Ashoka
The final day of the Ashoka Globalizer Summit was a chance for participants to combine the conceptual ideas they learned on Day 1 (using open source and smart networks as strategies to scale) with the practical insights they gained from Day 2 (from their one-on-one conversations with business leaders).
The Globalizer team kicked off the day with a plenary session to distill some of the lessons learned and give direction to the Fellows’ strategies going forward. Overall the group came to a consensus on two themes that were central to this year’s Globalizer Summit and that can be useful to social entrepreneurs as they look for ways to unleash their social ideas around the world:
- “Liberate the Core” – To really help an idea travel, social entrepreneurs need to get back to the essence of why they started. Too often their organizations have grown opportunistically – expanding and evolving based on funding that has become available or certain connections they had, rather than with a clear focus on their original mission. Thus social entrepreneurs end up with large, cumbersome structures instead of streamlined organizations with a simple social idea at the core.
- “Become a Magnet” – Every social entrepreneur needs to attract the resources they need to scale but it is often hard to do when funders are focused on growing organizations instead of social impact. However, to become a real magnet for growth, social entrepreneurs need to transition their business model from one where they are at the center to one where they have a network of actors who all revolve around the common mission they support.
After the plenary, participants then moved into a range of self-organized groups on different topics on everything from following-up to the scaling strategies they discussed on Day 1 to intense one-on-one social finance consulting sessions with ASN member Mark Cheng.
The Globalizer Summit concluded with a feedback lunch for all participants where the team encouraged Fellows to become co-creators of the program next year and re-design a program that generates an even bigger impact for the field going forward.