Jina Moore, a correspondent for Christian Science Monitor, recently crawled inside the brain of five social entrepreneurs in hopes of figuring out what makes them tick. Her quest was similar in some respects to the research of Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers, where he looks into the indicators behind individual success. Both seem to involve a fair amount of chance – an accumulation of life twists that turn out to have a positive and powerful snowball effect – and both rely on a strong sense of visionary determination. As Moore reports:
How do they [social entrepreneurs] sustain a lifetime of commitment to a change that might take generations to see?
“We call it a moment of obligation,” says Lara Galinsky, of the Echoing Green Foundation, whose 471 fellows have raised more than $1 billion for their causes since 1987. “It’s usually not a dramatic moment; it’s a gathering of moments, but it’s very clear. It’s when something gathers such force that you can’t ignore it.”
It doesn’t happen that often. There is only 1 social entrepreneur for every 10 million of the rest of us, according to calculations of Ashoka, an organization that funds social entrepreneurs around the world. Ashoka founder Bill Drayton bases his calculations on nearly 30 years’ worth of seeking out the elusive combination of vision and passion that social entrepreneurs put into practice.
“The core defining element is that they simply cannot come to rest … until their dream has become a new pattern across all of society,” says Mr. Drayton. “This is very different from everyone else: the scholar or the artist expresses an idea, and they’re happy. The manager … make[s] the company work. The social worker, the professional help people … make their lives better. None of that would remotely satisfy the social entrepreneur. Their job is to change the system.”
Ironically, I came across this article at 2am when I couldn’t sleep so I logged onto my Google reader to catch up on changing the world. I had just finished reading Outliers by Gladwell and was thinking about his theories of success for hockey players, pilots, computer gurus, and the like. Unfortunately, Gladwell hasn’t done a case study on the indicators of success for social entrepreneurs yet; I’d be interested to know what he’d find. He does tell us, however, that the currents that lead us to our chosen trajectories in life are frequently random and imperceptible. Because 2am is not the appropriate hour to be calling up real social entrepreneurs and getting the skinny, I started to think about why I am the way I am – that is, socially conscious and incredibly passionate. It is easy to look at the big picture: where I grew up, the people who supported me, the places that I traveled to, but I tried to strip it down to the most commonly translatable factor that I could find.
This is what I came up with: MTV
Music was my first love and through music – or rather, the music videos put out by socially conscious artists – was my first exposure to the poverty of the outside world through a medium that I could understand. Before I even left my living room, before I even went looking for it, I was educated about and inspired by important global issues because of the music video. Of course, music videos have changed a lot since they first came out then, but every once and awhile, another good one comes along.
Social enterprise is a relatively young movement. The current generation of graduates has been praised as a group of service-oriented, do-gooders and we’re also one of the first generations weened on MTV. It’s an unlikely correlation and I’m certainly no Malcolm Gladwell, but I’m willing to make a bet. Musicians and what they choose to do with their music videos may just be one of the many imperceptible currents that can increase social action. Their songs are proof that there is more than one kind of business model to engage the aspiring social entrepreneur. For the next month, I’ll feature a music video once a week put out by a socially conscious artist. Not all of the artists are particularly awesome or well-known, but you’ll probably find yourself singing a long because their message is what’s catchy.
[Sorry readers, for the first video you'll have to follow the link here. Arista Records has disabled the embed code.]
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