How to Start a Career in Social Entrepreneurship?
A career in social entrepreneurship is not only fulfilling but it can also be financially rewarding.
The fact of the matter is as we stand right now, development of the world and societies is growing with enormous speed and is also creating adverse effects on our nature.
we have to deal with these effects of over development on our communities.
Human-generated activities have caused adverse effects on the climate and therefore created many climate problems. Even though it is a huge problem, it also creates opportunities.
As a social entrepreneur, you have to look for opportunities to tackle such problems.
That's what this model stands for. Creating opportunities amidst chaos.
How to get involved as a Social Entrepreneur?
The best way to get involved in socially responsible career is what I call a change of mindset, or a change of attitude.
I think we are all collectively a part of this problem although it’s directly not our fault. We are born into this world where we have to conform to certain standards. We grow up taking these as factual and some as truth.
For example, if you are born in a Western society, you grow up with a self-interest driven business type of mentality. There isn’t anything wrong with that; however, at the core of the capitalist model is the idea to develop at all costs even if it means to cause harm to the environment. Consequently, somebody is left to pick up the tab of such environmental degradation.
The social entrepreneurship model further states that somebody can clean up that mess and turn it into a profit. That would involve tapping into the goodwill of people as well as mobilizing socially-conscious people to rally around a problem.
Somebody has to take ownership over it whether he/she just wants to help or profit from it. The question becomes, how do we get people to focus on this problem?
You can join communities like Greenxprize where you can maximize your social entrepreneurial efforts and tap into the community of like-minded social entrepreneurs and social investors.
You can submit your social enterprise idea to the community and get support and financial help from it. You can discuss sustainability issues in the today's world and also offer solutions to fellow participants who are working on social enterprise projects.
Greenxprize also rewards with $10,000 cash prize every month to participants who submit their social idea based on voting. Although it's not a huge amount it will encourage them and help them for what they are doing to go ahead with their project.
Think about the revolution apple inc started and how it revolutionized mobile platform across IT industry. Greenxprize is trying to have a similar effect, but our footprint is in sustainability space.
We come up with incentives to incentivize people who can think along these lines and then encourage them to make a living out of solving these problems. This step needs to happen quickly, so the best way to start is with a change of mindset. Start by looking at these problems as opportunities and making some lifestyle changes. We also need to raise a new generation of leaders who will be thinking in more responsible ways.
For now, I think people should not just look at the problem from a social point of view but find entrepreneurial opportunities in it and get financially rewarded. It’s only a matter of time until we start seeing the full adverse effects our own creation pretty much.
I do believe in the capitalist model and its potential to solve each of these problems; however, we are dealing with a situation that is a ticking bomb. All of the models that have been projected show that we do not have enough time for the capitalist model. Instead, we can apply a bit of both.
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