Questions and Answers of Social Entrepreneurship

Who is affected by it? Characteristics of the affected population include the following:• Sociodemographic characteristics: age, gender, income, education, occupation, and others • Geographic
What data and statistics are available about the challenge? What are its root causes?
What social challenge are you aiming to solve? It is recommended to start with the challenge and build the solution around it, rather than start with a solution looking for a problem (or as the
What are the components of a healthy organization; what are the different systems and processes you need to put into place to grow sustainably?
If you do need to create a new organization, what are the various registration options available in different parts of the world?
How will you roll your venture? Will it be within an existing institution or do you need to start a new organization?
What are the different funding vehicles and social investment approaches that you need to understand and navigate?
What funding sources are available to you?
What resources do you need to make all this happen? We’ll talk about both financial and other resources.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of your proposed model, what external opportunities can you leverage; what are the external threats to your success and how can you mitigate your risks?
What are the main costs and revenues? What are your financial projections, what resources will you need to invest, and how/when will you recoup them?
How will this all be financially viable? What is your business model?
How can you look beyond your own venture to create collective impact with others, such that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts? What might be some potential common agendas, shared
What does the communication strategy you prepared in the last chapter require in terms of advocacy? What policies exactly are you advocating for, and who are the key players you need to mobilize in
What do you need to produce to fulfill your response to the first three sets of questions? Is it more products or services, more scale, more follow-up with customers, more involvement in external
What ripple effects is your solution having on society? How can you actively and consciously grow these?
How can your impact on each person be greater in magnitude and duration? What do your preliminary results indicate are the most impactful components of your solution?
Within the scope of your theory of change, how can you grow to reach more people? What data are needed to determine the right timing and directions? Do you have these data?
Have you considered the risks of expansion? Are there different PESTEL considerations in your new market? What steps can you take to address these threats and mitigate risk?
What strains will this place on your venture, and what investments do you need to make upfront to ensure that your organization can handle these strains?
What will be the technical and managerial inputs required to scale? What physical and financial resources are required? Do you have these resources?
Have you collected data on potential customers outside your initial pilot? You need evidence to inform piloting your product at the next site.
What does the feedback collected from your initial customers indicate? Is there demand for, and satisfaction with, the product or service you’re offering?
Has your social impact been demonstrated? Have the results from your initial M&E met the social impact targets you set before launching?
Is your organization financially viable? Has your pilot indicated that costs and revenues are trending in accordance with your initial financial projections?
Once you have evaluated your messaging needs and channels for each audience, go back and reorganize them chronologically. Make a work plan for each month, by week. Who will be responsible for
How will you get the message across at each stage? List the different channels and media mix for each message. Indicate the timing and frequency of each: when and how often will you deploy each
Now step back and assess whether the same audience group has been listed multiple times in your previous outline. Extract the key messages you are trying to get across to them. Are there any missing
For each audience group, what are the key messages you need to get across? List one to two key messages for each audience group.
For each objective, list the audience. Who do you need to exchange information with to reach this objective?
For what purposes do you need to exchange information with the outside world and within your venture? List the different objectives of your communications.
Write out a job description for your board members. What would you need from them?What do you want them to hold you accountable for? Make a list of your “dream team”board members. Who are the
If you were a doctor diagnosing the health of your venture, how would you score yourself? Which of the vital signs and systems we discussed in this chapter do you have under control; which are
If you have decided to register a new organization and have chosen your registration form, look up the legal requirements specific to this type of organization. What are the taxation and reporting
Look up the legal registration options available to you in the country you’re working in.What advantages and disadvantages does each confer to you? Would you benefit from registering in more than
Is it possible for you to carry out your work within the umbrella of an existing organization?Is it absolutely necessary for you to start your own organization from scratch to do this work?What are
Do any of the funding sources, vehicles, or approaches specify certain requirements or restrictions that might affect your legal registration options?
According to your pro forma, do you expect enough financial returns to qualify for social investors requiring both social and financial return on investment? Incorporate potential funders into your
Conduct informational interviews with five to seven potential funders, either in person or virtually. This will help you determine whether their approach and requirements are a good fit for you and
Share your results with your team and advisory board. Are they familiar with any of these sources, vehicles, or approaches? Do they know additional ones you can add?
Create your own resource dashboard starting with the template in Figure 10.1 and tailoring it to your needs. Start by populating it with the nonfinancial resources you explored in the last chapter.
