Adopting green marketing practices is one avenue where businesses can both lower their ecological footprint while basking in the good PR karma of becoming a greener business, if their efforts to uphold sustainability principles are sincere, measurable and verifiable. A failure to understand what green marketing is, as well as the inability to demonstrate improved sustainability measures, while making efforts to portray one’s business as green is simply another example of corporate greenwash. So how can a marketing professional avoid the pitfalls of greenwash while embracing the principles of green marketing? Let’s begin with the definition of green marketing.
Green marketing is the promotion and selling of services, products, or a combination of the two, that are assumed to be safe for the environment. Green marketing, also called eco marketing or environmental marketing is used for products and services that are presumed to have little or no effect on the environment, which is thus seen as an advantage to consumers. By making their advertising campaigns green, businesses can then reach additional customers by spreading the word of their green products or services.
A green advertising campaign, or green marketing campaign, is used to show how a business’s products or services are green, or environmentally friendly. To do this, a green advertising campaign showcases the eco-friendly features of the products or services. For example, green advertising may show that a product is organic, or made from entirely natural ingredients, without any synthetic proponents. A green advertising campaign may also note that a product uses environmentally friendly packaging. A green marketing campaign shows how the business’s services or products are presumed to be environmentally sound and safe, thus appealing to customers and increasing your business.
Have your product or service eco certified. By having your product or service certified green, you can prove to your customer base that your goods or services are green and reach additional customers. Some certifications you can get for your product or service include getting organic certification, fair trade certification, green business certification, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, or Green Seal certification. All of these types of green certification will help you green your marketing campaign.
Use marketing that doesn’t add waste. By choosing to use e-marketing, television marketing, or any other form of marketing that isn’t wasteful, you’re greening your marketing campaign. Using wasteful forms of marketing such as flyers and brochures adds to the waste of your business and therefore, is not green. However, if you still want to market your product using paper advertising, you can green your marketing somewhat by using recycled paper and environmentally friendly ink.
Make your product or services greener. By making your goods or services greener, you can make your marketing campaign greener. To do this, consider using more recycled materials in your products, making sure your products are energy efficient, or making your products more easily recyclable. To green your services, you can use natural and organic products, make sure your location is energy efficient, use renewable sources of energy, and reduce waste while increasing recycling. A successful green advertising campaign will keep getting greener by showing consumers how the business is constantly greening their products or services.
Consider stewardship programs and industry partnerships. Industry partnerships and stewardship programs are great for green marketing campaigns as they increase the life cycle of your products. By using a stewardship program or industry partnership, you can reduce the harmful output you put out through the manufacturing of your product, as well.
Use greener manufacturing. There are a number of ways to employ greener manufacturing processes when creating your products that help to green your marketing. Find manufacturing processes that use less energy, create less waste, use less harmful materials, and create less waste.
By keeping these green marketing tips in mind, you will be well on your way to truly greening your marketing campaign, rather than embarking on a greenwashing campaign instead.
An architectural salvage yard is an ideal venue to find eco-friendly construction supplies, besides unique and vintage building materials.
To deconstruct a building in a manner that allows materials like fixtures, flooring, and joist reuse will not only conserve resources, but also reduce wastage, pollution, and create skilled job opportunities for workers.
In most instances, reclaimed construction supplies cost cheaper compared to new ones, and make quality building supplies affordable among a wider portion of the population.
More and more property owners and real estate entrepreneurs are practicing green remodeling and building techniques, thereby creating a growing market for quality reclaimed building supplies.
Should you possess expertise in restoring and reclaiming used building supplies, excellent green entrepreneurship opportunities exist for you in an architectural salvage yard.
You can venture into either general architectural salvage yard entrepreneurship or specialize in catering for one of the numerous niches in the industry, depending on your interests and skill sets.
Some architectural salvage yards focus on, for example, a specific section of a building, such as flooring, or windows, while others focus on a particular material, like glass or wood.
Some yards in the industry, such as Habitat for Humanity ReStores, have focused on affordable building materials, while others have specialized in quality antiques required for period restorations and reconstructions.
Other architectural salvage yards undertake the deconstruction themselves, while others venture into purchasing materials from locally based recycling outfits and demolition contractors.
BMRA, the Building Materials Reuse Association, an organization dedicated to the promotion of eco-friendly building customs through reclaimed materials, presents accreditation to deserving building deconstruction practitioners, going a long way in establishing their expertise and reputation.
