A Vision for Funding

Twenty years ago, Professor Silver made his first model of self-adjustable glasses that could correct myopia with a high degree of accuracy. It took him 10 minutes to make, at a very low cost and without the need of a professional. The implications of this invention are astounding – adults and children from developing countries without access to optometrists could correct their vision at little cost. The ability to see is essential to maintaining a good quality of life; without vision correction children may find it difficult to learn and adults may have trouble working. However 20 years later, only 60,000 pairs of glasses have been distributed to people across 20 developing countries. According to the Medical News Today article, “more than 100 million adolescents aged 12-18 in the developing world have myopia, and it is estimated that around 60% do not have access to treatment for their condition” – which means approximately 60 million children are suffering from myopia without treatment. Despite breakthroughs in social innovations occurring all the time, its success in reaching its target consumers is regularly impeded by lack of funding which is a difficult problem to overcome.

One of the ways these organizations can raise funds is through social marketing strategies, such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The Ice Bucket Challenge was a viral phenomenon that took place in the summer of 2014 which involved donating money or pouring buckets of ice over one’s self. This marketing strategy not only increased awareness of ALS, but it also raised over 100 million US dollars [1].  Another way is to encourage for profit companies to invest in social causes, such as the TOMS one to one program, where buying a pair of shoes helps provide shoes, sight, water, safe birth, and bullying prevention services to people in need [2]. The government can incentivize these programs by offering increased tax breaks to companies who participate in promoting social causes and make it part of their core business value.

Although Professor Silver has a partnership with Dow Corning to establish a Child Vision Project to distribute 50,000 pairs of glasses to children in need, it was set up 18 years after his first invention of adjustable glasses. It begs the question – what are the different ways we can encourage society to participate in social entrepreneurship? Are there more effective ways to raise funding? What incentives can the government provide to encourage social innovations?

[1] http://time.com/money/4000583/ice-bucket-challenge-money-donations/

[2] http://www.toms.com/improving-lives