Why Accelerator Labs are the Way to Go

By Jessica van Thiel

We have always been fans of the Unreasonable Institute. We’ve wanted to get involved with an accelerator lab since we started out. The focus, intensity and support of an accelerator lab seemed to be exactly what we needed in the beginning. With time though, PATHFINDER developed beyond the conception phase. While we were no longer eligible to participate, we still wanted to be a part of this exciting experience. So when we were invited to present and mentor at the Unreasonable Institute Lab in France, we were thrilled! Not only was it a big moment in our #SocEnt journey, but also, it was an important step in validation of our work so far.

Accelerator Labs

Although there are many accelerator labs for social entrepreneurs, for example, The Community Innovation Lab, The Mission Center, Standford Business School Impact Labs program, etc., our experience has only been with the Unreasonable Institute thus far. Their mission is to help and provide tools to entrepreneurs to solve the world’s greatest problems. Problems like poverty, lack of education, and access to clean water. They identify promising entrepreneurs with compelling potential projects and provide them with access to mentors, funders, and partners to help maximize their impact with the overall goal for each venture to impact 1,000,000 people.

One aspect of the lab that I found particularly useful was the Unreasonable Institute’s mentoring community. Mentors are available to provide advice during the lab, but beyond that, if there’s chemistry, they can provide a lasting relationship and guidance to the entrepreneurs.

Mentoring

As a mentor myself, I found it enriching to connect with such passionate individuals. The mentoring day, or at least the one I participated in, is a grueling and self-realizing experience. The setting is intimate yet professional. Entrepreneurs meet with as many as ten mentors – all from different backgrounds – who provide useful and sometimes brutally honest advice. Entrepreneurs can feel drained after the experience and often even feel the need to completely rethink their business plan or idea.

So why would a new entrepreneur willingly put themselves through such a test? Because, based on the feedback I received from the entrepreneurs, it can be a completely eye-opening experience. The lab served as an opportunity to deliver a series of ‘mini’ pitches, each time allowing the entrepreneur to perfect their pitch and polish their message. In many cases, it also allowed them to see their project from completely different angles. It allowed for perspective and critical clarity on how to move forward. Most of the entrepreneurs were emotionally and physically drained by the end of the day. Yet they felt they were better for having persevered through the experience. Even as a mentor, I had a few ‘Aha’ moments with entrepreneurs where it felt like we were really brainstorming new ideas; we were making things happen!

From the point of view of a mentor, who participated in a rewarding and creative experience, I found the Unreasonable Institute Lab to be unique from past similar engagements. Rather than just providing advice, I felt involved, like we were building something important, together.

Invaluable Contacts

I will, without a doubt, stay in touch and hope to even work with some of the entrepreneurs I met. If the participants benefited from the lab as much as I did, I’m positive that in a few months, we will not only see the success of budding start-ups, but the beginning of lasting entrepreneur-mentor relationships. So, if you’re looking for an enriching and useful experience to help launch your start-up, the Unreasonable Institute Accelerator Lab is definitely the way to go.

What the Mighty United Nations can Learn from Local Social Entrepreneurs

Photo UN MISC article.jpg

By Shivani Singh & Jessica van Thiel

The systems we have in place for international development are no longer working as they should. The most powerful institutions are also the most inefficient, accounting for much misuse and waste of resources. The United Nations – arguably the most important development institution in the world – has established an unparalleled reach, but it has also created an unprecedented bureaucracy that contains a shocking amount of inefficiency, misconduct, and even abuse. It’s time for new, more competent practices to replace global systems that were put into place decades ago, and social entrepreneurs are emerging from the fringes with compelling ideas that might counter – and perhaps even improve – these flawed systems.

While the UN’s operational deterioration seems most disheartening, social entrepreneurship has become something of a movement that holds great promise, attracting the attention of various experts and development workers from around the world. But who are these social entrepreneurs, exactly? While people are familiar with older, nonprofit, socially-driven enterprises (such as MSF/Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children, for instance), a lesser known set of entrepreneurships have stepped up for the dual purposes of doing good as well as generating profit.

These entrepreneurs have made it their mission to find and deploy optimal models of engagement, models that are financially sound, deliver discernible social impact, and create a cycle of sustainability. Social enterprises are designed to run like regular businesses, except their bottom lines include social impact, which they are measured for. Like other businesses, social enterprises are required to be efficient, scalable, and profitable in order to survive and indeed, thrive. They don’t rely on charity for funds, earning it by selling products and services instead – except these products and services are created to generate a positive impact in communities and beyond. These organizations certainly wouldn’t survive were they to adopt bureaucratic, inefficient, and questionable behaviors like the ones found in the largest NGOs around the world, beginning, of course, with the UN.