In addition, the BMRA member directory and similar websites are excellent marketing tools that enable architectural salvage yard customers to find your practice.
Three Eco-Friendly Architectural Salvage Yard Examples for the Perfect Green Building
Petaluma, California based Heritage Salvage has everything from barn doors and bar tops to old growth reclaimed redwood lumber and various reclaimed building materials on their more than three-acre yard.
In addition to restoring and salvaging building materials, Heritage Salvage also designs traditional furniture, among other pieces, from salvaged wood. Heritage has committed themselves to waste reduction through salvage as one of their green initiatives.
Another is protecting their numerous stacks of wood with former billboards purchased in bulk by entrepreneur Michael Deakin, against the Northern California rain, which is both a recycling and a durability exercise.
Heritage Salvage Yard is home to organic beehives and gardens in addition to its large collection of salvaged construction materials. Deakin is working on a water catchment scheme too.
ReNew Salvage, a non-profit Brattleboro, Vt based architectural salvage yard specializes in construction waste reduction and assisting low-income families put up affordable but high-quality housing. The proceeds go to support various programs that include workshops about green building, on-job tutoring for at-risk youth, and deconstruction services.
The Seattle based Second Use came into being in 1994 once an environmentalist contractor becomes frustrated with the huge amounts of wastage resulting from building demolition and construction, with the firm committing themselves to reusing and reclaiming building materials, thereby creating beautiful and unique eco-friendly buildings, while reducing wastage.
Second Use hosts free workshops where property owners, contractors, and other people interested in reclaimed building materials can interact, besides offering demolition services and operating a big salvage yard.
Social marketing is one of the ways through which you can change the society. Put simply; social marketing seeks to change the social behaviors of people by keeping them engaged using the same techniques used in commercial marketing. Your efforts might be related to changing the environment, enhancing safety and health and community development among others.
Philip Kotler and his research partner Gerald Zaltman are celebrated as the architects of social marketing. They published an article, Social Marketing – Planned Social Change in 1971 in the Journal of Marketing. Since the publication of this article, marketers all over the world have been coming up with different strategies to influence social behavior changes. Public health and environmental conservation are the main issues in social marketing.
Social marketing is a field that deals with engaging in activities that make the society better such as encouraging people to quit smoking. It should not be confused with social media marketing or sustainable marketing. Social media marketing refers to the promotion of goods or services on social media sites such as Facebook while sustainable marketing refers to goods or services promotion that shows the social responsibility of a corporation.
Social marketing always places the good of the society first above everything else. Nevertheless, corporations can engage in commercial marketing with a social agenda such as advertising recycled water bottles, advertising eco-friendly cars and much more. However, the primary purpose of these ads is to sell and not change the society.
Social marketing involves a few strategies and concepts as shown below:
• The primary objective is to influence social change.
• Change can only be seen if the audience is convinced that the benefits received are worth more than incurred costs.
• Social marketing strategies are only effective if the perceptions of the audience towards proposed change are first understood.
• The target audience’s special needs must be understood and the marketing efforts delivered in segments.
• The social marketing strategies must incorporate the 4P’s of marketing – the product (package of benefits), the price, the places and opportunities.
• The exchange program should be promoted with creativity
• Competition among recommended behaviors should be understood and addressed.
This is a campaign that has been running since 1998. The campaign is the brainchild of Georgia Department of Medical Assistance. The campaigns aim at making healthcare affordable to children by getting insurance for all health concerns. Insurance coverage costs $7.50 per month per child and $15 per family.
The campaign rolled out their idea by advertising the program on radio, TV, outdoor ads and transit stop. The adverts sought to make the idea easy for parents to understand. After vigorous advertising, the campaign kicked off with 80,000 applicants and 57,000 enrollments. Up to now, the campaign still receives applications.
True to its name, this is a campaign towards an AIDS-free world. It was initiated by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health in conjunction with the Swiss AIDS Foundation. Initially, the campaign focused on the gay community, but later switched on to AIDS.
The campaign has had great milestones. They started by encouraging men between 17 and 30 to use condoms. From 1987 to 1990, the sales of condoms increased hugely, and condom use increased from a meager 5 percent to about 50 percent.
Over the years, the campaign has focused on offering all the information there is about AIDS and discerning the truth from misconceptions. They touch on sex, needles, and drugs, among other practices related to AIDS.
This is a drive towards better working conditions. The campaign comes as a 30-second video clip commissioned by the Belgian Advocacy Group. This video makes known the ignored rights of workers.