Get in touch with three to seven potential supporters and conduct informational interviews.Remember to be prepared with the information and ideas you’re looking to exchange with this person and
Record yourself presenting your elevator pitch in less than 1 minute and without using a slide deck. Pay special attention to your body language, eye contact, and movements. Play back your
Using a similar outline, prepare a 10-slide pitch deck to present your venture to potential supporters. Try your best to stick to 10 slides as much as possible or as close as you can get it.Remember,
Using the outline provided at the start of the chapter, prepare a 10- to 20-page document presenting your social venture and how it works. Remember, you have already drafted most of the material, you
Fill out your SWOT table using the template in Figure 8.2 or any other template of your choice?
Present your PESTEL analysis. Use bullet points with less than 250 words per point.
Develop your pro-forma income statement, using the template in Figure 8.1, or any other template of your choice. You should be able to answer the following in one sentence: How much time will you
What inputs are needed to produce those outputs? For each input, estimate the cost and time needed. Include human resources, physical resources, financial, and other resources.Try to be as specific
What outputs will you need to produce to reach this target? List the outputs by objective.You can use the logframe template if this helps.
What is the baseline? How much progress against the baseline will you aim for? You can choose your own timeframe in answering this question. It can be a long-term goal (10 or 20 years) or a
How will you measure your progress? Write your key impact metrics in one sentence each and summarize the processes, tools, and systems you will use to collect data for this in another sentence. (You
Write down one or more SMART objectives that you think you can reach toward that goal.Remember, the less the better to start out, in terms of the number of objectives.
What is the social outcome you are working toward? (You can pull this up from your theory of change assignment from the last chapter.)
What key positions will be necessary in developing your venture further? Were there any core operational fields that you identified in your process map? How many of your team members are already
What distribution channels are viable options for you, in the context you’re working in?What are the pros and cons of each one? What information do you need to collect to figure out what will
Draw out your preliminary process map. What steps will be needed, from sourcing raw materials, to assembling them, to delivering your solution to the end user? Who is responsible for each role?
Once you’re done writing down your answers, put it all together in a business canvas using the template from Figure 5.6. This will help you see it all in one place and identify potential synergies
List five potential collaborators that you could partner with to reach your audience.
List your top three to five competitors and what distinguishes you from them.
How will you promote your product or service?
How much are you pricing it at? Is it priced per unit or are you offering it as a package?
Where are you selling your product or service?
Who are your customers, and what is the total number of potential customers?
What is your value proposition? How does this make you different from any other?
Write down your social venture’s values. What values will you ask your team to live and work by? (Use bullet points.)
Write down your vision statement and your mission statement (one sentence each).
Last challenge: summarize your solution in an “if–then” sentence!
Fill in your theory of change table, listing the underlying assumptions beneath each step. Has your research and testing validated each assumption? What else might you need to do to prove this will
Test it out with potential end users. Who is your audience? What is their feedback? How did you incorporate it?
Sketch out your product or service. What is it? How will it work?
Last but not least, write out your AAAQ checklist. What characteristics and qualities will any solution you develop have to exhibit in order for it to be acceptable, available, and acceptable to the
List the sources of information behind the two analyses you’ve produced. Who are the different people and groups you’ve met with and spoken to? Is there anyone missing? How can you bring these
Prepare your asset map. Again, this can be either a simple list of assets that fall within the eight categories described, or a visual diagram summarizing them as illustrated in Figure 3.6. Note to
Prepare your stakeholder analysis. You have the choice of simply listing stakeholders and adding one to two sentences next to each, describing their level of interest and influence; or summarizing in
Challenge question: In 800 words or less, describe previous attempts to tackle this challenge, what has worked and what hasn’t. (Make sure to specify by whom and where these attempts were
What data sources and types have you used? List at least eight references.
What are the root causes, and what are the pathways by which these causes affect this population? You can either provide a diagram here or write it out, using up to a sentence per cause if needed.
Where is the affected population? Include information on the distribution.
Who does it affect? Include statistics on the number of people affected.
Describe what social challenge you will be tackling moving forward. How does it affect people?
By the time you finish this book, what new knowledge, awareness or skills do you hope to gain more of? Are there any milestones or targets you’d like to accomplish?
Each one of us holds one or more positions in society, whether as a student, professional, parent, or community member. In your current role(s), what opportunities and resources are available to you
Think back to a failed attempt to tackle one of the challenges you’ve listed above. It could have been by you or someone else. Describe what was attempted. Why didn’t it work? (2 sentences total.)
For each challenge you listed, in one sentence per question please answer the following questions:a. What opportunities have you had to gain insight into this challenge over the course of your
Thinking back to the information, people, and experiences you have been exposed to up until this moment in your life, what would you say are among the top social challenges you have spent time