Another key aspect of leading social enterprises is that they work to include others in their journey. They educate as they create. They understand that, to be truly effective, they must inspire and engage others to join them. According to Harvard Business Review, social entrepreneurship “has emerged over the past several decades as a way to identify and bring about potentially transformative and societal change.” Social entrepreneurs are a special kind of tough – and that, evidently, is what the landscape currently needs. Not only do they take on the challenges of entrepreneurship, but they also sell innovative, experimental models of engagement to risk-averse financiers and wary publics around the world. According to Solène Pignet, the founder of Creators for Good, a consultancy service for social entrepreneurs established in 2014, 80% of social enterprise projects fail in the first few years. So, why would anyone take on such intimidating odds? They all share a reason: They are committed to changing the world and will not accept the failures of the status quo in order to do so. Social entrepreneurs believe that their commitment doesn’t require that they themselves live in poverty either. Countless nonprofits have shown that the world’s most educated, talented, and committed people cannot be retained for free and exploited; after all, everyone has bills to pay and families to raise. For the sake of their work, social entrepreneurs labor to pioneer ways of creating sustainable, impactful change – profitably.

Some of the world’s most successful social enterprises include the Nobel Peace Prize winning Grameen Bank, and the incredibly popular TOMS. Grameen Bank is based on Muhammad Yunus’ original microfinance model, and is responsible for deploying billions of dollars that have enabled some of the poorest people, women even, to lift themselves out of abject poverty. Without Grameen Bank, these most destitute individuals would have continued to rely on predatory lenders and would have, most likely, remained in an inescapable cycle of deprivation. Now they are able to earn incomes for themselves and their families, and educate their children, who will have a better chance at prosperity.

Jessica Jackley and Matt Flannery’s Kiva is another victorious implementation of the microfinance model, among others, while Blake Mycoskie’s TOMS has provided over 50 millions pairs of shoes to children who didn’t have any. The success of his company has allowed TOMS to follow up with more services for the poor, including clean water, eye care, and safer births. The more TOMS grows, the more of an impact it has in the lives of those who lack the very basics that most of us take for granted.

By contrast, consider the most publicized recent investigations of the UN, the single largest organization based on protecting and promoting the global fundamentals of humanity. Starting at the top, it’s no secret that the Security Council’s five permanent members include two (with crucial veto powers) who have openly disregarded the concepts of human rights and sovereignty, the very ideals they are meant to defend. As a result, we have a governing body that is unable to take action on conflicts and humanitarian crises of the worst kinds. Several of the UN’s Peacekeeping forces have been known to abuse the most vulnerable of the people they are meant to protect. In a recent New York Times article, Anthony Banbury, a former United Nations Assistant Secretary General for Field Support, recalls how on his first assignment as a human rights officer in 1998, he investigated rapes and murders of the poor and helpless in Cambodian refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodian border. “Never could I have imagined that I would one day have to deal with members of my own organization committing the same crimes or, worse, senior officials tolerating them for reasons of cynical expediency.”

Many diplomats and their families have operated with impunity and repeatedly broken the rules of law without consequence. Interns are consistently exploited and expected to work without compensation. People with similar skills and jobs are paid distinctly different amounts based on their passports. Many of those who work in or with various local offices are inept and limited in their skills and performances, yet they remain indefinitely because they are protected by the organization.

Were they in privately or publicly run businesses, none of these policies and occurrences would survive multiple conclusive investigations for as long as they have. But they are rampant in the UN – the prevailing bastion of humanity – and the world continues to pour resources into the UN’s many agencies. And while certainly some employees perform better than their colleagues, and some offices are more effective while others are barely operational, the problems go so deep that only a significant systemic and operational overhaul can save the organization. Banbury affirms the need for reform: “The bureaucracy needs to work for the missions; not the other way around. The starting point should be the overhaul of [our] personnel system. We need an outside panel to examine the system and recommend changes.” Indeed, significant change must be demanded of an organization that is meant to work for the benefit of people everywhere – but consistently fails to do so.

The question remains: How can we affect change in such a large-scale operation? What strategy can successfully demand transformation within a large and complex structure like the United Nations? The answer may be as simple as intelligently redirecting resources to social enterprises that prove to be effective alternatives. These are innovative, committed, and efficient teams that employ brilliant policies and people from around the world. They hold modern ideas and practices that could change the way we care for each other, and for our planet. Social entrepreneurs develop and deploy proven economic and scientific principles. These are the very organizations the world should be promoting. Doing so not only enables these little powerhouses of potential, but it also compels global bodies to evolve in meeting the changing needs of the world – or else face becoming obsolete.