The video was spread on all social media sites and posted on YouTube. It sought to get the attention of people on the basic issues plaguing workers on a daily basis. The campaign was recognized as one of the top social advertisements of today.
1. Choosing a team
The first step towards running an effective social campaign is to gather a team of like-minded people who understand what you are up to and are willing to help. Ensure the team members have no intentions of making money from the campaign.
2. Develop trustworthy strategies
Trust will determine whether your strategies bear fruit or not. A trustworthy brand does not struggle to sell. If people have trust in what you are trying to sell, they will promote it. You need to work honestly to gain trust.
3. Understand the perceptions of the audience
Besides understanding what the audience needs, it is important to understand their perceptions towards your business. This lets you develop a simple and sustainable strategy towards achieving your goals. For instance, if you are spearheading a campaign on drugs, you need to understand how drug users feel.
4. Choose the right Platform
There are different social media platforms to use when you need to spread the word about your campaign. You can use all the networks including Facebook, Twitter, and others. With so many platforms, you are able to focus your social marketing efforts on the group that will benefit the most. Start by analyzing where your target audience is and then craft a campaign that reaches out to people in those specific places.
5. Create Good Content
If you have no message for your audience, there is no way you will influence them to make a change. If you have the very same message they have heard for years, you will also not achieve anything.
Create content that addresses your audience directly, addresses their emotions and feels intimate. You can achieve a lot with just words. The content you post should be engaging piquing the interest of your audience and triggering conversations. Build long-lasting relationships before you even think of making a change. This is successful, influential marketing.
For many years, lunch trucks have had a reputation as a great source of food that is cheap, but not necessarily that tasty or nutritious. Recently, however, lunch trucks have undergone a bit of a renaissance, and an increasing number of cities and towns are now being served by lunch trucks offering gourmet food that is fast and inexpensive.
One growing niche market within the lunch truck industry is for lunch trucks offering fresh, local, organic foods. As more and more consumers become aware of the environmental and health benefits of eating locally grown, organic foods, the market is expanded to continue to expand, and lunch trucks are well placed to take advantage because they are often able to offer lower prices than traditional restaurants, allowing them to bring organic foods to a wider audience.
Choosing organic, local foods isn’t the only way a lunch truck business can go green! A few more ideas include running the truck on biodiesel or used vegetable oil, using compostable disposables to serve food, and printing menus and marketing materials on recycled paper.
Lunch trucks have relatively high start-up costs, typically $80,000 or more to purchase and/or retrofit a truck, but the costs are lower than starting a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant.
A bigger challenge for many new lunch truck businesses is the issue of permits and parking. Lunch truck regulations vary widely between different cities, and in some cases even different parts of the same city. In some cases, even if the truck has appropriate permits, it can be asked to move in response to complaints from nearby restaurants.
Fortunately, modern technology has made it easier than ever for customers to find their favorite trucks, even following an unexpected move. Social media is especially useful – many lunch trucks now have Twitter and/or Facebook accounts allowing them to offer up to the minute location information to fans and followers.
The Los Angeles-based Green Truck offers gourmet meals made from fresh, local, organic ingredients. Green Truck’s commitment to environmental responsibility goes far beyond its choice of food: Green Truck’s commissary is solar-powered and its truck runs on used vegetable oils from the Green Truck itself and other local restaurants. Food is served with compostable and biodegradable dishes, containers, and cutlery. In addition to its street food business, the Green Truck also offers gourmet green event catering and food delivery services. The ever-changing menu includes breakfast and lunch treats such as banana pancakes with coconut-agave syrup, citrus-marinated tilapia skewers with red onion and baby eggplant, falafel wrap with cool tzatziki, and the signature “Mother Trucker” vegan burger with beet relish.
TruckWashington, DC-based On the Fly is an eco-lunch truck offering fast and delicious meals with a social conscience. On the Fly “smartkarts” are American-made, zero emission electric trucks. On the Fly uses primarily local and organic foods, and serves its meals with eco-friendly packaging. On the Fly also operates several “smartkafes” around the DC area, which offer the same great food and eco-friendly business practices in a non-mobile setting.
Two social entrepreneurs have recently introduced simple, yet astoundingly effective systems that can be used by women living in developing countries to collect and carry clean water. Many women and children living in water-stressed African regions are forced to travel an average of 3.5 miles (5.6 km) daily with up to 15 liters (5.3 gallons) of water on their backs. That’s an incredible physical burden and an extreme drain on productivity. Having better water-carrying solutions can minimize both the physical pain and the time waste these women and children face.
