- Community of Sustainability Entrepreneurs
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Hi Anders,
I took the liberty of pointing a few Social Entrepreneurs I know at the site. This is the feedback one gave (below).
Chris.
... I came away with the idea that perhaps the idea is presented there in a more complicated manner than necessary. May I explain that?
Every system or process has to be sustainable. If it isn't, it only lasts as long as someone is prepared to add energy or resources. I interpret this site as expressing the same ideas as Nic Frances does in his book 'The End Of Charity'. Nic doesn't say the end of helping others, he just points out what he considers to be flaws in the current process, and how to fix them. By the way, he has put those ideas into practice as head of major charitable organisations in London and Australia, and as the Founder of a couple of For Profit businesses. Take a look at http://www.dymocks.com.au/ProductDetails/ProductDetail.aspx?R=97817... (no, I'm not his publisher! Just someone who has read the book)
Nic's central concept is that it is impossible to give enough money to solve the problem. I believe he means that even if we divided the fortunes of the very wealthy around the rest of us it would only last as long as it takes to spend all the money. It would gravitate back to the wealthy few. That's because the system we have at the moment does that. The solution, then, is to change our system - get Market Forces behind charitable aims. Nic then provides several examples of how he has achieved exactly that, resulting in better support for those already being helped, additional support and opportunities for a new group, and the process now returns a measurable financial benefit to the original donor! In a word, it has become sustainable.
(ends)
I took the liberty of pointing a few Social Entrepreneurs I know at the site. This is the feedback one gave (below).
Chris.
... I came away with the idea that perhaps the idea is presented there in a more complicated manner than necessary. May I explain that?
Every system or process has to be sustainable. If it isn't, it only lasts as long as someone is prepared to add energy or resources. I interpret this site as expressing the same ideas as Nic Frances does in his book 'The End Of Charity'. Nic doesn't say the end of helping others, he just points out what he considers to be flaws in the current process, and how to fix them. By the way, he has put those ideas into practice as head of major charitable organisations in London and Australia, and as the Founder of a couple of For Profit businesses. Take a look at http://www.dymocks.com.au/ProductDetails/ProductDetail.aspx?R=97817... (no, I'm not his publisher! Just someone who has read the book)
Nic's central concept is that it is impossible to give enough money to solve the problem. I believe he means that even if we divided the fortunes of the very wealthy around the rest of us it would only last as long as it takes to spend all the money. It would gravitate back to the wealthy few. That's because the system we have at the moment does that. The solution, then, is to change our system - get Market Forces behind charitable aims. Nic then provides several examples of how he has achieved exactly that, resulting in better support for those already being helped, additional support and opportunities for a new group, and the process now returns a measurable financial benefit to the original donor! In a word, it has become sustainable.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Anders Abrahamsson on
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Interesting contribution!
Makes me also rethink the structure of the community, to add what is now in groups to be in specific forums (since you did post it here in the forum section, and not in the group related to conceptual conversation and research).
Will response more qualitatively in time, right now in process of a big redesign and restructuring of the online presence for all deeds related to sustianopreneurship.
Peace,
Anders
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Permalink Reply by Chris Milton on -
Hi Anders,
Glad you found it useful, and am looking forward to the restructuring!
Take Care
Chris.
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Well, partly the restructuring is already done! See -
http://sustainopreneurship.ning.com/forum
The groups will be kept, tho, even if the forum sub-division now in place echoes the topics of the groups.
The groups are maybe used for future updating needs, if you care more or the other of our sub-topics immediately mentioned here, as in research, education, or application.
So, see forum descriptions and fire off your topic, Chris! Happy to have you with us :).
Peace,
Anders
PS. You saw that you can follow the association behind this virtual community, AEREAS, on Twitter :) ? http://twitter.com/aereas ? :) Featured members on the Café, i. e. the Founding Members of AEREAS gets their blogging notified on the AEREAS collaborative microblog :). DS.
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