa, with the local entrepreneur providing other associated  services using low­cost, high­tech systems.  Another enterprise, Grameen Shakti, sells around 1,500 home solar­panel systems per  month throughout rural Bangladesh and is growing 15% a year without subsidies. Yunus is  also developing a partnership between Grameen and the French company Danone to make  a nutritious and inexpensive baby formula. Next on his list are low­cost eye care and rural  hospitals with video­conferencing between villagers and doctors in Dhaka. Resources. — YouTube video of Professor Muhammad Yunus speech to the 2007 Skoll World Forum can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3T6VWQZb1s — “Banker to the Poor: Micro‐Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty” by Muhammad Yunus (book pub 1999 PublicAffairs) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1586481983/nzsef‐20 — “The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank” by David Bornstein (pub Oxford University Press 2005) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0195187490/nzsef‐20 — ABC News story on Professor Muhammad Yunus receiving the Nobel Peace Prize (2006) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ030y37uMQ — “Social Business Entrepreneurs Are the Solution” by Dr. Muhammad Yunus published by Grameen Bank http://muhammadyunus.org/content/view/56/83/lang,en/ — Previews of Muhammad Yunus DVD created by Ashoka's Global Academy for Social http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoqkEKTtIGg

Jeff Skoll speaking to the 2007 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship  — photo Fruchterman 

•  Jeff Skoll himself is a stunning example of Charles Handy’s observation that we are  seeing a new breed of young philanthropist who wants to be pro­actively involved in social  change activities. He is not only the founder the Skoll Foundation, but also the co­founder  of eBay (the source of his wealth) and also the Los Angeles­based media company  Participant Productions. It’s his latest successful venture with Participant Productions that  tells you something of his own driving passion to be a social entrepreneur, and why he is  backing major conferences such as this Oxford Forum.  Jeff Skoll passionately believes that the world needs to hear many more stories about  people who are making a difference. He had himself been influenced by great films that  had highlighted social injustice, or told stories of people who had dedicated their lives to  righting wrongs ( films such as Ghandi, Schindler’s List, Erin Brockovich). His company  Participant Productions started with producing a series of short documentaries on Social  Entrepreneurs (The New Heroes, hosted by Robert Redford), and more recently has vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 13 of 39 

produced a series of mainstream award­winning feature films including Syriana, North  Country, Good Night and Good Luck, Fast Food Nation and the Al Gore documentary An  Inconvenient Truth.  •  Speaking at this Forum Opening, Jeff Skoll said his main drive is to work to make social  entrepreneurs much more well­known in mainstream society, and to see that this  particular variety of leadership and creativity is better valued. He paid tribute to 2006  Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, and the fact that his gaining this prize has  lifted the profile of social entrepreneurship everywhere. “ Social entrepreneurs have two kinds of power. The first is the power to make change happen. And the second is the power to show what is possible and to inspire. Today, wherever you find a social challenge at its worst, you will find a social entrepreneur. They are everywhere where social problems call for innovation, inspiration and an inability to take failure as an option. In the process, social entrepreneurs are replacing cynicism with hope, optimism, energy and love ...” — Jeff Skoll •  Skoll also told the story of the spectacular success over the last year of the work of one  of this year’s nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize — former US Vice President Al Gore. The  film An Inconvenient Truth has been a great example of what can happen when an  inspiring story reaches a critical mass of people.  The documentary has very quickly contributed to changing the debate about climate  change around the world. It has won two Academy Awards, and become mandatory  viewing in schools in England, Scotland and throughout Scandinavia. Six legislative Bills  relating to climate change are now before the US House of Congress ... and on July 7th  this year, there will be a series of concerts on seven continents, called Live Earth, which  will bring the climate crisis message to a much more widespread audience. Resources. — YouTube video of Jeff Skoll’s speech at Exeter College to welcome Skoll Award recipients can be found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMn3Ws6bD1A — YouTube video of Jeff Skoll’s Opening Speech at the 2007 Skoll World Forum can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK876EzwhK8 — YouTube video of Jeff Skoll’s speech at the 2007 Skoll Awards can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy01Lr1AtzM — YouTube video of Jeff Skoll video: Imagine the Headlines of the Future... can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugpq‐F7i0mI — Jeff Skoll is featured in a chapter in Charles Handy’s book “The New Philanthropists” http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0434013455/nzsef‐20 — “Moving Pictures” — profile of Jeff Skoll by Anya Kamenetz, in Fast Company Issue 108 September 2006 http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/108/open_moving‐ pictures.html — Participant Productions can be found at http://participate.net — “The New Heroes” PBS Documentary Series hosted by Robert Redford tells 12 dramatic stories of social entrepreneurs who bring innovative, empowering solutions to intractable social problems around the world. http://www.thenewheroes.org.

•  Al Gore was the keynote speaker at last year’s Skoll World  Forum in Oxford, but he wasn’t speaking about climate change. He  was speaking a different focus of his own social entrepreneurship  — the challenge of fundamentally changing the world of venture  capital investment.  At last year’s Forum, Gore pointed out that while we are seeing  evidence of leading public companies adopting sustainable  business practices, there is still a long way to go to make  sustainability fully integrated into the way the world does business.  The main problem is the short­term investment focus which still pervades the corporate  community, and which hinders long­term value creation. His example: 30 years ago in the vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 14 of 39 

US, the average stock holding period was 7 years ... now the average mutual fund turns  over its entire portfolio in less than 11 months. “Society is facing serious global challenges such as HIV/Aids, global warming and water scarcity. There is nothing new about this—what is new is the scale of these challenges. Sustainable development will be the primary driver of industrial and economic change over the next 50 years. More business leaders now agree that you can’t run a great business without responding to these forces. Business has to be part of the solution here: managers need to integrate sustainability values within their businesses.” — Al Gore and David Blood Gore has set up a new company, Generation Investments, with David Blood (the former  CEO of asset management at Goldman Sachs). The company aims to combine conventional  equity market analysis with much longer­term judgments about sustainability. This  venture has the potential to take the sustainability vision — which includes economic  growth, earth stewardship and social accountability — right into the heart of mainstream  investment practices. Generation Investments is doing this by investing in companies  which embrace longer­term opportunities, foster transparency, innovation, and eco­  efficiency. Resources. — Al Gore and David Blood’s presentation to the 2006 Skoll World Forum is available on Google Video at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=‐1641773930133903355 — The Generation Investment Management Company Website is at http://www.generationim.com/ — “For People and Planet” by Al Gore and David Blood Wall Street Journal 4 April 2006 available at http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0404‐23.htm — An Inconvenient Truth / Al Gore Climate Crisis website is at http://www.climatecrisis.net — The Live Earth concerts (7 July 2007) website is at http://www.liveearth.org/

•  It was somewhat surprising that the final  speaker of the Opening evening was Queen  Rania Al­Abdullah of Jordan. She expressed  deep alarm at the way in which the Muslim  world and the West are looking at each other  with suspicion, fear, and prejudice ... and spoke  about the need for reconciliation and  collaboration between the West and Islam.  Drawing on the development of corporate social  responsibility in recent history, the Queen called  on corporations to take an active role in bridging this divide, a concept she is describing as  “corporate multicultural responsibility”. "Our post‐global society is poverty‐stricken — with a new kind of poverty. Today, we live in a world plagued by a poverty of multicultural knowledge, a poverty of multicultural tolerance, a poverty of multicultural respect. We have all come to recognise that social inequality is wrong; we must also appreciate that social intolerance is wrong. Both hold us back. We all have a role to play in promoting multicultural responsibility in our homes, schools, neighbourhoods, universities, places of worship and places of work ...” — Queen Rania Resources. — YouTube video Her Majesty Queen Rania Al‐Abdullah of Jordan’s speech to the 2007 Skoll World Forum can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E07Mtg6OV58 — “Jordan's Queen Rania calls on companies to bridge East‐West divide through Corporate Multicultural Responsibility” speech notes on Queen Rania official website at http://www.queenrania.jo/content/modulePopup.aspx?secID=&itemID=1425&ModuleID=pr ess&ModuleOrigID=news

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 15 of 39 

Peter Gabriel at the 2007 Skoll World Forum Oxford University — photo Fruchterman 

