How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
Author: David Bornstein
What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change. They are, writes David Bornstein, the driven, creative individuals who question the status quo, exploit new opportunities, refuse to give up--and remake the world for the better.
How to Change the World tells the fascinating stories of these remarkable individuals--many in the United States, others in countries from Brazil to Hungary--providing an In Search of Excellence for the nonprofit sector. In America, one man, J.B. Schramm, has helped thousands of low-income high school students get into college. In South Africa, one woman, Veronica Khosa, developed a home-based care model for AIDS patients that changed government health policy. In Brazil, Fabio Rosa helped bring electricity to hundreds of thousands of remote rural residents. Another American, James Grant, is credited with saving 25 million lives by leading and 'marketing' a global campaign for immunization. Yet another, Bill Drayton, created a pioneering foundation, Ashoka, that has funded and supported these social entrepreneurs and over a thousand like them, leveraging the power of their ideas across the globe.
These extraordinary stories highlight a massive transformation that is going largely unreported by the media: Around the world, the fastest-growing segment of society is the nonprofit sector, as millions of ordinary people--social entrepreneurs--are increasingly stepping in to solve the problems where governments and bureaucracies have failed. How to Change the World shows, as its title suggests, that with determination and innovation, even a single person can make a surprising difference. For anyone seeking tomake a positive mark on the world, this will be both an inspiring read and an invaluable handbook.
Publishers Weekly
Journalist Bornstein (The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank) profiles nine indomitable champions of social change who developed innovative ways to address needs they saw around them in places as distinct as Bombay, India; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and inner-city Washington, D.C. As these nine grew influential when their ingenious ideas proved ever more widely successful, they came to the attention of Ashoka, an organization that sponsors a fellows program to foster social innovation by finding so-called social entrepreneurs to support. As Bornstein interviewed these and many other Ashoka fellows, he saw patterns in the ways they fought to solve their specifically local problems. To demonstrate the commonality among experiences as diverse as a Hungarian mother striving to provide a fuller life for her handicapped son and a South African nurse starting a home-care system for AIDS patients, he presents useful unifying summaries of four practices of innovative organizations and six qualities of successful social entrepreneurs. Bornstein implies that his subjects are in the tradition of Florence Nightingale and Gandhi; the inspiring portraits that emerge from his in-depth reporting on the environments in which individual programs evolved (whether in politically teeming India or amid the expansive grasslands of Brazil) certainly show these unstoppable entrepreneurs as extraordinarily savvy community development experts. In adding up the vast number of current nongovernmental organizations and their corps of agents of positive change, Bornstein aims to persuade that, without a doubt, the past twenty years has produced more social entrepreneurs than terrorists. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Soundview Executive Book Summaries
Social Entrepreneurs and The Power of New Ideas
According to journalist David Bornstein, social entrepreneurs are people with powerful ideas to improve other people's lives who have implemented these ideas across cities, countries and, in some cases, the world. These are the doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, journalists and parents who solve social problems on a large scale and have a profound effect on society. Bornstein points out that they are usually not famous, and are usually not politicians. They are the people who create a transformative force that addresses major problems in the pursuit of a vision, and they will not give up until they have spread their ideas as far as possible.
How to Change the World provides a close look at numerous people from several countries - including the United States, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Hungary, India and Bangladesh - who have advanced systemic change and shifted behavior patterns and perceptions. They have ideas for attacking problems, Bornstein points out, and are unwilling to rest until they have spread their ideas throughout society.
Solving Challenging Problems
Bornstein has chronicled the achievements of many of these people in solving problems that challenge all societies around the globe: inadequate education and health systems, environmental threats, declining trust in political institutions, entrenched poverty, high crime rates, etc. He also demonstrates how their ideas can help businesspeople and nonprofit managers see how social entrepreneurs have served large "markets" with limited resources to solve problems and make a positive change. The creative people Bornstein describes possess the determination and will to propel the innovation that society needs to tackle its toughest problems. He points out that these lessons can be applied across all types of organizations and industries.
Bornstein also describes the recent growth of what he calls the "citizen" sector - the nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations that make up the framework of the social and economic supports, thus multiplying the number and the effectiveness of the world's social entrepreneurs. According to business guru Peter Drucker, this sector is America's leading growth industry.
Bornstein explains that by "sharpening the role of government, shifting practices and attitudes in business and opening up waves of opportunity for people to apply their talents in new, positive ways, the emerging citizen sector is reorganizing the way the work of society gets done."
One of the social entrepreneurs Bornstein profiles is Gloria de Souza, a 45-year-old elementary school teacher in Bombay whose dream in 1981 was to transform education across India. Over her 20 years of teaching experience, she was pained by the rote learning taking place in her school that she felt was holding back her students. By adapting her teaching ideas to India's specific circumstances and founding an organization to build a team to spread her ideas -with the help of a stipend from the social entrepreneur organization Ashoka - she was able to disseminate her Environmental Studies (EVS) approach to teaching. In just a few years, she could demonstrate that her approach significantly increased students' performance. "By the end of the 1980s," Bornstein reports, "the Indian government had incorporated EVS into its national curriculum, making it India's official standard of instruction in grades one through three."