Social entrepreneurship is becoming a movement in its own right. Current major global players that are in place to ensure the security and human rights of citizens are failing us, leaving a gap in the industry – and an opportunity for emerging innovations and players. People are recognizing the value in doing good while doing well. Most importantly, it’s a chance for social entrepreneurs to right the wrongs and propose innovative and effective solutions for helping people. Social entrepreneurs are not simply trying to affect change; they are the change.

The original article was published in MISC Magazine’s “Women: Shattering Expectations“ issue and can be found here: What the Mighty United Nations can Learn from Local Social Entrepreneur

 

Women are unstoppable!

By Jessica van Thiel

Top-10-BWiS-Rising-Stars-Young-Businesswomen-in-Surrey-2016

Women are unstoppable!

They have an incredible ability to take on several roles at once; entrepreneur, student, friend, mother, daughter…

I’ve always been in awe of the capacity women have to bring about impactful change in a big way, that’s why I’ve focused my career on the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality. So, when I was invited to speak at the BWiS International Women’s Day Rising Stars event I was thrilled and humbled. Here’s some of what I shared that evening.

Social Enterprise

In 2015, I co-founded PATHFINDER, a Canadian social enterprise focusing on sustainable development solutions. We provide creative solutions to enable the world’s most vulnerable through a three-pronged approach: by simultaneously influencing academics, policy, and social entrepreneurship. Our vision is to enable local social entrepreneurs so that they may provide for themselves, their families and their communities. Our partner projects are based in India, Nepal and Namibia. They focus on important causes with women’s rights as one of the priority issues.

I’m proud to say that in one short year, we’re ahead of where we aimed to be. That’s not to say that there haven’t been major challenges and hurdles along the way. Since we started the social enterprise, it has been an incredible learning experience, beyond expectations, both professionally and personally.

Growing up in Canada, I had a strong sense of needing to give back to the less fortunate in some way. I realised how lucky I was because it seemed like every opportunity in the world was available to me. I wondered how I could help right the great wrongs of the world, or at the very least, help better the lives of a few people. That’s what led me to work in the development sector which has allowed me to live in some incredible places around the world. My work reminds me every day that I can make a change, that I should make a change.

Melinda Gates of the Melinda Gates Foundation sums up my sentiment: “If you are successful, it is because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction. Remember also that you are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped.”

Hard Graft

Since the beginning, my (invaluable) partner Shivani and I have worked tirelessly. We were determined to fill well-known industry gaps in the international development sector because we recognised that the same mistakes were made over and over and the status quo was failing far too many. We worked nights and weekends, we researched constantly, we studied, we learned, we wrote, we consulted; we fully committed ourselves to doing whatever it takes to run a successful new business. It was, and remains tough work.

So why put myself through the uncertainty of starting a new business when I was 8 and a half months pregnant?! The answer is because I felt I absolutely should. And because it was something I had always wanted to do, a lifelong dream, so what better time than the present? There will always be a million reasons why not to do something. The trick is to say yes, even when it’s scary and uncertain because there will never, ever be a perfect time.

Lessons Learned

The key lessons I’ve learned along the way are:

1)    You have a story to tell. Everyone has a story; everyone has something that motivates them. Your story is no less important than anyone else’s. Stop comparing yourself to others and know your self-worth.

2)    Stop making excuses. It’s never too late. The timing will never be perfect. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone, and if you really want something, go for it. It’s not coming to you. You need to go out and get it, yourself.

3)    It’s OK to ‘multi-task’ your life. Yes, it’s essential to focus and be present when doing something, but in life you can take on many roles at once. It’s OK to be an entrepreneur, a student, mother, wife and friend. You can do it. But when you’re doing it, be present. Be organised, prioritise, and be in the moment.

4)    Use your strengths and delegate the rest. If you’re good at something, let it shine! Use it as a tool. If you’re a good communicator, focus on that. If you’re better at research, do that. Do what you like and do what you’re good at. And if you can, delegate the rest.

5)    Surround yourself with positive people. This is likely the most important lesson I’ve learned along the way. Positive, glass-half-full people will always win. They’ll make you better. Besides, there’s no time for negativity; yes, it’s inevitable, it will happen. But if negativity is a constant presence in your life it will eventually weigh on you. Don’t listen to the nay-sayers. Keep positive. Often, if you break anything down, it is achievable.

