Comments for Wharton Social Impact http://blog.whartonsocialimpact.org A professional club committed to shaping business education and fostering career opportunities that aim to improve society as a whole. Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:55:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 Comment on Modern Do-Gooders by greg http://blog.whartonsocialimpact.org/2008/03/21/modern-do-gooders/#comment-3 greg Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:26:09 +0000 http://blog.whartonsocialimpact.org/2008/03/21/modern-do-gooders/#comment-3 Interesting! I think there is actually a third brand as well that is a class of young entrepreneurs who see societal problems as massive market opportunities. These are folks who are driven to put large amounts of capital to work, to profit (perhaps substantially), and who view the reform of sectors like education, healthcare, and energy as both altruistic and highly profitable. In my opinion, the success of this brand of entrepreneur will be the most telling in terms of whether traditional aid and development models can really be broken on a large scale in favor of market-based mechanisms. Interesting!

I think there is actually a third brand as well that is a class of young entrepreneurs who see societal problems as massive market opportunities. These are folks who are driven to put large amounts of capital to work, to profit (perhaps substantially), and who view the reform of sectors like education, healthcare, and energy as both altruistic and highly profitable. In my opinion, the success of this brand of entrepreneur will be the most telling in terms of whether traditional aid and development models can really be broken on a large scale in favor of market-based mechanisms.

]]> Comment on Modern Do-Gooders by andree http://blog.whartonsocialimpact.org/2008/03/21/modern-do-gooders/#comment-2 andree Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:22:05 +0000 http://blog.whartonsocialimpact.org/2008/03/21/modern-do-gooders/#comment-2 Interesting question. I think it depends. From my experience, there are at least two brands of Brooks' modern do-gooder. There's the young idealist who in the past would have gone to work for a non-profit, likely become frustrated and disillusioned and ultimately feel ineffective and move to the private sector. A growing number of these young idealists are realizing the power of business and science to address social problems and they are bypassing the traditional nonprofit career and forging their own path - going to work for hybrid non/for-profit organizations or creating their own. Because the intersection of business and traditionally nonprofit endeavors is still in its incipient stage, it remains to be seen whether the idealistic do-gooder will forge on. But my hunch is that they know what they are in for and are much less likely to abandon their passion and give up if results don't come quick enough. They are determined, entrepreneurial and offer the greatest hope to effectively marry passion and common sense. I would say the second brand of modern do-gooder is the mid-level or senior executive (or wealthy individual who's made their money . . . in technology) who, after achieving success in their chosen profession, decides to commit their money, time and business acumen to solving social ills. I suspect there's a greater risk that this brand of do-gooder would burn out. They are so used to success that when they begin tackling problems where success is difficult to achieve (and even more difficult to measure) they may quickly become frustrated. But perhaps this is just a biased perspective of someone who considers herself part of the first brand. :) Interesting question. I think it depends. From my experience, there are at least two brands of Brooks’ modern do-gooder. There’s the young idealist who in the past would have gone to work for a non-profit, likely become frustrated and disillusioned and ultimately feel ineffective and move to the private sector. A growing number of these young idealists are realizing the power of business and science to address social problems and they are bypassing the traditional nonprofit career and forging their own path - going to work for hybrid non/for-profit organizations or creating their own. Because the intersection of business and traditionally nonprofit endeavors is still in its incipient stage, it remains to be seen whether the idealistic do-gooder will forge on. But my hunch is that they know what they are in for and are much less likely to abandon their passion and give up if results don’t come quick enough. They are determined, entrepreneurial and offer the greatest hope to effectively marry passion and common sense.

I would say the second brand of modern do-gooder is the mid-level or senior executive (or wealthy individual who’s made their money . . . in technology) who, after achieving success in their chosen profession, decides to commit their money, time and business acumen to solving social ills. I suspect there’s a greater risk that this brand of do-gooder would burn out. They are so used to success that when they begin tackling problems where success is difficult to achieve (and even more difficult to measure) they may quickly become frustrated.

But perhaps this is just a biased perspective of someone who considers herself part of the first brand. :)

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