Bornstein also describes - through the example of Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank - how a social entrepreneur can innovate better ways to alleviate poverty among a group of people. Yunus attacked this challenge by focusing on access to capital. By creating a way for villagers to access small amounts of working capital, they are able to purchase assets, increase their productive capacity, and capture profits that usually go to moneylenders and land owners.
Disability Rights
Bornstein also highlights Justin Dart, a Texas Republican who had contracted polio in 1948 when he was 18 years old, and been denied a teaching certificate because he used a wheelchair. After visiting a facility in South Vietnam in 1967 for children with polio and witnessing the deplorable conditions there, he returned to the United States and became a spokesman for disability rights. He would eventually become a member of the National Council on the Handicapped during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and worked to advance the first version of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 1990, as chairman of the President's Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities, he fought to achieve the law's passage.
Bornstein shows readers how inspired individuals can use determination and innovation to make a difference.
Why We Like This Book
How to Change the World reveals fascinating stories about remarkably creative people who have been able to challenge the status quo and facilitate positive change for others. Any organization can use these stories that address many of the most difficult issues facing people today to gain inspiration to solve problems where others have failed. Copyright © 2004 Soundview Executive Book Summaries
What People Are Saying
Bill Bradley
The social entrepreneurs chronicled in this book are part of the vital generation of independent, creative leaders . . .
Arminio Fraga
Arminio Fraga, Former Governor of the Central Bank of Brazil
. . . Bornstein's book will touch the hearts and minds of many. I hope it will get the wide readership it deserves . . .
Jeff Skoll
Jeff Skoll, Founder and Chairman, Skoll Foundation; first president of eBay
. . . a book about hope, about courage, and about the power of those extraordinary men and women who change the world.
Table of Contents:
| Acknowledgments | ||
| 1 | Restless People | 1 |
| 2 | From Little Acorns Do Great Trees Grow | 11 |
| 3 | The Light in My Head Went On: Fabio Rosa, Brazil: Rural Electrification | 20 |
| 4 | The Fixed Determination of an Indomitable Will: Florence Nightingale, England: Nursing | 40 |
| 5 | A Very Significant Force: Bill Drayton, United States: The Bubble | 47 |
| 6 | Why Was I Never Told about This? | 61 |
| 7 | Ten - Nine - Eight - Childline!: Jeroo Billimoria, India: Child Protection | 68 |
| 8 | The Role of the Social Entrepreneur | 90 |
| 9 | "What Sort of a Mother Are You?": Erzsebet Szekeres, Hungary: Assisted Living for the Disabled | 98 |
| 10 | Are They Possessed, Really Possessed, by an Idea? | 117 |
| 11 | If the World Is to Be Put in Order: Vera Cordeiro, Brazil: Reforming Healthcare | 126 |
| 12 | In Search of Social Excellence | 146 |
| 13 | The Talent Is Out There: J. B. Schramm, United States: College Access | 159 |
| 14 | New Opportunities, New Challenges | 178 |
| 15 | Something Needed to Be Done: Veronica Khosa, South Africa: Care for AIDS Patients | 183 |
| 16 | Four Practices of Innovative Organizations | 200 |
| 17 | This Country Has to Change: Javed Abidi, India: Disability Rights | 209 |
| 18 | Six Qualities of Successful Social Entrepreneurs | 233 |
| 19 | Morality Must March with Capacity: James Grant, United States: The Child Survival Revolution | 242 |
| 20 | Blueprint Copying | 256 |
| 21 | Conclusion: The Emergence of the Citizen Sector | 264 |
| Epilogue | 280 | |
| Notes | 283 | |
| Resource Guide | 303 | |
| Selected Readings | 309 | |
| Index | 313 |
Books about: Weights for 50 or Running Fit
Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith
Author: Robert A Slayton
Franklin Roosevelt is said to have explained Al Smith, and his own New Deal, with these words: "Practically all the things we've done in the federal government are the things Al Smith did as governor of New York." Smith, who ran for president in 1928, not only set the model for FDR, he also taught America that the promise of the country extends to everyone and no one should be left behind.
The story of this trailblazer is the story of America in the twentieth century. A child of second-generation immigrants, a boy self-educated on the streets of the nation's largest city, he went on to become the greatest governor in the history of New York; a national leader and symbol to immigrants, Catholics, and the Irish; and in 1928 the first Catholic major-party candidate for president. He was the man who championed safe working conditions in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. He helped build the Empire State Building. Above all, he was a national model, both for his time and for ours.
Yet, as Robert Slayton demonstrates in this rich story of an extraordinary man and his times, Al Smith's life etched a conflict still unresolved today. Who is a legitimate American? The question should never be asked, yet we can never seem to put it behind us. In the early years of the twentieth century, the Ku Klux Klan reorganized, not to oppose blacks, but rather against the flood of new immigrants arriving from southern Europe and other less familiar sources. Anti-Catholic hatred was on the rise, mixed up with strong feelings about prohibition and tensions between towns and cities. The conflict reached its apogee when Smith ran for president. Slayton's story of the famous election of 1928,in which Smith lost amid a blizzard of blind bigotry, is chilling reading for Americans of all faiths. Yet Smith's eventual redemption, and the recovery of his deepest values, shines as a triumph of spirit over the greatest of adversity.
Even in our corrosively cynical times, the greater vision of Al Smith's life inspires and uplifts us.
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