Launch of the WITNESS Hub  Nelson Mandela Theatre, Said Business School  Wednesday 28th March 2007  •  This was another pre­conference session in which Peter Gabriel and Gillian Caldwell  launched their new YouTube­style internet hub for the WITNESS project. WITNESS is a  project which distributes video cameras and other tools of communication to help people  record evidence of human rights abuses.  In 1988, Peter Gabriel was part of Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! Tour. He  was struck by the stories he heard from survivors of human rights abuses and the lack of  attention these stories received. Gabriel had brought along one of the first camcorders and  realized the potential of video as a tool against the abuse ... the perpetrators were often  brought to justice when photographic or video evidence of abuses existed.  The independent nonprofit organization WITNESS was set up in 1992, not long after video  of Rodney King being assaulted by four Los Angeles police officers catalysed interest in the  use of video to bring attention to human rights issues. WITNESS is based in Brooklyn, New  York, and it’s Executive Director, Gillian Caldwell, has been active in several of the main  social entrepreneur networks.  WITNESS works with diverse groups around the world, carefully selecting partners based  on the strength of their human rights work, the clarity of their mission, and the ability of  video to enhance their campaigns. Currently, its partner groups are active in the fight for  the rights of indigenous people, for an end to systemic gender violence and the use of  children as soldiers, and for environmental protection where human communities are at  stake.  •  “The Hub” is envisaged as a YouTube­style forum where people can upload human  rights related footage video from handheld devices or laptops, to create communities of  support for action on the abuses that they witness. The Hub will be fully operational in  June this year. Resources. — YouTube video of Peter Gabriel’s speech to the 2007 Skoll World Forum can be found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB6ODAJ865E

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— WITNESS website is at www.witness.org — Pilot project of The Hub is at http://globalvoicesonline.org/‐/human‐rights‐video/ — Peter Gabriel speaking on human rights and citizen journalism (TED Talks February 2006) available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLuv7lsvWco

Jim Fruchterman introducing the Social Entrepreneurship in Human Rights Master Class  at the 2007 Skoll World Forum — photo Hutchinson

Innovators in Action: Social Entrepreneurs in Human Rights Master Class  Said Business School  Wednesday 28th March 2007  •  After attending the launch of The Hub, I went to the Social Entrepreneurs in Human  Rights Master Class being held at the Said Business School. It was being facilitated by Jim  Fruchterman of Benetech, and attended by Peter Gabriel and Gillian Caldwell of WITNESS,  Jeroo Billimoria of the Child Savings international project Aflatoun, Nina Smith of Rugmark  USA, and Karen Tse of International Bridges to Justice.  There weren’t very many people at this Master Class ... a great many other options were  going on at the same time. It gave me cause to reflect on the relative popularity of human  rights­based initiatives at this Forum ... Gillian Caldwell put it succinctly when she  remarked that “...the human rights framework is an under­rated resource in the advocacy  for social entrepreneurship.”  •  Jim Fruchterman’s work is legendary in the leveraging of technical advances from  Silicon Valley to practically help people in the disability and human rights sectors. He was  named as a MacArthur Fellow in 2006. (This Fellowship —popularly known as the ‘genius’  award — is a $500,000, no­strings­attached grant for individuals who have shown  exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more).  •  Jeroo Billimoria is really a “serial entrepreneur”  who is most well­known for her work in creating the  Childline network supporting street children  throughout India. She is now heading up Aflatoun, a  new international initiative teaching children their  rights and responsibilities, and in particular fostering  child savings schemes and teaching how to manage  money.  (Jeroo has contacted me since the Forum and is  trying to make contact with a social entrepreneur  who would be interested in establishing a branch of Aflatoun in New Zealand). 

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•  Also present at the workshop was Wilford Welch, a former American diplomat, who is  the author of a forthcoming book “The Tactics of Hope: Your Guide to Becoming a Social  Entrepreneur”. Resources. — short interview with Jim Fruchterman on his MacArthur Fellowship (2006) is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK_ppEe‐McE — Jim Fruchterman ‐ Eye To Eye: An Online Library For The Blind (CBS News) is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti0HJFgdIPk — The Aflatoun website is at http://www.aflatoun.org/index.php

•  During the Human Rights Master Class, I was part of a smaller workshop group with  Karen Tse. Getting to know a bit more of her story was for me one of the highlights of the  Forum at Oxford. Tse leads the citizens group International Bridges to Justice, which  represents a powerful example and strategy for systemic social change. The group is  working to build fairer and more effective criminal justice systems around the world ...  starting in China, Vietnam and Cambodia, and now expanding its activities to Africa and  Latin America.  •  International Bridges to Justice was founded in  2000 as a collaboration between lawyers,  academics, and business leaders. It promotes the  rule of law, good governance and equitable legal  rights for all citizens by ensuring the effective  implementation of existing criminal defence,  justice and human rights legislation. Operating  from the premise that just and reliable legal  systems translate into secure and stable societies,  the group works to strengthen the practical skills  of public defence lawyers, improving legal aid and  public defender infrastructure and increasing the  awareness of basic legal rights and processes among ordinary citizens.  Example. China remains one of the world's most obstinate abusers of basic human rights.  It didn't outlaw police torture and threats until 1996, when it also dictated for the first time  that defendants have the right to a lawyer and are to be presumed innocent until proven  guilty. In mainland China dissidents are routinely arrested and held incommunicado ... and  the Chinese judiciary is still locking up lawyers when they press too hard in defending the  accused.  International Bridges to Justice has brought public defender training to Chinese lawyers,  and has put them in touch with an international support network of other lawyers, which  can help provide mentoring on specific cases. The group has also been organizing  promotional campaigns aimed at ordinary citizens; and running awareness campaigns with  prosecutors, judges and police. Just four years ago, police stations in China featured  banners stating: “Confess: Better Treatment — Resist: Harsher Treatment!” Today, you  are more likely to see International Bridges to Justice posters announcing: “If You Are  Arrested, Know Your Rights!” Resources. — International Bridges to Justice brochure at http://ibj.org/IBJbrochure.pdf — “The Power of Persuasion: Karen Tse Legal Rights Activist” By Elizabeth Weiss Green in US News 30 July 2006 http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060730/7tse.htm — “The Dreamer” by Robyn Meredith in Forbes Magazine 18 April 2005 http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0418/148_print.html

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 18 of 39 

Funding Ideas, Backing People  Nelson Mandela Theatre, Said Business School  Wednesday 28th March 2007  •  The major Forum workshop sessions happened throughout the Said Business School  over the following two days. The workshops were panel sessions made up of short  speeches from leaders in the field, followed with comments and questions from the  audience. You can imagine, with seven major sessions happening at the same time, we  were spoilt for choice. I chose three sessions to focus on: Funding Ideas and Backing  People, Bringing Projects to Scale, and the Future of Philanthropy.  •  This first panel explored funding strategies from multiple perspectives including  innovation from within foundations, private sector investment for public good, and non­  profit venture investing. Panelists included JB Schram, founder of the College Summit, Ion  Yadigaroglu of Capricorn Investment, Edward Skloot of the Surdna Foundation, and  Jacqueline Novogratz of the Acument Fund. The session was facilitated by David Bornstein,  the author of the book on social entrepreneurs “How to Change the World” (which we have  given to all our Fellowship members in New Zealand).  •  It was Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund  who most captured my attention at this workshop. Her description of  the strategy of investment behind the Acumen Fund is well worth  looking into further.  Acumen is a non­profit global venture fund that seeks to demonstrate  that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined “with large doses  of business acumen” can build thriving enterprises that serve the poor.  The Acumen Fund currently manages $20 million in investments in  South Asia and Eastern/Southern Africa, all focussed on delivering  affordable healthcare, water and housing to the poor. Acumen also  runs a Fellowship programme which is focussed on “building the next  generation of business leaders with an understanding of global issues  and poverty”.  •  I introduced myself to David Bornstein after the workshop, as he  may be visiting New Zealand sometime in the next year. I offered to  arrange some meetings between him and the New Zealand Social  Entrepreneur Fellowship if he has the time during his visit.

