What makes Social Entrepreneurs Successful: Katy Bernhardt

While researching the web for articles on Social Entrepreneurship to search for ideas and topics for the November blog, I came across Social Edge a site a part of the Skoll Foundation for social entrepreneurs. “What Works in Social Change?” an article by Scott Sherman addresses the things that work for social entrepreneurs. The one that stood out to me most was the ‘social aikido’, mostly because of working with UJ at Blue Earth. This one part of three that makes social entrepreneurs more successful than traditional nonprofits is their ability to work with billion dollar corporations to succeed in fulfilling their mission to change a social problem. Some would argue that many traditional older nonprofit often protest larger corporations and multi-billion dollar business because of their practices, whether the problem is manufacturing conditions overseas or low wages in the working poor. But sometimes a collaborative business approach being constructive ‘to put forth a better vision to the future’ can be more successful than protests. I felt this can be demonstrated in UJ’s visionary idea of working with Athens-Clarke county and UGA to help those working poor in the Athens community have a living wage and work towards becoming potential business owners.

Sherman also asks the bold and important question ‘is social entrepreneurship sufficient in itself to change the world?’ On a small scale in Athens, GA UJ’s idea that may or may not become a reality to a certain extent I say yes. However, I think more business need to develop a plan similar to UJ’s to create a permanent change. One business can change the lives for few but this one business cannot change the lives of every single person living below poverty level in Athens, GA. This may be pessimistic, but more business in the area would need to develop plans similar to UJ in order to create a more permanent to change and affect larger numbers of people. Businesses may like the idea and become inspired but until others step up to the plate to continue to change it is going to be difficult to make this a large-scale change.