Sustainability for the Citizen Sector 2008

8/14/2019 Sustainability for the Citizen Sector 2008

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Foreword

Voluntary welfare organizations, non profits and not-for-profits are part of a more inclusivesector.Whether we call it the civic, social, social service or the citizen sector 1; many of itspertaining organizations have been instrumental into the provision of what can be socalled 'indigenous social stewardship 2.0': indigenous for our native capability to had hadroots with people and gain their trust; social stewardship as we earned a place in thesocial value chain delivery by capturing people very local needs and responding to it; andthe 2.0 added is that long before, we as a sector have put into practice the fact that aparticipatory approach with the beneficiaries is of a complete matter.The citizen sector as 'citizens seen as the active ingredient, tens of thousands upliftingmillions others' today encompasses VWOs, non profits, not for profits, cooperatives, socialentrepreneurs and other new legal forms exploding everywhere 2.Our emergence has earned us a standing amidst the public sector and the businessprivate sector.Our three sectors are now learning how to entrepreneur together for human good, whilenot overlooking their own interests and bringing into synergy their competitive advantages.Competitive Advantage, that is said! Ours have been I recall it to be since decades at thelead of delivering ' indigenous social stewardship 2.0' to millions in need and build strongcitizen bases for our organizations. While materializing our way, Governments did too littlefearing we would threaten or replace them and the business sector didn't perceive theimportance to put his financial and management mastery at our service neither were wetotally prepared/willing to; this leading to the obvious fact that our organizations today areconstantly at risk relying heavily on grants, donations, unimaginative limited fundraisingapproaches and poor human & organizational capacity.

Fortunately, the landscape is changing fast and in our favor. In this paper, we first bringmore awareness among on new mindsets, disruptive ones' that should happen within ourdoers and leaders in citizen organizations, and only then suggest some innovative

approaches that could be explored into building more solid organizations, be it for thepeace promoting grassroots in Kisangani 3 or the youth empowerment organization inDalat 4.

1 The term citizen sector is a term coined by Ashoka Innovators for the Public; please visit http://www.ashoka.org/citizensector

2 Examples of the new hybrid forms Social Enterprises, CDCs, L3Cs...can be found here http://www.se-alliance.org/about_policy.cfm

3 Kisangani is located in the Democratic Republic of Congo

4 Dalat is located in Singapore
http://www.ashoka.org/citizensectorhttp://www.ashoka.org/citizensectorhttp://www.se-alliance.org/about_policy.cfmhttp://www.se-alliance.org/about_policy.cfmhttp://www.ashoka.org/citizensector


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Is Sustainability relevant for the citizen sector?

I can still recall one of my friends founding last year a voluntary organization he called -Love the Human 5 - in my country. Because he has been successful in his previousprojects, a lot of people volunteered to join him. Soon after; for their first meeting, they hadto borrow the office of another organization and they kept doing it.After 6 months of unsuccessful fundraising (with great time and some money devoted);scarcity of resources became evident and members dramatically left. The last time I metthem on a meeting, my friend was with 3 other newbie's in the university garden. Onrequest, he wrote to me back a week ago saying he still struggle and think of shutting itdown.This outlined experience of my friend represents more or less the reality as lived bythousands of organizations that cannot even pass the crucial step of institutional funding;and if they do, are confronted to many other hurdles.

Lets' do this - if we alter on one hand the well known definition of Sustainability 6 bringing itcloser to an organizational perspective as: "the ongoing responsible operations that meetits interests of the present without compromising its own ability to meet its futureinterests" and secondly, should we assume the actual ultimate interest of the sector is togenerate value (social or a mix of social/economic); it suddenly makes a complete sensefor any citizen organization to backbone Sustainability as being worth it for its living.

Lets' then be practical - For organizations caring for their living; will mean being good atthose three (3) exercises: how to acquire resources, how to build successful organizationsand how to achieve impact.

Here, we will broaden our understanding of resources not only seen as attracting financialcapital but as well as social capital, human capital and showcase the importance ofTechnology at work.

5 Love the Human is a registered NGO in Ivory Coast. Acknowledgements to Guy Gnali for allowing me to refer to his organization.