Resources. — Streaming video of this session "Funding Ideas, Backing People" featuring David Bornstein, JB Schramm, Ion Yadigaroglu, Edward Skloot and Jacqueline Novogratz can be found at http://streaming.oii.ox.ac.uk:554/ramgen/archive/sbs/skoll_2007/280307_option_1_am.rm — Acumen Fund overview brochure can be downloaded from http://www.acumenfund.org/News/Publications/documents/AcumenFund‐ Overview_email.pdf — “Designing Change: How venture philanthropy fund Acumen uses design thinking to help solve real‐world problems” by Jessi Hempel in Business Week 12 March 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_11/b4025405.htm — “How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas” by David Bornstein (book pub 2004 by Oxford University Press) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0195138058/nzsef‐20 — David Bornstein speaking to the Duke University Fuqua School of Business (2006) http://stream.fuqua.duke.edu/Content/Groups/CASE/2006/bornstein/bornstein‐ 20060126_300K.mov

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The New Zealanders at the Skoll World Forum — from left, vivian Hutchinson,  Suzanne  Grant (of Waikato University Social Enterprise Studies) and Michelle St James (a former  NZ’er now working with philanthropy in Bermuda) — photo Hutchinson 

•  The Skoll Centre in Oxford has produced a paper on Social Investment by Jed  Emmerson, Tim Freundlich and Jim Fruchterman. It is a good basis to explore the whole  area of social investment, and I think will be a useful paper to give us a framework for  future discussions at the Social Innovation Investment Group.  The paper argues that the social entrepreneur movement has a critical need to address the  funding gaps in risk­taking capital for social enterprises. The new enterprises need  investment if they are to grow and prove their innovations, and this needs to be  investment that shares the risks of the enterprise.  But a dearth of such capital is hampering the sector’s development ... and the authors of  this paper are arguing that new instruments and stakeholder relationships need to arise if  we are going to meet this challenge: “ Put simply, between the traditional approach to financing non‐profit ventures through grants, fundraising and limited use of debt, and the traditional approach to financing for‐profit ventures through market‐rate private equity and debt, there is a funding gap into which an increasing number of social enterprises are falling ... Innovation in the allocation of capital for social change is needed if existing vehicles are falling short of accomplishing our objectives.” — Emmerson, Freudlich and Fruchterman

Resources. — “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained: Addressing the Critical Gaps in Risk‐Taking Capital for Social Enterprise” by Jed Emmerson, Tim Freundlich and Jim Fruchterman, published 2006 by the Skoll Centre, Oxford University can be downloaded from http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/skoll/research/Short+papers/Nothing+Ventured+Nothing+Gaine d.htm — Social Edge website discussion on this paper can be found at http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/funding/nothing‐ventured‐nothing‐gained — “Foundations: Essential and Missing in Action” interview with Jed Emmerson by Alliance Extra March 2006 download from www.nzsef.org.nz/?sid=27

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 20 of 39 

The Problems and Perils of Scaling  Said Business School  Wednesday 28th March 2007  •  By the time I got to the “Problems and Perils of Scaling” workshop I was suffering from  information overload, or possibly even “hope fatigue”. This session was full to overflowing,  and it was obvious that “scaling up” to achieve systemic impact was one of the main  interests of the Oxford Forum. The workshop focussed on the personal stories and  examples of how specific enterprises went from a local project ... to national and  international success. 

Workshop on the Problems and Perils of Scaling, with Asok Khosla, Mel Young and  Mechai Viravaidya — photo Hutchinson 

•  The panel group included Ashok Khosla, one of the world’s leading experts on  sustainable development, and a former director of the United Nations Environment  Programme. He is the founder of Development Alternatives, a Delhi­based NGO which  promotes commercially viable and environmentally friendly technologies that support  livelihoods. He has spent decades developing and promoting innovations ranging from  village power plants using agricultural waste as fuel to mini factories that recycle paper  and local enterprises that make low­cost roofing tiles.  Mel Young was the co­founder of The Big Issue weekly magazine sold by homeless people  throughout Britain, and helped set up the International Network of Street Papers which  helps 100,000 homeless or long­term unemployed people every year. More recently, Mel  set up the Homeless World Cup annual soccer tournament (this year’s competition in  Copenhagen will see teams from 48 countries).  The competition isn’t just about soccer. It acts as a focus to encourage people to make  fundamental changes in their lives. A survey in 2005 showed that 77% of the players in  the Homeless World Cup have significantly improved their lives through employment,  housing, education and/or drug/alcohol treatment programs.  A dozen players went on to  become semi professional or professional footballers or coaches. “ Football is a great leveller, it connects people and is a universal sport for everyone. The Homeless World Cup is able to change the scenery, challenge stereotyping and people who have been spat at the week before are cheered by thousands and treated as soccer heroes during the tournament. The feeling of belonging, challenge of working in a team, regaining a health‐ oriented attitude towards life, self‐esteem and last but not least the experience of fun is a powerful combination to change a person's life.” — Mel Young

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 21 of 39 

Mechai Viravaidya, the third panelist, is the founder of the one of Thailand’s most  successful development organisations which has done pioneering work in family planning  and HIV/AIDS prevention. Mechai is popularly known as “Dr Condom” in Thailand for his  public role of promoting family planning (condoms are apparently often referred to as  “mechais” in Thai slang).  This social entrepreneur had many entertaining stories to share at the workshop ...  including holding condom blowing contests for school children, encouraging taxi cab drivers  to hand out condoms to their customers, and setting up a restaurant chain called  “Cabbages and Condoms” where condoms rather than mints are served after the meal.  This family planning campaign has been one of the most successful family planning  programmes in the modern era. The annual population growth in Thailand has dropped  from over 3% to 0.6%, and the average number of children per family has fallen from  seven to under two. Resources. — “Ashok Khosla: Mini enterprise leads to macro change” on the Infochangeindia website at http://www.infochangeindia.org/changemakers16.jsp — Homeless World Cup website is at http://www.homelessworldcup.org/ — Mechai Viravaidya profiled in Time magazine’s “Sixty Years of Asian Heroes” at http://www.time.com/time/asia/2006/heroes/in_viravaidya.html

Moving Capital  Nelson Mandela Theatre, Said Business School  Wednesday 28th March 2007  •  This session was happening at the same time as the “Scaling” workshop, but I got to  see it streamed over the internet at a later time (thanks to the free broadband services in  the local hotel). This workshop focussed on how social ventures can access different  sources of external capital to increase their impact.  •  The main speaker here was John Elkington who is a prominent  British “thought leader” in the area of sustainability. His think tank,  called SustainAbility is currently working on a three­year project  with the Skoll Foundation to increase partnerships between social  entrepreneurs and major corporations.  The workshop marked the release of a major report by  SustainAbility which surveyed over a hundred leading social  entrepreneurs on how they are working with the corporate sector,  and how they raise money for their new ventures. “ A growing array of apparently insoluble socio‐economic, environmental and governance challenges presses in on decision‐makers — including climate change, the risk of global pandemics, the growing threat to natural resources like water and fisheries, and the ever‐ present issues of poverty and hunger. At a time when such challenges seem to narrow our horizons, social entrepreneurs are creating a wealth of new opportunities. But to enjoy these opportunities over the longer term, we must ensure real opportunity for a very much greater proportion of the global population...” — John Elkington The report concludes that for real system change to take place, we must focus on  government and public policy. Governments need to do more to shape public sector  targets, with tax incentives and pricing signals that ensure that markets can drive change  — so that the new social enterprises can reach their full potential.  •  The SustainAbility report gave some sobering figures on the comparative size of the  social enterprise sector. Its rough estimate is that less than $200 million is going into  social enterprises worldwide, and most of this is coming from the Foundations sector. This  can be compared to the over $2 billion being invested into “clean technology” businesses vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 22 of 39 

worldwide, or the over $200 billion that is spent in philanthropy in the US alone. Elkington  told the workshop that even though social entrepreneurship is growing quickly, it is still a  very small field financially. His warning: “Are we growing a huge number of ventures that  may not be able to sustain themselves into the next stage of their evolution?” Resources. — Streaming video of this session “Moving Capital” featuring Jan Piercy, John Elkington, Penny Newman, Tim Reith, Arthur Wood, and Michele Giddens can be found at http://streaming.oii.ox.ac.uk:554/ramgen/archive/sbs/skoll_2007/280307_option_4_pm.rm — “Growing Opportunity — Entrepreneurial Solutions to Insoluble problems” by SustainAbility and the Skoll Foundation (2007) download from http://www.sustainability.com/growing‐opportunity — “Rising to the challenge?” by John Elkington in The Guardian 28 March 2007 http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2044046,00.html — The SustainAbility / Skoll project website is at http://www.sustainability.com/insight/skoll.asp