Wello is a social venture focused on finding ways to effectively deliver clean water in developing regions. They have chosen to reframe the issue in terms of an opportunity to reinvent the wheel. Their goal is to develop a system that is both an income-generating tool for families living in poverty, as well as a highly effective way to collect and transport potable water.
Designed by social entrepreneur, Cynthia Koenig, the Wello WaterWheel is essentially a barrel with a handle for pushing or pulling. The barrel can carry up to 25 gallons (94.6 liters) of water – a volume that weighs 200 pounds (90 kg) and is up to five times more than the average woman can carry on her head. Not only does the WaterWheel make it much less painful to transport clean water, it also frees up more of their time which they can use to be productive in work or school. And because it is ruggedly built, almost anyone can use the WaterWheel over even the toughest terrain.
Wello is just a few weeks away from releasing WaterWheel 2.0 after nine months of research and countless trips to fetch water. Watch their website for more information! In the future, they hope to add features such as filtration systems and add-on drop irrigation kits. There’s even talk of creating a cell phone charger that would use the wheel’s rotation to charge a battery!
WaterWear backpack social entrepreneurs 300×199 Social Entrepreneurs Create 2 Amazingly Simple Water Carriers Developed as a collaboration between social entrepreneurs and an industrial packaging manufacturer Greif, the WaterWear backpack is a safe, easy way for people to transport their water. One of the concerns addressed by Greif is that people living in the developing world often inadvertently use secondhand containers that previously held poisonous compounds. Exposure to these substances through water stored in the used containers can cause severe health concerns. Greif also wanted to create a design that was both collapsible and lightweight so that the carrier would be easy on the body, unlike some other water carrying devices that put too much strain on the upper portion of the back.
Greif’s CEO, David Fischer, is a cancer survivor and a former chemical industry professional. He had this to say about the dangers of contaminated products:
“These containers used [to transport water] oftentimes have been used with paint, fuels, pesticides. Being from a packaging company, I know those packages with tight-knit enclosures on top are impossible to get clean.”
As part of the Clinton Global Initiative’s water action group, Greif wanted to develop an affordable, safe water carrying solution, and they’ve done just that. The WaterWear backpacks cost somewhere around $5.50 to $6 to distribute for disaster relief, with 2,000 packs already handed out in four communities in Haiti, and another 1,000 headed to Guatemala. They come in 20 liter (5.3 gallon) or 15 liter (3.9 gallon) models.
Project Kaisei is a non-profit organization dedicated to understanding, raising awareness of, and developing innovative solutions to the problem of plastic debris in the oceans, especially in the region commonly known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” or the “Plastic Vortex.”
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an area of concentrated marine debris trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. The exact size of the patch is unknown, but Project Kaisei estimates it is at least twice the size of Texas. The debris consists both of large pieces of plastic and other debris, and large amounts of suspended plastic particles created from the breakdown of larger pieces.
Remains of a Laysan Albatross chick that died after being fed plastic by its parents.
The Plastic Vortex is a serious environmental and human health issue, because the debris affects marine wildlife, who often mistake it for food. In some parts of the Plastic Vortex, researchers have found concentrations of plastic up to seven times higher than the concentration of zooplankton, the primary source of food for many wildlife in the region. The plastics can harm wildlife directly, by choking them or causing internal damage.
Plastics and other debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch may also be entering the human food chain, as humans eat fish that have mistaken particles of debris for food. With concerns already rising over the long-term health effects of exposure to certain chemicals, such as BPA and phthalates, commonly found in plastics, more research needs to be done into the effects of plastic consumption on fish and wildlife, and the people who eat them.
Another concern is the spread of invasive species, since researchers from Project Kaisei and others have found a variety of invertebrate species clinging to larger debris, raising concerns that they might use the debris to travel between islands or even continents.
Project Kaisei’s main initial focus is on research to learn more about the Plastic Vortex. In combination with oceanographers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Project Kaisei researchers visited the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in summer 2009 to study the patch, analyze its effects on marine wildlife and human health, and experiment with solutions for cleaning it up. The team plans another trip this summer.
Project Kaisei is working on a number of education and outreach projects to raise awareness of the Plastic Vortex. These projects include a children’s book, university outreach programs, and annual ocean clean-up drives in celebration of World Ocean Day on June 8th. Project Kaisei is also working on a documentary to raise awareness of the Plastic Vortex and Project Kaisei’s efforts to find a solution.
