BUS 374

This week we studied self-reliance, as it pertains to social innovations. Micro-financing is a tool that was developed by Dr. Muhammad Yunus to enable underprivileged people to move toward financial self-reliance. He compares poor people to bonsai trees: essentially a bonsai tree is created from the same tree that grows to reach full height. When that seed is planted in a small pot that limits the root growth it keeps the tree small, unable to reach it's full potential. Similarly, the poor are given the same makeup as anyone else, but their potential is limited by their surroundings.  As I was reading about self-reliance on the Churches website,  Catching the Vision of Self-Reliance, I came across the following quote by president Dieter F. Uchtdorf: “Our Heavenly Father asks only that we do the best we can—that we work according to our full capacity, however great or small that may be.”   This struck me, as someone who is constantly striving to improve, to the point where I can get

  This week we learned about impact investing. In recent years there has been a shift from the shareholder-centric model to consumers demanding more from the companies they support, and placing that focus on the companies to not just sell more goods, but to do more good. This shift has resulted in investors looking for opportunities that provide not just financial returns, but social returns as well.   In the Forbes article, it was gratifying to read that Social investments can earn as much return as traditional. That means that at least a small part of the $2.9 trillion being invested will actually do something positive. We have too many people doing terrible things, to each other, to the environment, that knowing that a small part of that is going to support social causes makes me feel really good.  Muhammad Yunus would like poverty to only exist in museums. Is that possible? I honestly don't think so, because there will always be people who make unfortunate choices, either for t

  Summary of the main ideas and topics of the week. This week we learned about hybrid organizations and social business. A hybrid organization is one that uses for for profit business techniques with non-profit, social enterprise ideals. They can use various methods to integrate the two halves, and all have their pros and cons. There are tax issues to consider, and finances, customers vs beneficiaries, and the conundrum of how to staff an organization that is both for profit and non-profit effectively. Social businesses can utilize many different business models, including  Cross-Compensation,  Fee for Service,  Employment and skills training,  Market Intermediary,  Market Connector,  Independent Support, and  Cooperative. Each has benefits and works to build the social enterprise.  I enjoyed reading the Social Enterprise examples in "22 Awesome Social Enterprise Ideas and Examples". It was interesting to read about the examples of businesses who support the social needs of t

The material this week discussed some key problems faced by Non-profits. Key among them was the concept of the non-profit starvation cycle. Non-profits face multiple causes of this starvation cycle, including unrealistic expectations from those who fund them. Funders unreasonably expect non-profits to continue to reduce overhead, spend less on advertising and marketing. This in turn results in underfunded overhead and incorrect tax reporting. This is a cyclical problem, where reporting is lower than actual, but then because lower amounts are reported, lower amounts are expected.  This can be corrected if funders are educated on how much things actually cost, and grants being given based on impact rather than overhead. All of this needs to be changed so that non-profit organizations have the freedom to invest in their infrastructure in order to see higher impact in the long run.  This was made abundantly clear in Dan Pallota's TED talk. This talk really got me thinking about how I h

This week was about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR is one outlet of social innovation which involves the philanthropic efforts of for profit corporations. Companies typically fall into one of four archetypes when it come so social responsibility: the Shareholder Maximizer, which emphasizes risk mitigation and increasing shareholder value, the Corporate Contributor, who focus on stakeholder relationships, the Impact Integrator, who strategize their social impact across business units and throughout the corporation, and the Social Innovator, for whom social impact of vital and central to their over all business strategy. All of these archetypes can see increased value in several ways, including new market opportunities, improved regulatory relationships, drawing talent, increased stakeholder satisfaction,  and improved supply chains.  I was very interested in the information about B Corps. It was gratifying to know that there are companies out there for whom their responsibil

  Week 7 was all about lean start up. the concept was originally intended for start up businesses, but large corporations have assumed the concepts to their advantage, and it applies well to social innovation as well. The three key principles are the Business Model Canvas, a document that allows a startup to visualize how they will create value for themselves and their customers. The second principle is the customer development, where they develop minimum viable products (MVP) and immediately seek customer feedback. And third, utilize agile development, where their product goes through incremental iterations, improvements, and testing, (repeatedly) to develop their MVP. This was super interesting to have agile development explained in this way, as I have heard my husband, who is in Quality Assurance, refer to it. I assumed it was a software program, not a development concept, and learning that there are different applications was eye-opening.  How can sharpening your business skills he