•  Several other Sustainability/Skoll Reports are available for download from their website.  These include a business primer on “scalable solutions”, a report profiling the “barefoot  billionaires” who are backing social entrepreneurs, and a quick global overview of leading  social entrepreneurs. Resources. http://www.sustainability.com/downloads_public/skoll_reports/Business_Primer.pdf http://www.sustainability.com/downloads_public/skoll_reports/Barefoot_Billionaires.pdf http://www.sustainability.com/downloads_public/skoll_reports/Hot_Spots_of_Social_Enterprise.pdf

The Future of Philanthropy  Nelson Mandela Theatre, Said Business School  Thursday 29th March 2007  •  This workshop session focused on just how far “creative” philanthropy can go to support  social innovation. Two of the panellists (Helmut Anheier and Lester Salamon) are the  leading academics in a field that looks at the voluntary sector and civil society from the  lens of social science. The other panellist, Mark Kramer, is the Managing Director of FSG  Social Impact Advisors.  •  Helmut Anheier, Director of the UCLA Centre for Civil Society, set out his arguments for  a new approach to philanthropic engagement, which he calls Creative Philanthropy. He’s  written a book of the same name, which argues that endowed foundations have a unique  capability to spot innovative solutions to problems, to jump­start and help sustain the  innovative process, and to help disseminate and implement the results of innovation. He  believes that Foundations will become more relevant as they learn to act themselves as  social entrepreneurs, as institution­builders, as risk absorbers and as mediators in different  social fields. “Foundations are neither poor imitations of government nor the chosen tools for quick fixes. They are something far more important: foundations are the potential powerhouses of creative thinking and working that society needs. We do not have a shortage or scarcity of resources in modern society. What we have is a weakness in creating innovation, and in seeing innovation through a process that leads to sustainable solutions. This is the area of creative philanthropy where foundations are needed most...” — Helmut Anheier •  Anheier remarked that one of the main characteristics of Creative Philanthropy is a  change in the relationship between foundation programmes and grantees. There is not an  emphasis on performance criteria and performance indicators and other elements of  control. There isn’t the requirement for grantees to fill in long forms or to write long  narratives on their work. There is much more of an emphasis on an ongoing dialogue and

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 23 of 39 

exchange between the foundation and grantee. This emphasis is on learning and  evaluating their shared contribution to the common good.  During the Forum, I discovered that this approach to grant­making was very much the  style of the Skoll Foundations own relationship with its own grantees. Some of the people I  spoke to, who had received money from the Skoll Foundation, remarked on the difference:  The Foundation people came to them, they interviewed, checked facts, and filled out all  the paperwork, and when their reports were written, the Foundation sent them to the  grantee and asked: Did we get that right? The end result was that the people felt they  could focus a lot more on the job at hand ... and their meetings with Skoll as a funder  were seen as an opportunity to discuss and explore what was being learned, rather than as  some sort of accountability ritual.  •  Mark Kramer of FSG Social Impact Advisers argued that we are on the cusp of a  generational change in which succeeding generations will not see a separation between  non­profit and for­profit sectors. He remarked that this division seems very hard for us to  let go of. He also went on to suggest that we will not be looking to philanthropy or  government as the primary means of solving social problems. “ We have a phenomenal non‐profit sector in America. It has a turnover of about $1 trillion and about 7% of the workforce. It has grown at a phenomenal rate over the past 50 years. But in every problem you would care to look at — whether it is environmental, educational, or in social welfare — the situation is the same or is getting worse. The problems are becoming inescapable and the ways we have been addressing them are not working. Social entrepreneurship is an interim step that has emerged as we are trying to grapple with how to find more effective ways of addressing our social problems...” — Mark Kramer Mark Kramer has recently written a paper (co­authored with Michael Porter from the  Harvard Business School) in which he argues that the social value proposition of a business  will be the key competitive advantage in the near future. Businesses need to consider  social issues not just because they want to be good neighbours or citizens, and not just in  response to the activists, but “... because it will be the only way that they will succeed”.  Kramer argues that activists in the non­profit sector underestimate the contribution that  the corporate world can make to systemic social change. He pointed to “The Equator  Principles” where nine global banks have got together to set social, safety and  environmental standards for major construction projects like dams and pipelines around  the world. It took a year for them to negotiate the standards, but as soon as they were put  in place, 75% of all major project financing in the world was under those standards. It has  now become impossible to build something without meeting those standards. Resources. — Video stream of this session “The Future of Philanthropy” featuring Helmut Anheimer, Mark Kramer, Lester Salamon and Alex Nicholls can be found at http://streaming.oii.ox.ac.uk:554/ramgen/archive/sbs/skoll_2007/290307_option_4_am.rm — “Creative Philanthropy” by Helmut Anheier and Diana Leat (book pub 2006 Routledge) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0415370914/nzsef‐20 — “From Charity to Creativity ‐ philanthropic foundations in the 21st century” by Helmut Anheier and Diana Leat 2002 report for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/publications/books/2002/From_Char ity_toCreativity.htm — “Strategy and Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility” by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer in the Harvard Business Review (December 2006) at http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/email/pdfs/Porter_Dec_2006.pdf — The Equator Principles website is at http://www.equator‐principles.com/

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 24 of 39 

Miscellaneous Networking  •  I met up briefly with Pamela Hartigan (Managing Director of the Geneva­based Schwab  Foundation) when I arrived. Pamela has been to New Zealand and met with the Tindall  Foundation, and was a key influence in etsablishing both the Social Innovation Investment  Group and the New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship. Last year, I was invited to join  her meeting of social entrepreneurs that was held in conjunction with the World Economic  Forum in Davos, Switzerland. And many of the people that are members of the Schwab  Social Entrepreneur Fellowship were also present at this Oxford World Forum.  •  Pamela is soon to publish a book on social entrepreneurship,  co­authored with John Elkington, which will be called “The Power  of Unreasonable People: How Entrepreneurs create markets to  change the world”.  •  Just before the conference started, Pamela sent me her latest  paper which has just been published in Innovations, the quarterly  journal from MIT Press. The paper is co­authored by Klaus  Schwab, the Swiss academic and entrepreneur who started the  World Economic Forum in Davos thirty years ago, and it is a  coherent and useful argument for how government and businesses need to open up more  space for social innovation. “Our fascination with these pragmatic visionaries and their organizations lies much less in the goods and services they provide than in the catalytic role they play in triggering innovations in the social sector. Like the business innovators who come up with major innovations for the marketplace, social innovators are the mad scientists as it were — working away in their organizations that act like social innovation laboratories. They test and perfect different approaches, and when they come up with the most effective and efficient ones with the greatest impact, it should be government and the corporate sectors’ respective roles to celebrate the innovation, take it up, learn from it, and help scale it so that all can benefit...” — Klaus Schwab and Pamela Hartigan Resources. — "Social Innovators with a Business Case: Facing 21st Century Challenges One Market at a Time" by Klaus Schwab and Pamela Hartigan http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/itgg.2006.1.4.7 — The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship website is at http://www.schwabfound.org/

•  Another paper released around the time of the Forum was from  Sally Osberg, the CEO of the Skoll Foundation. It is a further attempt  at getting a clear definition of social entrepreneurship established. It  centers in on defining “entrepreneurship” itself, and how this is  expressed in both the business and social fields. The diversity of the  examples given in the paper might surprise you ... but it is just this  diversity that is reflected amongst the participants of this Oxford  Forum.  Osberg, and her co­author Roger Martin, put an emphasis on  innovations that lead to “systemic social change” when discussing the  key differences between social entrepreneurs, social activists, and social service providers.  (In this, they have come to much the same conclusion as our own discussions in New  Zealand.)  •  One of the drivers behind writing this paper is the concern (expressed several times at  the Skoll Forum) that the promise of social entrepreneurship is not being fulfilled because  too many “non­entrepreneurial” efforts are included in the definition. Martin and Osberg  are pushing for a much sharper definition of social entrepreneurship, in an effort to  determine the extent to which an activity is and is not “in the tent”. vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 25 of 39 

At the Forum, Bill Drayton remarked that this will always be a troublesome exercise ...  “ because social entrepreneurs are the sort of people who are always breaking down  barriers anyway ... and they will not accept any boundaries put on defining who they are”. Resource. — “Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition” by Roger L. Martin & Sally Osberg in Stanford Social Innovation Review (Spring 2007) http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/social_entrepreneurship_the_case_for_definition/