Finally, Project Kaisei is experimenting with a number of innovative solutions to the problem. Ultimately, Project Kaisei hopes to collect and recycle the debris to convert into diesel fuel, clothing (such as these cool recycled polyester swimsuits), and other products. With a growing number of independent fishermen being pushed out of the business by large commercial fleets, Project Kaisei also hopes to create jobs for unemployed fishermen by enlisting their assistance in collecting debris for recycling.
You can support Project Kaisei’s work directly by making a donation on their website and helping to spread the word about its efforts to clean up the Plastic Vortex.
You can also help by practicing the three R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – and helping reduce the overall amount of debris that makes it into our ocean ecosystems. A few simple ways to start the transition to a plastic-free life include reusable water bottles and reusable shopping bags.
One of the easiest green businesses to start from home is a green niche website. As more and more people become interested in green living, there is a growing number of lucrative green niches available online for forward-thinking webmasters.
By starting a green niche site, you can not only have a successful home business, you can also feel good about helping people make informed and eco-friendly choices!
When creating any green niche website, your first step should be to do keyword research. For beginners, the best tool to use is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, which is reputable yet free. When you have more experience in niche site development, you may decide to purchase a more professional keyword research tool, but in most cases, this will not be necessary for beginners.
Find a few keywords that interest you (aim for keywords with EPC higher than $1 and global monthly searches of at least a few thousand) and type them into Google to check out the competition.
When you’ve decided on the main keyword you intend to pursue on your site, purchase a domain name. Ideally, your domain name should contain the keyword that you are hoping to dominate. You should also purchase web hosting at this time. As a green niche website, your green “cred” will be improved if you choose one of the growing number of eco-friendly web hosts.
Once your domain is established, the most important thing to do is start creating high quality content. Although it is possible to game the system and create very lucrative sites full of low quality content, Google and other search engines are always striving to improve their algorithms in ways that reward genuine webmasters with good content, rather than spammers with websites slapped together with content that has been spun (and sometimes stolen). Contrary to what some spam gurus may suggest, it is possible to produce high quality, well written, and useful content that is keyword-rich and SEO-friendly without being spammy.
There are three main ways to monetize a green niche website:
The first is by serving ads. Google Adsense is the most popular ad program, but far from the only one. Once your site is established, you may even be able to contact relevant companies directly to offer them advertising spots on your site!
A second group of webmasters runs their websites as a virtual storefront for a business they run from their home or office. In this case, you will need to set up a virtual shopping cart to allow you to take orders online. You will then ship the product yourself.
The third group of webmasters makes money through affiliate programs, which pay a commission on every product you sell for the company. There are hundreds of affiliate programs around the web, including both individual retailers such as ebay and Amazon and large affiliate programs working with many different companies such as Commission Junction or ShareaSale. Be cautious when choosing an affiliate program to join, as some are scams or Ponzi schemes.
The monetization strategy that is best for your green niche site depends a lot on your niche. Some niches, such as eco-friendly cleaning products or eco fashion, are better suited to selling green products, while others do better with ads. Some experimentation may be necessary to discover what works best for your site.
Once you’ve decided how you plan to monetize your site and have a few high quality articles posted, you can start marketing your site. The best way to improve your Page Rank and start getting traffic is through backlinks. Getting low quality backlinks with social bookmarking and link exchanges is a fast, easy way to start, but your ultimate goal should be to create a site so good that other people link to it! These natural, in text, anchored backlinks are given the most value by Google’s algorithm.
Earning a real income online takes hard work and dedication. However, for those willing to put in the time and effort to make a green niche site successful, they offer a great opportunity for anyone interested in a green home business.
Everybody loves free stuff and great deals, right? Ecobunga! is an online guide to green giveaways and deals.
DIY Gadgets is a website dedicated to awesome ways to recycle old junk, from handbags made out of film negatives to chandeliers made from old crystal decanters.
My Green Nappy is an Australian niche site dedicated to eco-friendly diapers!
Social entrepreneurs are people who have creative solutions to some of the world’s most bothersome social problems. These are people who identify problems that ail the society and then develop solutions for them. They simply disseminate ideas, allowing the whole society to work towards a similar goal. A social entrepreneur has to be ambitious, full of ideas, self-driven and have the will to get results.
