Interview on social enterprise with John Dankosky on WNPR's Where We Live

A great interview with John Dankosky! 

Featuring:

Robert Egger - Founder LA Kitchen
Cary Wheaton - Executive Director of Billings Forge Community Works
Charlotte Creech - Co-Founder of Combat2Career
Leslie Krumholz - Founder of Good Streets
Nora Duncan - State Director of CT AARP

And yours truly

Thanks to the callers too - what an unexpected gift!

It's wonderful to be surrounded by such a supportive community and watch it grow.   Five years ago (pre crash) when I spoke to people about social enterprise, as often as not I would get a confused look - like why do we need to change anything?  It's all going so swimmingly!   Today it's a different story and everyone (well almost everyone) gets the fact that we need to try something new.



Social enterprise interview on WNPR's Where We Live

Envision the Calvary

A group from around the state met Friday to talk about how to make Connecticut a healthy innovative ecosystem that attracts entrepreneurs who will in turn create Connecticut companies and jobs.  We need new businesses and we need new jobs.  As if it weren’t already abundantly clear, a recent report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis has rubbed our nose in the fact  that our state was dead last year in economic growth. 

Part of the loss is due to shrinking government.  Governor Malloy warned us back in 2011 that closing the deficit would take sacrifice, and went on to say,  “There is no cavalry – except us.”  So here we are, and now we need to think about how private industry is going to come to the rescue. Casino revenues are shrinking.  I’ll refrain from commentary on whether that was a horse we really wanted to hitch our economic fortunes to anyway, and just stick to the fact that this gravy train has moved on.  Other states have opened their doors to casino dollars and our piece of the gambling pie has and will continue to shrink as a result.   We may still be the Insurance Capital of the world, but that’s another fading star.  The large financial and insurance companies that were our mainstay have been shedding jobs for a while and there’s no reason to expect a reversal there.

OK - Problem defined.  What we need now is a vision.

How do we get our state on the right track, creating a healthy ecosystem that attracts business and grows jobs?  We’ve got an industry sector vision.  Making Connecticut a magnet for health and bioscience works.  It builds on what we already have to offer.  It creates a niche market to focus on and stand out in, building on our strengths rather than trying to copy another state’s success story.  This focus has helped to make us attractive to companies like Jackson Labs, Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, and Protein Sciences.  It encourages the creation of support organizations like CURE and the MetroHartford Alliance Health Council which will amplify the activities and success of what’s being done in this area.  It helps provide structure and focus for educational and governmental efforts all of which add to the momentum and will help create the cavalry that is us.

We need the same vision for attracting entrepreneurs. What does the CT entrepreneur look like?

Most of us can picture the young techie growing the next google out of his dorm room, but when we’ve hatched them here in CT we too often lose them to Boston, New York, or California.  The young, they tend to roam, and they like to go where there’re lots of others like them.  But!  And this is important… They often return.  They come back when they have kids.   CT is a great place to raise a family.  Connecticut – Home of the Family Entrepreneur.

And even entrepreneurs who aren’t planning families find CT a great place to move to when they tire of the hustle, bustle, bright lights, and bars of the big city.  They return to be closer to parents, community, and the land.  We have open space.  Close enough to the big city to avoid becoming bumpkin, but far enough away to breathe.  Not too hip, but not too hick either.  Connecticut -  Home of the Comfortably Cool Entrepreneur.

And not all entrepreneurs are the 18-25 hipster set anyway.  An increasing number of entrepreneurs are in their 30s, 40s and beyond.  In fact retirees are a growing demographic on the entrepreneurial scene.   Connecticut – home of the Mature Entrepreneur.   

And Connecticut is a socially innovative state.  We have reSET working to make us a hub of social enterprise - a growing international trend.    The idea of building businesses that solve community problems is one whose time has come.   Our schools are graduating kids who want jobs with meaning, careers that makes a difference, and entrepreneurial types who have ideas for how to solve big problems.  Let’s keep them here.  Connecticut – home of the Social Entrepreneur.

We know the industries we’re trying to attract.  Let’s learn more about the entrepreneurs we’re trying to lure.  Capitalize on our strengths and what is already in place.  Create an infrastructure to support these entrepreneurs and the businesses they’re building and we’ll have a healthy, viable, enviable ecosystem that attracts the engine drivers of our economic future.   With a vision we can build it.  And then they will come.  

Connecticut – home of the New Cavalry.

Five reasons why Connecticut is uniquely positioned to become a hub of social enterprise

1)  We have many local examples of social enterprise to brag on: Newman’s Own, Jackson Labs, Firebox Restaurant, The Walker Group, Good Cause Gifts, Kanai Sports...  Large, small, old, new, nonprofit and for-profit - each helps demonstrate the social enterprise model is not only viable but scalable, satisfying, and sometimes wildly successful.

2)  We have the money. Connecticut has a lot of wealthy people and many of these people are interested in impact investing – putting their money where it will create a positive social impact.

3)  We have important institutions:  Trinity, Yale, Wesleyan, Quinnipiac, Conn College, University of St Joe's, Uconn.  Each of this institutions either has or is in the process of introducing social enterprise into their curriculum in some way, in large part because there is a huge demand coming from students.  These are the social entrepreneurs of the future, and they are hatching here.