•  I missed the workshop session featuring Charles  Leadbeater (... there was just too much going on at the  same time), but I got to read his column in the Observer  newspaper, which was published during the time of the  Forum, and also his later article in the Social Enterprise  magazine. Leadbeater was one of the earliest influences on  my own awareness of this field. Ten years ago, he wrote a  small booklet called The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur  which was published by the British Think Tank Demos. This  booklet helped to popularise the term and brought social  entrepreneurship into the mainstream of public policy  debate.  Leadbeater’s booklet also had a significant influence on the “Third Way” movement within  the leadership of Labour Parties around the world. In New Zealand, in the early part of this  decade, these ideas were an influence on Social Development Minister Steve Maharey’s  interest in establishing a local Social Entrepreneurship Scheme (through the ill­fated  Community Employment Group).  •  These days, Leadbeater is a “Visiting Fellow” at the Skoll Centre for Social  Entrepreneurship at Oxford University. So ... What has he learned about social  entrepreneurship after its first decade of significant growth? Well, he believes that the  movement has got quite a lot right, but also quite a lot wrong. For a start, he challenges  the current “hero” focus as a way that social entrepreneurship is being promoted: “Social entrepreneurship needs to become a mass activity, not just the domain of inspirational mavericks ... Entrepreneurship usually comes from teams, not heroic individuals. Social entrepreneurs thrive on interdependence, learning and borrowing resources from the public and private sectors.” Leadbeater believes that the biggest challenge facing the social sector is how to scale up  its impact — and the social entrepreneur movement needs to embrace this challenge: “Too many social entrepreneurs are still running inspiring but small schemes. Too few can show how their inspirational new approaches have spread. Part of the reason is a lack of both capital and management skills to expand larger organisations from smaller roots. Opposition from entrenched bureaucracies and professionals is another factor. But social entrepreneurs may have their biggest impact by being disruptive innovators, opening up markets that bigger organisations cannot see...” — Charles Leadbeater Resources. — “Mainstreaming the Mavericks”, by Charles Leadbeater, The Observer 25 March 2007 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2041924,00.html — “Whatever Happened to the Heroes?” by Charles Leadbeater in Social Enterprise magazine Issue 57 (April 2007) http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/features/detail/index.asp?id=198 — Charles Leadbeater on Innovation (TED Talk July 2005 in Oxford UK) http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/63 — “The Rise of the Social Entrepreneur” by Charles Leadbeater (pamphlet pub 1997 by Demos Thinktank) can be downloaded from http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/socialentrepreneur

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 26 of 39 

— Social Entrepreneurs — Special issue of The Jobs Letter (No.147, 27 June 2001) by vivian Hutchinson can be downloaded from http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/jbl14700.htm

•  Another participant at the Forum was Sir Ronald Cohen. He was one of the media  “stars” of business­led social entrepreneurship, and was profiled in the business sections of  several British newspapers during the time of the Oxford conference. Cohen is described as  having a major influence on the current government, and is considered a trusted member  of Chancellor (and leader­in­waiting) Gordon Brown's most trusted inner circle.  The Times calls Cohen “the grandfather of venture  capital in Europe”. He set up Apax Partners in 1972  and grew the firm into one of the world’s biggest  and most successful buyout groups, making him a  billionaire in the process. He retired from Apax on  his 60th birthday in 2005 and immediately started to  work on projects that would enable him to give  some of his and the industry’s wealth back to the  community.  Much of this work is centred around Bridges  Community Ventures, which describes itself as “a  private equity firm with a social mission”. Its  strategy is to invest only in the poorest 25 per cent  of the country. (The firm has made 13 investments,  sold three companies and seen five go under).  Cohen told The Observer how his worldview had changed since Gordon Brown asked him  to chair first the Social Investment Taskforce and, more recently, the Commission for  Unclaimed Assets. “I came to understand that you could really change people's lives if you could manage to connect the private sector way of doing things and the access to the capital markets with the social challenges that communities are facing everywhere ... “ I am convinced there is a wave of social entrepreneurship forming now that feels the same as the wave of business entrepreneurship I felt when I started in 1972 ... We have in our hands the ability to turn social investment into an asset class, in the same way we have turned private equity into a mainstream asset class.” — Sir Ronald Cohen •  Cohen is also heading up a new initiative which will be Britain’s first “social bank”. It  aims to do this by investing about £250 million of the estimated £400 million in dormant  bank and building society accounts. Although the primary aim is to return the money to its  owners, the bank will use any outstanding money to fund voluntary organisations and  social enterprises “... to tackle social and financial exclusion”. Resources. — Bridges Community Ventures website is at http://www.bridgesventures.com/ — “Bridging the Great Divide" by Nick Mathiason on The Observer 18 March 2007 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329749132‐102271,00.html — “Billionaire sets up ‘mission’ to help nation’s poorest” by Siobhan Kennedy in The Times 31 March 2007 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/ar ticle1593826.ece

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 27 of 39

Skoll Foundation Awards Ceremony  Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford  Wednesday 28th March 2007  •  Back at the Sheldonian, we had an evening dedicated to celebrating the stories of many  of the leading social entrepreneurs gathered at this Forum. The evening started with music  from the Pakistani musician Salman Ahmad, followed by speeches from Jeff Skoll,  Muhammad Yunus and Peter Gabriel.  The 2007 Skoll Awards were then presented to ten recipients who will each receive $1  million, over the next three years, to target social issues in need of urgent attention and to  bring their projects “to scale”.  What struck me during the Awards ceremony was the relative youth of so many of these  recipients — many were in their 30s and 40s. Their stories and projects so far are already  extremely successful, and there is obviously such great potential still ahead for all of them. — Vicky Colbert of the Foundation Escuela Nueva, which started in Columbia fostering education for underserved children through a more flexible approach and stronger school‐community ties. This has grown into an international movement reaching 5 million pupils in various Latin American countries, Uganda, and the Philippines. — Craig and Mark Kielburger of Free The Children. They started this group in their early teens as a classroom fundraiser and grew it to become an international organization with 1000 chapters in schools across the US and Canada fighting poverty, exploitation and powerlessness among children around the world. — Sebastien Marot of Friends International, an initiative to take Cambodian kids off the streets and help them reintegrate society.

Sebastion Marot (centre) of Friends International receives his 2007 Skoll Award, with  Sally Osberg, Peter Gabriel, Muhammad Yunus and Jeff Skoll — photo Fruchterman

— Susan Burns and Mathis Wackernagel of the Global Footprint Network, developers of the Ecological Footprint, a tool that tracks the extent to which human demand on nature exceeds what the planet can regenerate. This measure, applied by countries, hundreds of cities and organizations across the world, has become a leading sustainability indicator. — Joe Madiath of Gram Vikas, an organization helping develop the state of Orissa, one of the poorest regions in India. — William Strickland of the Manchester Bidwell Corporation, which introduces young people in poor urban environments to arts and career education. vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 28 of 39 

— Roshaneh Zafar of the Kashf Foundation focusing on microfinance for women in Pakistan. Started in 1996, the Foundation made 228,000 loans in 2006, has 135,000 clients and a recovery rate of 99.9 percent. — Rupert Howes of the Marine Stewardship Council, focusing on reversing the decline in global fishing stocks through a marine certification and an eco‐labeling program. — Dan Viederman of Verité, which works on improving working conditions around the world. — Dorothy Stoneman of YouthBuild USA, an alternative school where dropout youths re‐enrol, complete high school, and at the same time work to build affordable housing for the homeless. •  The evening finished with two songs from Monica Yunus (daughter of Muhammad) who  is a promising young soprano based at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The Forum  participants then went on to a celebration and reception hosted in a marque at Trinity  College. Resources. — Streaming video of the “Skoll Foundation Awards Ceremony” featuring Jeff Skoll and Sally Osberg with Peter Gabriel, Muhammad Yunus, Salman Ahmad and Monica Yunus can be found at http://streaming.oii.ox.ac.uk:554/ramgen/archive/sbs/skoll_2007/280307_awards.rm — YouTube video of the ten recipients of the 2007 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=‐KKByRF6GA0 — short profiles of the 10 grantees can be read at http://www.skollfoundation.org:80/grantees/2007.asp

Monica Yunus singing at the 2007 Skoll Foundation Awards Ceremony — photo  Fruchterman 

