Risks and rewards Social Entrepreneurs face that traditional business owners rarely do.
After reading over everyone's initial responses, I noticed one of the risks nobody seemed to have mentioned is the risk of being used by others for political gain or of having your work marginalized. Professor Tharp pointed out the resistance to change, but often times these Social Entrepreneurships have to deal with real world politics. Congressman A from Party ABC gets behind your cause. Great! But then Congressman X from Party XYZ sees you as the evil person trying to do something he and his constituents are against. Al Gore and AGW comes to mind. Not getting political (I won’t discuss which side of the debate I am on), but the idea of reducing carbon output by selling carbon credits is viewed by ne side as a means of discouraging businesses from polluting as the carbon credits are expensive and by the other side as political blackmail because these businesses do often want to be good corporate citizens but the cost of the credits may force them to reduce shifts and lay off labor.
Additionally, the individual who acts as the spokesperson for the Social Entrepreneurship comes under greater scrutiny than most founders of businesses even after their business becomes highly successful. As much as we heard about Microsoft during the anti-trust/monopoly business some years back, no one ever attacked Bill Gates personally. And it wasn’t until he ran for political office that anyone ever questioned Ross Perot. But even if al Gore had not been the Vice President and lost a Presidential race (no politics please), he would have been attacked by the conservatives for “selling carbon credits ot himself and running enough electricity in his house to power a small town” and on and on. Why? Because there was political gain to be had by dismissing the man via ad hominem and not directly confronting what he stood for.
But this risk of personal attacks can be turned into a chance for personal and cause advancement by throwing one’s hat into the political arena. For all the attacks he face don both sides of the political aisle, Ross Perot made sense to a lot of Americans and, with the backing of a major party, might have had a chance to implement his economic principles in government. Today, someone similar to him who appeals to the moderates on both sides might actually win an election even without the backing one of the two major parties. We’ve seen more and more politicians coming in from third parties and independents in recent years, even governors like Jesse Ventura under the Reform Party. And it is this kind of exposure and position that can allow a Social Entrepreneur to advance his cause.
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New Game
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