BUS 374

The material this week correlated social innovation with Christian discipleship. Jesus' mission on earth was to love, serve, lift and teach the humble and meek. Often, they were the poor. The goal of social innovation is the same, and those who work in the field could be considered true disciples, because they emulate Jesus.  One of the talks we had this week, "Are we not all beggars" by Elder Holland was one of my favorites of that conference. I love the obvious love with which he speaks. He gives an example of charity with his memory of President Monson shuffling through the airport on a return trip from war torn Germany in his house slippers, because he had given away his shoes, along with his extra clothes for the trip. This struck a memory in me, of my husband giving away his winter gloves on an icy December evening to a homeless man who was taking momentary shelter in the store we were leaving. We had left already, and were driving away when my husband suddenly turn

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