•  Some Quotes  from the Skoll Forum: “Every truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self‐evident.” — Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher “There is no change without individuals, and nothing sustained without institutions.” — Jean Monnet, the architect of the European Union “Live like you will die tomorrow, but learn like you expect to live forever.” — Mahatma Ghandi “ It’s amazing what you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit.” — Harry Truman, US President

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 29 of 39

Closing Sessions of Skoll World Forum  Nelson Mandela Theatre, Said Business School  Thursday 29th March 2007  •  Larry Brilliant was the final keynote speaker giving his reflections as a pioneer in social  innovation. His presentation was challenging and inspiring, and something of a jolt back to  “big picture” thinking after hearing so many inspiring local stories. If you watch just one of  the pieces of video from this Forum ... make it this one.  Brilliant has long been a folk hero from the same loose network of American counter­  cultural activists and entrepreneurs that include the likes of Ram Dass, Wavy Gravy,  Stewart Brand, Howard Rheingold and Paul Hawken. He is a doctor and a former professor  of epidemiology who set up the Seva Foundation  which has performed 2 million free sight­restoring  eye operations in India and Nepal. He helped run  the WHO smallpox eradication program in India,  Nepal, and Bangladesh and was part of the Global  Commission which certified that smallpox had  been eradicated in the world.  As a technology leader, Brilliant was a founder of  the world’s first online community, The WELL,  and has been CEO of two public hi­tech  corporations (SoftNet Systems Inc. and Network  Technologies), and most recently he founded the  WiFi company, Cometa.  Larry Brilliant was 2006 recipient of the TED  Prize, which grants him “one wish to change the  world” (... he is setting up a global warning  system to track the spread of infectious  diseases). And just last year, he was appointed  Executive Director of Google.org, the new  philanthropic arm of the Google company. So all  eyes are on just what he is going to do next ....  •  Brilliant started his speech with a short clip from a 1958 movie by Frank Capra, "The  Unchained Goddess". The film contained a description of the causes of global warming,  complete with images of melting Arctic icecaps and maps of rising sea levels inundating  the southern regions of the US ... eerily similar to Al Gore’s more recent film “An  Inconvenient Truth”. Brilliant: “So in 1958 we knew about global warming — should we  feel good or bad that 50 years of foreknowledge accomplished so little?”  He then went on to list some of the Megatrends facing the current generation of social  entrepreneurs: — increasing global warming ... which has its gravest effects on the poorest and most vulnerable members of humanity — increasing population levels ... expected to level out at over 9 billion people — increasing urbanization ... we went past the tipping point this year with 50 percent of the world population now living in cities — increasing desertification, loss of farming land etc — increasing animal consumption — increasing growth of technology, which is also having a downside in the growth of bio‐weapons — increasing globalization, which has big winners and bigger losers. •  Brilliant pointed out that today, the world is more diverse and more unfair than it has  ever been in human history. One percent of world population owns 40% of all goods and  services (he quoted Bill Clinton, who recently remarked: ”This situation is unprecedented,  unequal, unfair and unstable”). And the situation will get increasingly instable as global TV, vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 30 of 39 

the internet and new media continue to expose the inequalities in life experiences and  people’s expectations.  Brilliant drew out the “case for pessimism” in many areas ... water and other resource  wars, sectarian conflicts, refugee crises, an increasing number and scale of weather­  related disasters, and newly emergent disease patterns. Climate change will put all the  social entrepreneurship successes of things like micro­credit into perspective. With the  graphics provided by Google Earth, he “navigated” a map of Asia to show how  deforestation and global warming will combine to raise seas levels and displace 100 million  people in Bangladesh alone.  •  But Brilliant also felt there is plenty of cause for optimism. He shared his personal story  of wandering the Asian hippy trail in the 1960s before his guru sent him off to help lead  the fight to eradicate Smallpox on earth. Smallpox has been the worst disease in human  history — it killed half a billion people in the 20th century alone, which is more than all the  wars in history. Ending Smallpox involved an immense collaboration between the World  Health Organisation, governments, public and private health officials, and teams of  volunteers. In India, Brilliant supervised thousands of workers who tracked down cases of  smallpox, and kept visiting every household to ensure that the virus was quarantined. He  suggests that the fact that we have conquered Smallpox “should make our species proud”,  and it should also give us hope when we take on similar huge systemic challenges as  global warming, or the many other megatrends that he had listed.  •  As the new director of Google.org, Brilliant will be helping spend $1.1 billion of the  assets of the world­leading company on addressing the sort of megatrends that he has  described. Google.org is essentially a network that includes both a charitable foundation  with a $90 million endowment, and also other forms of social investing (not unlike those  being promoted by venture capitalists like Sir Ronald Cohen).  When they announced the establishment of the Google.org Foundation in 2005, Google  founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin promised shareholders they will make a social impact  that will eventually “eclipse Google itself” by tackling the world's problems. Brilliant: “ In  10 years, I'd like people to say Google changed the world less for its search engine than  for the way in which it changed philanthropy to make the world a better place.” Resources. — Streaming video of this session “Reflections from a Pioneer in Social Innovation” featuring Larry Brilliant can be found at http://streaming.oii.ox.ac.uk:554/ramgen/archive/sbs/skoll_2007/290307_closing_1.rm — YouTube video of Larry Brilliant’s speech to the 2007 Skoll World Forum can be found at (part 1 of 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBuIHX11yj4 (part 2 of 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0rsfIE274Q (part 3 of 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6mZndZSmAw — “Google's Brilliant Philanthropist” by Jessi Hempelin in Business Week 22 February 2006 http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060222_088020.htm — “Dr Brilliant Vs. the Devil of Ambition” by Andrew French in Fast Company Issue 39 September 2000 http://www.fastcompany.com/online/39/brilliant.html — “The Health of Humanity” by Larry Brilliant (2006 Sanford S. Elberg Lecturer in International Studies ‐ UC Berkeley http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/Elberg/Brilliant/ — Larry Brilliant talking to the TED Forum January 2007 on the successful WHO campaign to eradicate Smallpox, and then unveiling his TED Prize wish ‐ to build a global system that detects each new disease or disaster as it emerges or occurs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNhiHf84P9c

•  The 2007 Skoll World Forum was completed by wrap­up speeches by Bill Drayton, and  Ed Millibrand, the British Cabinet Minister.  Bill Drayton reinforced what he felt was the changing focus of the social entrepreneur  movement: “We used to have a small elite, now we need to get everyone involved in  change­making, and figure out ways to think and work together in a way that builds on our  individual entrepreneurial spirit...”

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 31 of 39 

Drayton pointed out that governments and the universities are “the last remaining pre­  modern institutions” to embrace the entrepreneurship challenge. The social entrepreneurs  at this Forum would be an essential part of helping them make this transition. 

Ed Milibrand and Bill Drayton addressing the final session of the Skoll Oxford World Forum —  photo Hutchinson

•  Ed Milibrant heads up Office for the Third Sector which has responsibility for  government policy affecting social enterprise. He recognises the challenge that social  enterprises bring to both the private and public sectors: “ They are at the vanguard of change in both. To the private sector, the challenge is to put ethical values at the heart of their business and be a responsible member of the community. To the public sector, the challenge is to deliver public services in a different way, using the skills and expertise of users and frontline workers...” — Ed Milibrand, UK Minister of the Third Sector Milibrand says that a major focus of his government’s policy is to simply recognise and  spread the word that social enterprises do exist. His research showed that only about a  quarter of British people know what they are, even though it was estimated that there are  over 55,000 businesses in Britain that fit the government’s definition of a social enterprise.  In November 2006, the British government launched a major 75­page “Social Enterprise  Action Plan” that aims to “open the door to thousands more such enterprises” by: — fostering a culture of social enterprise, embedding the change that is already underway, especially through inspiring the next generation to start thinking about the social impact of business — improving business advice, information and support available to social enterprises — tackling the barriers to access to finance that restrict the growth of social enterprises — enabling social enterprises to work effectively with government to develop policy in the areas of expertise •  After some closing comments from John Elkington, and from some of the Skoll Award­  winning social entrepreneurs ... the 2007 Skoll World Forum was over! Resources. — Streaming video of the session “Supporting More Social Innovation” featuring John Elkington, Bill Drayton and Ed Milliband can be found at http://streaming.oii.ox.ac.uk:554/ramgen/archive/sbs/skoll_2007/290307_closing_2.rm — Office for the Third Sector “Social Enterprise Action Plan” (2006) can be downloaded from http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/social_enterprise/action_plan/ — Streaming video of the session “Social Innovation: Where do we go from here” featuring Roger Martin, Roshaneh Zafar, Martin Fisher, Taddy Blecher, and Mindy Lubber can be found at http://streaming.oii.ox.ac.uk:554/ramgen/archive/sbs/skoll_2007/290307_closing_3.rm