-Jess

For International women’s day I had the honor of being a guest speaker at the 2016 Business Women in Surrey (BWiS) annual flagship event. Above is some of what I shared with the guests that evening.

For the full article and other links to the event and BWiS initiatives see here:

Our Partners Talk Soap and Their Plans of Expanding to India

Karen BSoaps of HOPE- The Drunken Chemist Goes to India

Our brilliant partners The Drunken Chemist spoke with Coach Frankie Picasso of The Good Radio Network in an incredible, uplifting and fun interview!

‪#‎SocEnt‬ are far more accessible and popular than most people realize. You’ve got to hear this!

For more awesome interviews with Frankie Picasso click here.

Our Partners Are Unstoppable!

AgriCycle photo

Our partners Agri-Cycle Namibia just won another award! Hosted by the Namibian University of Science and Technology and The Bank of Namibia, The Business Idea Competition honored some of Namibia’s brightest and most innovative startups. We’re proud to announce that Agri-Cycle were among the winners.

These guys have no lack of recognition and success. All they need now is seed capital, so we can deploy this incredible project!

Here’s more information about the award and on how you can get involved!

 

Fellow Changemaker interviews PATHFINDER on media success!

Our friend and fellow changemaker Solène Pignet, founder of Creators for Good and Changemakers Association, interviewed PATHFINDER on our recent successful media coverage.

We are proud to announce that our radio interview with Frankie Picasso on Mission Unstoppable has been downloaded over 148,000 times! We are thrilled that so many people have taken the time to listen to our mission and next steps.

Here’s the interview on how we (and many others) made this happen:

[ SUCCESS STORY ] HOW PATHFINDER REACHED 82 000 PEOPLE WITH 1 MEDIA COVERAGE!

What is Pathfinder about? What’s your mission?

The social enterprise PATHFINDER provides creative solutions to enable the world’s most vulnerable through a three-pronged approach: by simultaneously influencing academics, policy, and social entrepreneurship.

Our vision is to enable local social entrepreneurs so that they may provide for themselves, their families and their communities. We enable them through crucial strategy and management consulting solutions. We work to engage financial opportunities with these social entrepreneurs, thereby connecting resources to much needed requirements, efficiently. Knowing that these isolated services are not enough on their own, we also contribute to academic enrichment, and we advocate for policy changes.

When and why did you decide to use media coverage in your strategy?

We decided at the start that it would be imperative for both, our brand and our message, to be covered by the media. Social entrepreneurship is not well enough known yet, and many in the field, like us, have yet to deliver results before we become mainstream. Traditional media coverage can be extremely powerful in reaching a broad audience. So we worked hard to develop good relationships with media contacts who we believe to have the integrity and objectives that are aligned with our own.

Our strategy included a combination of both, us contacting relevant media, and our being contacted by journalists who were interested in what we are doing, the issues we are working on, and our innovative approach. Not only did we work hard at reaching out to people, but also, we made ourselves available and open.

Your radio interview with Frankie Picasso on her show Mission Unstoppable has had over 82,000 downloads: congrats!

How did it start (who contacted who)?

A mutual contact introduced us. We are a part of a change accelerator, WorldPlayers, and so is The Good Radio Network’s Frankie Picasso. After a preliminary interview, Frankie decided she wanted us on her show, Mission Unstoppable.

What did you share in the interview?

We spoke about PATHFINDER’s beginnings, our work, and our focus. We explained how we met and what compelled us to start PATHFINDER. We spoke of how since we met 4 years ago in Mauritius, we never abandoned the idea of starting a social enterprise together.

We discussed how finally, after 3 years of working on our careers individually, we decided it was time to do this! Shivani left her career on Wall Street and Jessica left consulting in Brussels (AND was 8 months pregnant) when we started it all! The rest, as they say, is history.

And also, we went into some detail about our first few selected projects, World Pathfinder Children’s Fund Inc. and Pathfinder Nepal, The Drunken Chemist, and Agri-Cycle Namibia. Subsequently, Frankie found the projects so interesting, she decided she would love to interview the amazing people behind these projects.

>> download the podcast here <<

Why do you think it is so successful?

To be honest, we can’t quite explain the incredible number of downloads. It really came as a shock to us, especially considering that the average show gets a few thousand downloads. This was way beyond our expectations!

We did our part diligently. We shared it with our network and disseminated it via social media and beyond. Our Projects also shared the link to the download with their networks.

Still, never in our wildest dreams would we have imagined such an outstanding response to what we had to say!