Social entrepreneurship, therefore, refers to the process of starting and running a socially responsible business that, besides generating profit for the entrepreneur, solves social and environmental problems. Such a business is said to have a triple bottom line, TBL. TBL refers to people, profits, and planet. Businesses running on this model are able to run a financial, social and environmental oriented and responsible business.
CorpWatch notes that 49 countries are among the top 100 economies, meaning that 51 are individual businesses. Granted, businesses with a triple bottom line can really change the world, even as they make money.
It is easy to confuse a social enterprise with a non-profit. Non-profit organizations rely on donations and grants to fund their activities. If, for any reason, the funds do not come through, the non-profit might shut down. Most non-profits do not bring any tangible income to its proprietors, though most people are starting to earn from them.
On the other hand, social enterprises are run the same way a for-profit business is run. They rely on earner income to fund their social; development activities and to expand their business. While a non-profit’s main aim is to help the society, a social enterprise has two or three aims – to earn money, help the society, and benefit the environment.
Social entrepreneurs are gaining favor with a high number of organizations. These organizations offer social entrepreneurs grants and loans or fund their social innovations. They also offer them professional networking, information, business incubation services and much more. Some of the most common social enterprise organizations include:
• Ashoka helps social entrepreneurs come up with projects aimed at transforming the society. The organization offers microfinance loans and also facilitate networking of social entrepreneurs.
• ClearlySo operates as an online marketplace where social entrepreneurs meet. Through the website, social entrepreneurs meet and connect with investors, community members, governmental and non-governmental organizations.
• Echoing Green offers support to starting social entrepreneurs as long as they are able to launch high-impact solutions. The organization offers between 12 and 15 fellowships each year, providing businesses with up to 90K over a period of 2 years.
• Finca supports social entrepreneurship by offering them small loans and other financial services through a simple village banking model. In this banking model, neighbors in a community come together and form a ‘bank village’. The individuals within a group borrow loans with the group being the guarantors of these loans.
• i-Genius operates as a social network where social entrepreneurs meet and share ideas with each other. This enhances communication between social entrepreneurs.
• INSE, which is an acronym for International Network of Social Entrepreneurs, is a communication platform running on Web 2.0. It offers a simple way for social entrepreneurs to link up and promote their different social ventures.
• Grameen Bank offers microfinance loans at low interests to social entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. Usually, the loans are collateral free. This bank was founded by Prof. Mohammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner for his generous efforts to reduce poverty in the world. The bank uses a village banking model.
• Kiva is another micro-lending platform that acts as a bridge between social entrepreneurs and investors. It operates as a peer-to-peer lending platform in a bid to end the poverty cycle. Kiva has partnered with microfinance institutions to allow hard-working individuals to access interest-free loans to change the society and change their lives.
• Root Cause operates as a nonprofit organization offering financial help to social entrepreneurs. They also educate social investors. The organization also conducts research to help social investors make the right choices and achieve their social impact goals.
• Skoll Foundation is a platform where social entrepreneurs and innovators meet and combine their efforts to achieve their social impact goals. The organization also gives awards to social entrepreneurs each year, recognizing them for the good work they have done.
• Social Entrepreneur Corps deals with university students and recent graduates, and young professionals a chance to participate in volunteer work, internships and insight travel program in developing countries.
• Stanford Social Innovation and Entrepreneurs Program gives students a chance to become social entrepreneurs. It brings together undergraduates and graduates in Stanford University helping them develop innovative and tech-based solutions with social impact.
Social entrepreneurs have made a huge impact in societies around the world. These entrepreneurs can act as individuals or as groups. Renata Arantes Villella is one of the successful social entrepreneurs in her business, Flor Amarela. The business works with Ashoka to test for developmental disorders on newborns in Brazil to ensure they get early treatment.
Another great social entrepreneurship is in Guatemala, where Centro Explorativo fixes the computers of locals and teaches them basic English allowing them to contribute towards the community. Another organization, Christmas Future, has partnered with HiMaT Grassroots Development Foundation has been able to raise funds to empower women. The organization offers microfinance loans to women and further teaches them how to do organic farming.
You can be a social entrepreneur if you have the passion for helping change the society. You need to be resourceful enough to come up with ideas on how to beat inequalities, enhance sustainability and justice. You will need to work with social entrepreneurship organizations to grab opportunities that others have not been able to grasp.
You can start immediately if your mind is already overflowing with ideas on sustainable and actionable solutions for common problems ailing the society. There are challenges in the society every day in developing as well as developed countries. Poverty, diseases, drugs, educational deficits, and much more challenges need a social entrepreneur.