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 32 of 39 

London Meetings  •  For the four days after the Oxford Forum I stayed in London to follow­up on connections  made at the conference and to explore some other projects further.  Gaia Foundation  •  Ed Posey and Liz Hosken are a couple of “active citizens” and philanthropists based in  Hampstead. We had last met during the New Economics conference held in Scotland in  1984. At that time, they were just establishing The Business Network, which was one of  the first organisations promoting social and environmental responsibility in business.  Since then, Ed and Liz have established the Gaia Foundation, and their Hampstead home  — now known as Gaia House — has become a seeding point and informal meeting place  for many of the leading UK­based activists from environment and development  organisations. The Foundation has taken a leading role in supporting indigenous activists  including Professor Wangari Maathai (the Nobel Peace Laureate from Kenya), Vandana  Shiva from India, Tewolde Gebre Egzhiabher from Ethiopia, Martín von Hildebrand from  Colombia, José Lutzenberger from Brazil and Chico Mendes (the indigenous leader who  was assassinated in Brazil).  •  The couple invited me to attend a small public talk in  Hampstead by Martín von Hildebrand, the leader of many  development projects with indigenous people in the Columbian  Amazon.  Hildebrand led the campaign to include significant indigenous  rights within Colombia’s 1991 political Constitution. The  Columbian Constitution explicitly recognises the cultural  diversity of the Colombian nation and the rights of indigenous  peoples to participate in the design and management of their  own development, health and education programmes. It also  recognizes the right of indigenous communities to collectively  administer their own territories.  Over the last 17 years, these communities have developed innovative processes of self  governance directed by shamans and driven by indigenous thought. Hildebrand’s COAMA  programme focuses on reviving their diverse and ecologically centred collective  governance systems, using elements from the western industrial world that do not  compromise their autonomy. Thanks largely to these efforts, the indigenous communities  in the Colombian Amazon are now self­managing a territory larger than the size of the  United Kingdom.  The obvious improvements in Columbia through this indigenous self­development have  become the envy of many other South American countries ... and has also inspired similar  groups in Africa to follow the COAMA methods. In 1999, Hildebrand and COAMA received  the Right Livelihood Award (sometimes called the alternative Nobel Prize) for this ground­  breaking work.  •  Meeting Martín von Hildebrand and hearing his presentation has given me quite a bit  to reflect on when comparing his story to the New Zealand experience of Maori sovereignty  and economic development. It is interesting for me to realise that so much of my own  thinking on indigenous issues has been conditioned by our local debates on the Waitangi  Treaty and the emphasis on “partnership” relationships between our majority culture and  tangata whenua. This is in contrast to the Columbian Amazon story which has involved  promoting grassroots community efforts to protect critical ecosystems, such as forests,  watersheds and river basins, whilst working to empower local communities to take control  and develop their own resources and livelihoods.

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 33 of 39 

•  The Gaia Foundation has been promoting the concept of “Earth Jurisprudence” based  on the visionary work of the philosopher Thomas Berry. Their view is that our legal  systems, and the corresponding human jurisprudences upon which they are based,  continually promote the interest of the human community while affording no real  protection to other species, or to the planet itself. The Gaia Foundation asks us to imagine  another legal system where the planet and all of its species have rights – and they have  those rights by virtue of their existence as component members of a single Earth  community. “ The dominant legal philosophies and laws both reflect and perpetuate the prevailing worldview that the Earth is merely a collection of 'resources' or objects which human beings are entitled to exploit for their exclusive benefit. A new Earth Law ‐ or Earth jurisprudence ‐ is essential if global human society is to achieve the radical shift in beliefs and attitudes that will be necessary to save the planet from ecological disaster.” — The Gaia Foundation Resources. — The website for The Gaia Foundation is at http://www.gaiafoundation.org/ — profile of Coama for the Right Livelihood Awards can be found at http://www.rightlivelihood.org/recip/coama.htm — The Gaia Foundation’s Earth Jurisprudence website can be found at http://www.earthjurisprudence.org/

London School for Social Entrepreneurs  •  I had an appointment with Alastair Wilson, the Chief Executive of the School for Social  Entrepreneurs, which is based in Bethnal Green in the East End of London. I was interested  in finding out more about how this school operates ... and from the brochures I picked up  at the Skoll Forum, I could see that their approach to learning and enterprise facilitation  was very similar to the style of the “Skills of Enterprise” business courses I had set up for  unemployed people in New Zealand in the 1980s. 

Alastair Wilson, Chief Executive of the School for Social Entrepreneurs, at Bethnal Green, in  the East End of London  — photo Hutchinson

The Skills of Enterprise business courses were different from mainstream Polytech business  courses because of their action learning approach. We didn’t just teach people how to set  up a business ... we taught them how to set up their business. Our courses were half work  and half study — and there were no certificates or accreditations involved other than  having a viable business running at the end of the course, or the participant taking the  decision not to go into business because of what they had learned. 

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 34 of 39 

I could see that the School for Social Entrepreneurs was following a similar approach to  education, which they were also calling “action learning”.  •  Each student on the SSE programme is chosen on the basis of their life experience,  rather than their qualifications. They are each leading or establishing a new project or  organisation, and have shown themselves to be “... driven, committed, persistent,  engaged with the community they are aiming to serve, prone to action, and pragmatic”.  The SSE programme is a year long, and the  sessions at the School are held one day a  week. It’s not a course of instruction ... but  more of a learning community where the  diverse students are encouraged to help one  another with their objectives. The School’s  “facilitators” are able to get alongside the  students providing information and guidance  on a “just in time” basis.  •  Gaining access to the networks of  existing social entrepreneurs is obviously one of the main benefits cited by the students at  this School. The SSE has a huge network of high­profile social entrepreneurs to call upon  (from John Bird, founder of The Big Issue newspapers for homeless, to Tim Smit, the man  behind The Eden Project). The students are able to interrogate these “expert witnesses” to  find out exactly what they did, how they did it, what the results have been and what they  have learned.  The School has been operating for ten years and the 250 students so far have become part  of a SSE Fellowship Network which plays an active part in the staff team, on the Trustee  Board, as expert witnesses, and in helping develop new services. (The Chief Executive  Alastair Wilson himself is a former graduate of the School).  •  The School for Social Entrepreneurs has recently been evaluated by the New Economics  Foundation. Its October 2006 report finds that the SSE has a unique approach based on  “the depth and duration of support, the high levels of personal support and the  inspirational mixture of people and lasting support networks.”  The report shows that organisations established by SSE Fellows are over one­and­a­half  times more likely to be in existence after eight years than conventional businesses. Each  social enterprise established by the Fellows has created an average of five jobs (and a  small proportion have created more than 20 jobs). The New Economics Foundation has  calculated that for every £10,000 its takes to train a student at the School for Social  Entrepreneurs, the return to the community is £100,000.  •  The SSE has now started franchising its methods and approach — with similar Schools  for Social Entrepreneurs now operating in Ireland, East and West Midlands, Scotland and  Cornwall. And it looks as though they are starting to go international ... with discussions  currently taking place for a similar School to be set up in Sydney, Australia. Resources. — The website for the London School for Social Entrepreneurs is http://www.sse.org.uk/ — “Passion in Action” by Mira Katbamna in The Guardian 12 December 2006 http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1969691,00.html

