Social Entrepreneurship - 15 - How Social is Too Social

Abstract

Naisola languished in her job as a marketing executive in one of Kenya’s leading deposit taking microfinance (DTM) institutions. She completed her MBA in 2010 and expected that the degree would launch her into a more meaningful career. Naisola desired to change the world and impact society. She felt that microfinance might help boost the working poor into the middle class. However, following four years in microfinance, Naisola saw the DTM up scaling away from serving its original mission. The DTM found it cheaper and more profitable to provide salary loans instead of financing mama mbogas to emerge out of poverty. Salary loans did not appeal to Naisola. She did not feel the passion behind helping those who already attained a salary. What Naisola desired was a more purely social business with deeper impact. Now, many readers might advise Naisola to go work for an NGO. An NGO, in theory, should focus exclusively on its social mission and helping society. However, she felt that NGOs did not possess sustainability. Naisola’s dilemma revolves around the debate about the extent of social mission should exist in companies. A “social” corporation focuses on three factors of success: people, planet, and profits. Many firms just utilize some corporate social responsibility (CSR) through funding a few initiatives and gaining public relations, but not focusing their core products on items that change the world. Also, many companies obsess over CSR for public relations, but treat their own employees poorly. An extreme opposite of NGOs, we think of a tobacco firm making cigarettes. The cigarettes kill their clients, so people are not a focus of such a firm. The cigarettes pollute the environment, so the planet does not concern a tobacco company. But, instead, the tobacco firm cares exclusively about profits only. In the middle of the spectrum, Safaricom’s development of mobile money helped positively change how every person in Kenya may pay for products and services, save money, and send money in safer easier ways. However, Safaricom famously does not only focus on the people outside its firm, but also on recruiting and rewarding its own employees. Safaricom exists as one of the few firms in Kenya that actively recruit people with physical disabilities to work in the company. Many blind employees work in the Safaricom call center who might find it difficult to find work unless another open-minded employer recruits.