6 The Brunt land definition, the most quoted and well known definition of Sustainability can be found here http://eerc.ra.utk.edu/ccpct/sustaindefn.html
http://eerc.ra.utk.edu/ccpct/sustaindefn.htmlhttp://eerc.ra.utk.edu/ccpct/sustaindefn.htmlhttp://eerc.ra.utk.edu/ccpct/sustaindefn.html


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What is your Unique Meaning Proposition? Change is a buzzword in our sector. Exposure on the field allowed me to hear of suchwords like Be the Change, Change makers, agents of positive Change, systemic Change.What is all this fuss about change, I told to myself?As one knows: one is born, grows and dies and his entire life is spanned of change.So, with or without the sector, the individual like the society will keep transforming asChange is an inevitable law.Again, what's in the Change that grips the whole sector? Change is in the sector as weare inclining its orientation by shaping the social agenda (no new substance here); butthere is a completely different AHA moment when you report change, this time in relationto the people we serve.

When given an option to decide, Change is only adopted by people when it carries a doseof MEANING in their eyes. MEANING is then the ultimate link that holds us to peoplebetween our original willingness to take care and the value generated by ourcommon efforts at end . In Between, Change is the road to reach there and MEANINGthe vehicle that a citizen decides to embark upon for the journey.

If MEANING is then how people interpret the end value and find it worth being a part of thechange; every citizen sector organization (CSO) should then capture and stand on hisUnique Meaning Proposition .Our native capability, this direct exposure allows us to capture the very real meaning outof the end value we wish to offer to people. As our strong social missions incline us to givebenefit to the largest number of people, then into building a strong citizen base; a UniqueMeaning Proposition (UMP) formulated and perhaps explicitly promoted will be the glue tocitizens trust, loyalty and engagement; in short our way.

On a lighter note, a Unique Meaning Proposition is easily distinguishable from a UniqueValue Proposition (UVP). It is not how we profile the uniqueness of our products/servicesvis--vis competitors and sell; but how we convince people and win them to embark on ourway of creating Value, as we recognize they are our first assets in the beginning and in thelong run as well as we often start from the scratch and do not enter the arena with hugecapital and markets pre-established .UMP could be a sub-element, be coupled with or fundamentally replace the UVP as itsidentical brother within the citizen sector. It could be 'statement-formulated' and be a partor redefine even the theory of change of any CSO.

Yet, more has to be explored in that concept but UMP will be especially useful for newentrepreneurial citizens and virtually for any CSO.


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Our Citizen Base is our Gold Mine When we recognize our entrepreneurial nature and build large ownership among thecommunity with help of meaning and value, our Citizen Base is our most precious GoldMine.

Ashoka with its Citizen Base Initiative 12 and the Schwab Foundation with its annual socialentrepreneurship awards 13 provide us with a collection of case studies of how CSOsmobilize the community and generate capital out of this to reach financial sustainability.Interestingly, we will point out to organizations like The Blind Light Foundation 14, HoneyCare 15 and even Cinepop 16 who achieved self-financial sustainability by respecting thosetwo conditions.

Let's talk of the Blind Light Foundation. They initiated the 'blindekuh' restaurant which is areversal role immersion experience in the dark, of sighted dinners guided by a staff ofblinded employees.-The Entrepreneurial move: responding to the miscommunication gap between blinded

and sighted people by seeing it as an entrepreneurial opportunity-The meaning for its citizen base (Blinded persons say): regarding us as able citizenswhere we can be active, we earn wages and we reduce our dependence vis--visgovernment and others; we are in.-The value for the community: with full salaries at the market rates and interaction, theblinded persons felt more ownership to the society, the people are happy with a newexperience, the CSO sustains itself and the government can tap into this model to betterfulfill its duties.

Although a very able enterprise, Blind Light Foundation would have created more value bygiving ever more meaning to its citizen base. Yet, they empower visually impaired andblinded people but did they ask to themselves if that blindness was permanent or not,

curable or not, a matter of funding or not? They could have perhaps contributed in offeringmedical assistance to the concerned so they could recover their view in a long run. Thiswill be of exceptional meaning for them and few clients of the 'blindekuh restaurants'wouldn't agree to pay an extra more, understanding this matter of meaning and the newpersonal happiness coming along and beyond the 'darkness' experience of the moment .In case this did not apply to their employees, they sure could explore other options ofmaking the life of their employees easier by enabling street, web accessibility orencouraging adaptative houses or skills for the family.This is a truly win-win-win situation.

