The Role of Government in Social Entrepreneurship

This week’s social innovation topic is “Creating Policies and Ecosystems for Social Innovation”. The articles written by Tina Rosenberg and Michele Jolin serve as a strong base for discussing whether governments should foster social innovation through social programs that provide subsidies and grants, or if social entrepreneurs should lean on the private sector to raise capital for their ventures.

I think that governments and large corporations, particularly multinational organizations, are increasingly in a place where their impact on society is closely monitored and evaluated. With the advent of a number of tools including social media, governments and corporations are becoming increasingly transparent. One reason may be that business is facing more regulatory oversight, and another may be that the public is demanding government and business to play a more central role in creating a more equitable society. In this case, social media has played the role of a regulatory agency. What I am getting at here is that the paradigm in which governments, large corporations, and social entrepreneurs exist has greatly changed over the course of the past decade, and the public has had an increased and stronger voice.

The social programs we have seen in Brail and Mexico, and now in many other countries around the world, are an additional element in this new landscape. The conditional cash transfer programs implemented by government are changing societies for the better, bringing down Gini coefficients, and providing real opportunity now only for today’s generation, but for future generations to come. Government does play an important factor in sustaining these programs and for the growth of new programs in countries around the world. But, as Jolin outlines in her article, we need to “do more to create a pipeline for future entrepreneurial efforts”, and that includes here in the United States.

In his Forbes Magazine article “Three Things Governments Should Do for Social Entrepreneurship”[1], Felix Oldenberg suggests that government has a more important role to play. Oldenberg suggests – like the authors of our readings had – that each country has its own conditions, and as such, there needs to be a hybrid approach to fostering social innovation. That is to say, government needs to support private enterprise, and private enterprise needs to support social entrepreneurs, and social entrepreneurs – through their programming and ventures – can have the opportunity to improve inequality in the same ways as those have in Brazil and Mexico. Oldenberg suggests that “governments need to create regulation-free special social development zones” and “help drive a culture of recognizing and celebrating change-makers.” Do you think there are adequate policy support systems in place here in the United States to support social innovation? Does social innovation financing allow government to partner with innovative social entrepreneurs who help to supply the needs of the people? Or, will government budgets constraints pose an imminent threat to any collaboration with social entrepreneurs?

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[1] Oldenberg, Felix. Contributor. Forbes Magazine. “Three Things Governments Should Do For Social Entrepreneurship.” November 23, 2012. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2012/11/23/three-things-governments-should-do-for-social-entrepreneurship/