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 35 of 39 

The Young Foundation  •  The School for Social Entrepreneurs was one of the last projects  established in 1997 by Michael Young, later known as Lord  Dartington, who is credited with being Britain’s most prolific and  successful social entrepreneur of the 20th Century.  At the end of World War II, at the early age of 29, Michael Young  drafted the 1945 Labour Party manifesto “Let Us Face The Future”,  which helped bring Atlee’s reforming Labour government to power.  He worked closely with Aneurin Bevan in the Labour government  of 1945 to 1951, where he became convinced that successful  social innovation was far more likely to come from individuals and  communities than from the public sector.  Young set up his Institute of Community Studies at Bethnal Green  in London’s East End. From this base, he gave birth to more than  fifty organisations devoted to a huge diversity of social projects.  These included establishing the Consumers' Association (1957)  and their magazine Which?, the Economic and Social Research  Council (1965), the Open University (1968), International Alert (1980), the University of  the Third Age (1982) and Language Line (1990).  Young was once described as a shaman who sowed “dragons teeth”, then moved on while  great organisations sprung up in his stead. When interviewed by Charles Handy (in his  1999 book The New Alchemists) Young simply remarked: “I can’t stop thinking of what  appear to be worthwhile ideas. They seem so obvious.”  At the Skoll World Forum, one speaker remembered Michael Young as a social  entrepreneur who always took “No” as a question, and who actively sought out objections  to his ideas as a method of refining his plans and proposals. Resources. — “Michael Young 1915‐2002: Social Entrepreneur” by vivian Hutchinson in The Jobs Letter No.161 (14 February 2002) at http://www.jobsletter.org.nz/jbl16110.htm — “Michael Young: Social Entrepreneur” by Asa Briggs (book pub 2001 by Palgrave Macmillan) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0333750233/nzsef‐20

School for Social Entrepreneurs, Bethnal Green, London — the base for Michael Young’s  Institute of Community Studies, from which he developed his extraordinary range of  social innovations  — photo Hutchinson

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 36 of 39 

UnLtd: The Foundation Supporting Social Entrepreneurs  •  On my last day in London, I visited the headquarters of UnLtd: the Foundation for Social  Entrepreneurs. This Foundation was established in 2000 by a consortium of groups  (including Ashoka / Changemakers and the School for Social Entrepreneurs) who  successfully bid for and were awarded £100 million from the UK Millennium Awards  Endowment (part of the National Lottery).  UnLtd gives financial support to individuals who want to make a  difference. They don’t fund organisations. The UnLtd awards are enabling  emerging social entrepreneurs to tackle a wide variety of issues such as  racism, the minimum wage, social exclusion, hungry schoolchildren and food poverty in  inner cities.  UnLtd offers two levels of award: The first level gives between £500 and £5,000 to  individuals or informal groups of people who have an idea and want help getting it off the  ground. The second level (of between £10,000 and £20,000) is for supporting key people  or paying for the living expenses of the award winners to enable them to devote more time  to their projects.  UnLtd also runs a UK­wide Fellowship of the people who have received their awards, and  undertakes research into the impact of social entrepreneurship on society. Resources. — The website for the UnLtd: The Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs can be found at http://www.sse.org.uk — The Guardian UnLtd Social Entrepreneur Awards http://society.guardian.co.uk/unlimitedvision/0,,1776158,00.html — “Everyday Legends: The Ordinary People Changing Our World, the Stories of 20 Great UK Social Entrepreneurs” by Justine C. Law, James J. Baderman (book pub 2006 by WW Publishing) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Everyday‐Legends‐Ordinary‐Changing‐ Entrepreneurs/dp/0955013216/

•  My interest in visiting UnLtd wasn’t so much about their funding programme — which  was extraordinary enough — but to follow up on a conversation I had with Cliff Prior,  UnLtd’s Chief Executive, when we were having dinner during the Skoll Forum.  I had mentioned a project we were exploring with the New Zealand ChangeMakers 5­10­5­  10 group which is to establish a micro­philanthropy trading website. The idea is to provide  a website where the network of people involved with ChangeMakers can be connected with  the funding requests from local groups and organisations. Such a website (modelled on the  popular NZ trading site TradeMe) would be a useful addition to the tools for generosity in  our country, and could be especially useful as a fundraiser for smaller grant and donation  requirements for individuals and community organisations.  Cliff Prior told me that UnLtd were pursuing much the same idea as a way of supporting  the people and projects involved in their own network of social entrepreneurs. He put me  in touch with their website developer, who was able to point me towards several existing  examples of websites that were pursuing a similar strategy. Some of these philanthropy marketplace websites include: — Just Giving at http://www.justgiving.com/ — Generous Giving http://www.generousgiving.org/index.asp — Fundable at http://www.fundable.org/ — Kiva at http://www.kiva.org/ — Global Giving at http://www.globalgiving.com/

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 37 of 39 

vivian Hutchinson in the Park at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, near Oxford  April 2007 

•  Well, that’s my notes from the week at the Oxford and from my time in London. There  was so much going on at this World Forum that I would imagine that there could be 700  completely different reports of what happened and 700 different maps of connections to  inspiring people, ideas and projects.  •  As I was writing up my notes in a London hotel, I was struck by the contrast between  the positivity generated by this global gathering ... and the much less hopeful headlines  appearing in the daily British newspapers.  During the time of this Forum, the OECD reported that aid from Western developed  countries to tackle global poverty had fallen by 5% last year, which was the first time that  the level of aid had dropped in a decade. This was because the world’s richest countries  were basically reneging on their Gleneagles pledges to give an extra $50 billion in financial  assistance by 2010. (Remember Bob Geldof and Bono’s Live8 concerts?)  Also during the Forum, a report was released on Britain’s child poverty statistics. The latest  government figures show that the number of children officially living in poverty in Britain  has risen by 200,000 to 3.8 million children. These new figures mark the end of a  sustained period of falling poverty since statistics were first collated in 1961. They also  bring a bit of “reality” back to Blair and Brown’s ambitious social promise that they will  abolish all child poverty in the UK by 2020.  These reports are a not­so­gentle reminder of just how far we still have to go. Larry  Brilliant’s inspiring journey in ending Smallpox may prove to be a walk in the park  compared the social justice struggle of ending the widening gap between rich and poor.  •  Being my first Skoll Forum, I had no real way of comparing just how the social  entrepreneur movement, at this series of annual gatherings, was evolving its own sense of  balance between “hype” and “reality”. I was interested to read the following post­Forum  comment on a Social Edge Blog by Dennis Whittle, the founder and Chairman of  GlobalGiving: “ Around 2001 there was a Cambrian explosion of ideas [on social entrepreneurship], and conferences were all about who had the best idea — and too often about why other people's ideas were dumb or inferior. Over the next couple of years, several of the people with ideas actually launched real initiatives, with great hopes and fanfare and excitement and hoopla, and often hyperbole. The conferences during those years were dominated by the swaggering of those people launching these start‐ups.

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 38 of 39 

“ [But] many of us have been through the wringer. We are making great progress now, but the last few years have been full of setbacks and reversals and S‐turns. All of which have served to make us a lot more humble — and a lot more interested in reaching out to others to tell our stories and hear theirs in return. I think we all realize now that there is no silver bullet in this field — no “best idea.” Instead, we need — and are forming — a community of good ideas, and of good people. The way forward is through this community...” — Dennis Whittle •  I think this is a community we should be keeping in touch with ... and we should  endeavour to maintain a New Zealand presence at these World Forums at Oxford. In future  years I would like to try and ensure that both a member of our Social Innovation  Investment Group and a member of the Social Entrepreneur Fellowship are able to attend.  There is certainly many advantages to being on the spot, making connections with a huge  diverse network, being within the dialogue, and having the time to think things through —  away from home projects and responsibilities.  •  But beyond this — bearing in mind all the carbon­miles involved in getting New  Zealanders over to the other side of the world — perhaps we could also work with the Skoll  Foundation or the Social Edge people to convene a satellite summit gathering at the same  time in New Zealand. This would make it open to a wider range of New Zealand social  entrepreneurs and philanthropists ... with the main plenary and keynote speakers from  Oxford beamed into our satellite conference, accompanied by our own keynote speakers  and our own workshop sessions.  Imagine if there was a whole network of these satellite summits in various countries ...  with the best of their local keynote contributions being shared around the network. This  would also be another way to extend the reach and impact of the important ideas and  practical role models for change that are found within this Forum. 

vivian Hutchinson  Executive Officer  Social Innovation Investment Group  New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship  April 2007

Resources. — “Blow to Blair as western aid falls for first time in 10 years” by Larry Elliott in The Guardian 3 April 2007 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/development/story/0,,2048914,00.html — “Blow for Brown as poverty figures increase after years of decline” by Ashley Seager in The Guardian 28 March 2007 http://society.guardian.co.uk/socialexclusion/story/0,,2044236,00.html — “Pulling for the Underdog” Dennis Whittle Social Edge Blog 28 March 2007 http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/pulling‐for‐the‐underdog/archive/2007/03/28/boy‐we‐ have‐been‐through‐the‐wringer

vivian Hutchinson  — some notes from the Skoll World Forum 2007 — Page 39 of 39