12 Please visit http://www.citizenbase.org/bp_competitions

13 Please visit http://www.schwabfound.org/schwabentrepreneurs.htm

14 Please visit http://www.blindekuh.ch/

15 Please visit www.honeycareafrica.com

16 Please visit www.cinepop.com.mx/home_cinepop_i.html
http://www.citizenbase.org/bp_competitionshttp://www.schwabfound.org/schwabentrepreneurs.htmhttp://www.blindekuh.ch/http://www.honeycareafrica.com/http://www.cinepop.com.mx/home_cinepop_i.htmlhttp://www.cinepop.com.mx/home_cinepop_i.htmlhttp://www.honeycareafrica.com/http://www.blindekuh.ch/http://www.schwabfound.org/schwabentrepreneurs.htmhttp://www.citizenbase.org/bp_competitions


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Governments in Action

Speaking briefly, here are some ideas where Governments and the citizen sector couldfoster their collaboration.

One is about scaling on the potential of National Civic Service Programs growingeverywhere in the world.In 2003, we counted around 210 civic service programs in 57 countries, with 22 percentadministered by government agencies and engaging more than 77 percent of youth 17.The idea is to revisit the end utility and the decision-making process as part of nationalcivic service programs with CSOs now being the core recipients and the individuals giventhe freedom to decide - the government seeing its role as a regulator and offering itstrusted brand as an umbrella (a national coalition of CSOs could do also in the event ofcareless signals from governments).Practically, with help of technology, we could have an online exchange system whereconcerned citizens and CSOs hungry to host volunteers meet in one (market)place, thefirst exerting their skills and experience and the second the domain of intervention and

compensation package if any.This system (backboned with strong guidelines) could work within a compulsory orvoluntary civic service, extending the scope of volunteers beyond youth to include virtuallyevery citizen and the volunteers could join the CSOs on an individual, group basis or evenvirtually within short or long term assignments at any time.Along, the Government could be a full player and appeal to volunteers by showcasing therelevance of its programs just as any CSO will do on the online system.

The second part is about how Governments redistribute our common wealth.Public Private Partnerships have grown as a way for Governments to fulfil public tasks inpartnership with private enterprises.PPPs in the social services sector now coined as public social private partnership (PsPP) 18

is emerging and CSOs here have a 'natural' role to play. By exploring the potential ofPSPPs that brings Government, social enterprises and private enterprises together todeliver social services, each one is leveraging on its core competencies, the 2 last invitingresources for themselves.Another way to encourage the sector to self-sustain is through public contract biddingdirected to the own public administration. Governments could recognize we can play a rolein providing good and services and one good way to start as we could certainly notcompete at this stage with the private sector would be to reserve a portion of these publiccontracts to CSOs or consortiums of CSOs-private enterprises/municipal enterprises.Finally, Governments are finding new wealth in Sovereign Funds 19 more aggressive infinancial markets worldwide.There is much need to pay attention in their future capability to drain social value as well 20;

and where the citizen sector could fit into the picture.

17 From the Report 'The forms and Nature of Service, a global Assessment'; please visit

wbweb.wustl.edu/csd/Publications/2003/Global_Assessment_Report.pdf

18 Please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public/social/private_partnership

19 Please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fund

20 One example is the Africa Investor Social Index demanding to Sovereign funds worldwide to dedicate 1% of their investments into socially responsible

businesses operating in Africa; please visit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public/social/private_partnershiphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fundhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public/social/private_partnership


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The financial breakthrough happening

We need capital and the social financial sector has started to respond.Socially Responsible Investing 21 and Innovative Financing are paving the way to a forbenefit social sector.There is a plethora of financial instruments becoming available to the citizen sector andbeing sophisticated everyday. Yet, the most significant either operational or promising arecommunity investing 22, social angel investing 23, social venture capital 24 and social stockexchange 25.These new instruments and their investors are looking for a Social Return on Investmentand profit as well. This is great news and now HYBRID 26 organizations are emerging,innovating in their way of creating value by balancing a social and economic return.