4)  We have reSET which has been building a coalition of interested parties and people and which has been working on ways to ensure that Connecticut becomes a hub of social enterprise:  Introducing legislation, creating an Investment Fund, creating a social enterprise competition, setting up a social enterprise incubator in Hartford.

5)  We have a history and a culture of social innovation. The Wadsworth Atheneum, Bushnell Park, Harriet Beecher Stowe, The boys and girls club. These represented revolutionary social innovation in their day.   It's in our blood.  Social enterprise is an opportunity to capitalize on all of this and reassert our heritage as social innovators.

The problem with Philanthropy...

Mohamad Yunus told a group of Socially Responsible Investors last month that "There is no room for selflessness in business because of philanthropy."  


What an interesting idea!  It fits with my feeling that we live in an increasingly bifurcated world - Democrates and Republicans don't talk; there's a widening gulf between the Haves and Have-nots; religions are becoming extreme and intolerant, (Remember when we all got along?).  In traditional business you're told (without anyone saying it) to leave your heart and your values at the door. When bad things happen you're told it's nothing personal - just business. And if you express the desire to go out on a limb to do the right thing you need a business justification for your do-goodism.  Philanthropy is lauded, but not as an integral part of business but as a nice way to spend the money you've made doing business.


And while we are increasingly compartmentalizing certain areas of our lives, we are at the same time increasingly seeing the breakdown of the wall between professional and personal: Who isn't checking work emails at home these days? Office dresscode and language has gotten more casual. Communication to our clients has gotten more personal.  Telecommuting is in.  Hierarchy is out.

Whether it's natural yin and yang or the pull toward something new it begs the question of which direction business will ultimately take with respect to our higher ideals.   Will we relegate it to the black and white world where business is only about money and philanthropy takes care of the doing good after the money's been made, or will will take a more holistic approach and allow our better selves into the business world.

When you mesh purpose and profit you get social enterprise.  You also get solutions to some of the worlds most pressing problems.  For instance, if you let humanity into the picture and allow your company to stray from it's focus on the bottom line then you are able to make the choice to keep local jobs even at the expense of profits.  You also get the opportunity to give people more than a paycheck but an opportunity to feel great about what they do.

It's time to reset the business paradigm, and unleash the philanthropist-business.

Resilience

Whether you're a president, a parent, or aspiring professional you probably have days when it feels like a bag of bricks is resting on your back.  Getting out of bed in the morning becomes a monumental chore and  getting through the routine demands of the day seem overwhelming.  We know what sets us back - a poor performance, negative feedback, something or someone that lets us down.  But what get's us back on our feet, and feeling capbable, competent, and charged once more?  Resilience. 

It's magical stuff and yet there is now evidence that like a muscle we can flex it, feed it, and help it grow.  Here's how:

Go for a Walk:  This is my mother's recipe and it works.  Getting outside and moving is the simplest and healthiest way to feed yourself.  A trip around the block is all it takes. Spending time in the garden has the same effect.

Put something in order:  Check your watch and give yourself a 20 minute assignment to tidy up some area of your life that's in disarray... Pick a closet, or a room, or a corner of your yard and promise yourself to stick with it for 20 minutes.  It's amazing how quickly you feel resilience back swimming through your veins

Help someone else:   When we feel low the world closes in.  Pain tends to focus our attention, clearly, and specifically, which narrows our world down to that small circle of pain.  This forces us to pay attention, but when the pain is psychic we are better served by getting out of ourselves and refocusing on the world around us.  Find someone you can help.  Call a friend in need, sign up to volunteer, write a check.

Waste time:  Jane McGonigal, inventor of the game SuperBetter explains that to create emotional resilience we need to introduce the positive emotion of winning, and we can do this with video games.   Oddly enough our hearts aren't overly concerned whether we do that by curing cancer or hurling birds into pigs or killing zombies.  So if you're feeling too low to even get moving try a round of Angry Birds and see if it doesn't give you the juice to get up off the couch. Then try one of the above.

And here's the best part.   You will not only feel better, but you will have flexed your resilience muscle, making it stronger and quicker to respond the next time you need it.  Realizing that you can exercise this muscle and improve your resilience over time puts you in the driver's seat and means that over time you can tackle more of the worlds problems knowing there will be setbacks but that you're up to the challenge.

Inspired by Muhammad Yunus

Had the great good fortune to hear Muhammad Yunus speak at the SRI Conference this evening.  What a gift to our civilization!  Here is a man who turned the banking system upside down and showed us what one person can do by focusing on making a difference rather than a profit.

He spoke about his first business, Grameen Bank, which earned him the Nobel Peace Prize for building a bank which lends money, not to make money, but to help people.  He started Grameen Bank with $27 dollars and today it has over 13 Billion in annual revenues, loaning primarily to women with no collateral.


Here are a few tidbits:

• "Whenever I see a problem I create a business to solve it."
• "The problem with philanthropy is that the money only goes one way.  Repetition and expansion become difficult."
• "Making money makes you happy, but helping others makes you super happy."
• "We are at the stage in human existence where the distance between possible and impossible is shrinking.   No one should be poor, illiterate, unemployed."
• "These things exist because of the system and we need to change that system!"
• "Come up with an idea that will solve the problem for 5 people.   Then repeat it."

Crow and Kitten Friendship

Crows are smart.  Kittens are cute.  There is absolutely no rational reason why a grown crow would decide to save and care for a sworn enemy but it did and in the process offers all of us a lesson in the power of compassion.



Crow and Kitten are Friends