Another very interesting option represent Inclusive Business Models or Hybrid ValueChain TM (HVC) 27 where VWOs, NPOs and for benefit CSOs can self-sustain financially.HVCs are a direct collaboration between CSOs and businesses, giving a chance for theirproducts or services to reach the Base of the Pyramid or the 4 Billion people living withless than UDS$ 2 a day.As Businesses have limited knowledge on low income individuals, find it too costly to sellon an individual basis with a low margin and for many more reasons...they can rely onCSOs who in turn tap into their citizen base, providing individuals with affordable products& services like water, housing, health - more inclusive meaning then; and still generating aprofit that is shared.One successful example documented is mexican small farmers access to irrigationsystems at a fair price (with value-added services like financing, commercialization andtechnical assistance) that doubled/tripled their incomes while Amanco, the involved waterdistribution company leveraged on this newly formed rural distribution channel; earning aprofitable US$ 1 million sales in the first year. 28

This said; CSOs are in a unique position to partner with Businesses to serve low incomemarkets by tapping into their citizen base (UNDP recently realizing it now supports theprocess since 2006 with its Growing Inclusive Markets intiative 29). No selfish meaning,rather inclusive meaning is the key.

21 Socially Responsible Investing; please visit, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socially_responsible_investing

22 Community investing; please visit http://www.communityinvest.org/overview/what.cfm

23 Social angel investing; term coined by the author with reference to an example; please visit http://entrepreneurcommons.googlepages.com/ 24 Social venture capital; please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Venture_Capital

25 Social stock exchange with BOVESPA was an early initiative; please visit

http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/news_events/9.1_news_archives/2004_04_08/sse_bovespa.pdf

26 An Introduction to hybrid organizations; please visit http://www-personal.umich.edu/~emreyna/hybriz/

27 Hybrid Value Chains: is a concept coined by Ashoka, read about it here http://www.ashoka.org/hvc

28 Hybrid Value Chains: Social Innovations and Development of the Small Farmer Irrigation Market in Mexico; please visit

http://www.ashoka.org/files/DevelopmentofMexicanIrrigationMarket.pdf

29 UNDP Growing Inclusive Markets, please visit http://www.growinginclusivemarkets.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socially_responsible_investinghttp://www.communityinvest.org/overview/what.cfmhttp://entrepreneurcommons.googlepages.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Venture_Capitalhttp://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/news_events/9.1_news_archives/2004_04_08/sse_bovespa.pdfhttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~emreyna/hybriz/http://www.ashoka.org/hvchttp://www.ashoka.org/files/DevelopmentofMexicanIrrigationMarket.pdfhttp://www.growinginclusivemarkets.org/http://www.growinginclusivemarkets.org/http://www.ashoka.org/files/DevelopmentofMexicanIrrigationMarket.pdfhttp://www.ashoka.org/hvchttp://www-personal.umich.edu/~emreyna/hybriz/http://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/news_events/9.1_news_archives/2004_04_08/sse_bovespa.pdfhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Venture_Capitalhttp://entrepreneurcommons.googlepages.com/http://www.communityinvest.org/overview/what.cfmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socially_responsible_investing


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Catching up on Technology

There is so much to say about Technology in the Citizen Sector if not to sum it up as weare the sector lagging behind.We can observe here one of Ashoka' rare pitfalls as its essential technological support to

its social entrepreneurs fellows consists of donations for grating an access to Internet.We were pioneers in the social stewardship 2.0; we shouldn't leave the web 2.0 realitybehind us.Interestingly, some voluntary CSOs after the rush for hardwares and softwares arediscovering how technology can help them in attracting more resources and deliver ontheir value. Many cases in the use of Second Life speak for themselves. 30

For us catching up on Technology, we will need 2 more missing institutions (and perhapsmany more): one that accommodate us with the language of Technology-savvy byproviding meaningful knowledge; a gap that has partially and recently started to be filledupon by the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) 31 and a second institution that offersinnovative financing for CSOs to acquire an end-to-end technology platform on a

sustainable basis.

Conclusion

Apart from attracting resources, there are still big challenges we as a whole sector face,one of the most crucial being how to measure our social impact effectiveness.When I measure how effective your social impact is, resources of all kind can also flow this will be of invaluable value to start answering this in a consistent and universallyagreed approach.

Sustainability Amimi Ad infinitum (Sustainability at heart to infinity).

30 Non Profits Best Practices with Second Life, please visit http://holymeatballs.org/pdfs/BestPracticesforNon-profitsinSecondLife_012008.pdf

31 Nonprofit Technology Network, please visit http://www.nten.org/
http://holymeatballs.org/pdfs/BestPracticesforNon-profitsinSecondLife_012008.pdfhttp://www.nten.org/http://www.nten.org/http://holymeatballs.org/pdfs/BestPracticesforNon-profitsinSecondLife_012008.pdf

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Sustainability for the Citizen Sector 2008