Although we can’t explain our large audience, this success, could be attributed to a combination of the content of the interview; the work that we do, our interests and experiences, humanitarian projects, the state of the world, and our upbeat response to a new and growing movement of “changemakers”.

There may have been many listeners because we like to believe that people in general have an innate need to be and to do good and we offer a sustainable, inclusive way to do so.

Regardless of the reasons, we are humbled by the entire experience and are thrilled that the interview did (and continues to do) well.

Beyond the number, what qualitative impact did it have for Pathfinder?

It was great exposure and we have been contacted by a few organizations since.

What’s your top 3 advises for social entrepreneurs who are shy to approach the media?

1 – Go for it! You have nothing to lose. If they’re not interested, they won’t write about you or share your story. If they are, they will and you’ll have opened the door to many new opportunities. Either way, if you don’t do the work for fear of failure, you will never see any results.

2 – Give your best. Don’t forget that journalists need to develop and publish material too. They are likely solicited daily. But if you give them good, original and relevant work, they might be interested and even write about what you’re doing. Of course, only contact them when you have something ‘newsworthy’ to say. And finally, in our case, it certainly helped that most of the media professionals we contacted were kind and helpful.

3 – It’s all about quality, not quantity. Develop a few good relationships that are mutually beneficial. Once you have created relationships with journalists who are genuinely interested in what you’re doing, it will be much easier to pitch them ideas and stories they’ll want to publish in the future. You don’t need to contact hundreds of people who don’t know or care about what you are doing. Focus on the ones who show interest and who will publish your content. At the end of the day, that is the goal: to get your name and message out there!

Update June 2016 >> since we made this interview, the potcast has now been downloaded 148,000 times!

Incredible!

 

The original article can be found on the Creators for Good blog page here.

PATHFINDER is taking on students!

We are proud to announce that we are now a partner organization of Surrey University’s prestigious Professional Training placement programme.

Surrey Business School gives students the opportunity to work with national and international businesses of all sizes and across all sectors, and we are now a part of this renowned initiative!

Over the past five years, more than 2,300 partner organizations have worked with the University to give students valuable work placements in the UK and abroad.

We are excited to be among these organizations and look forward to receiving our first student(s) this year!

PATHFINDER Interviews Fellow Social Entrepreneur and Founder of Creators for Good

By Jessica van Thiel

By one perspective, social entrepreneurs are about as good as the people they surround themselves with. Social entrepreneurship is the kind of field that relies, and indeed thrives on collaboration, not competition, with others.

One of PATHFINDER’s first connections was Solène Pignet, the founder of Creators for Good, a social enterprise that provides online consulting services to (aspiring) entrepreneurs committed to making a difference in the world, in financially sustainable ways. From the beginning, Solène demonstrated that collaboration and sharing knowledge with other SocEnts was essential to their combined success. Creators for Good are an excellent example of how working together opens incredible opportunities. And they motivate us to do the same.

Because of this, we thought it would be great to share some of Creators for Good’s insights and lessons learned. Here is some of the most valuable advice we’ve come across on our journey.

What are the most valuable lessons learned since launching Creators for Good?

There are so many! I launched Creators for Good a year and a half ago and I keep learning new things EVERY week, with no exception.

I think one of the main reason may be that at school – or in the French society I grew up in– we don’t prepare for becoming entrepreneurs. We learn to be good employees for corporations, which need lots of qualified obedient workers (and not out-of-the-box thinkers and creators!).

I believe becoming an entrepreneur is a kind of rebellion: it is about not selling your time, your energy and creativity to mainstream companies – who are creating most of our planets problems (environmentally and socially). But instead, spending your time, energy and creativity to contribute to making the world a better place, in a financially sustainable way.

Learning – or convincing yourself – that you don’t need an employer to work, and earn a living, is probably the biggest step of all. However, it’s not the only one!

LESSON #1 Think quality of work, instead of quantity

At school we learn that the more you work, the better. Becoming an entrepreneur means freeing yourself from this limiting belief!

For example, we are used to working from Monday to Friday (in my part of the world). In my previous work I was working from 8am until 8pm (sometimes more). I had a managerial position and a great salary, and I thought it was ‘normal’ to work a lot when you had a lot of responsibilities.

When you become your own boss, you get to set your own rules. Tim Ferris’s “The 4 hour work week” is a great example of this!

However, I do not work 4 hours a week (I love my work way too much for that!), but I am distancing myself from the idea that the amount of hours put in equals the equivalent in results. This translates into the fact that when I started Creators for Good, I was mostly selling my time (clients hire me to work on their project and I would spend X amount of hours helping them). Now, I am developing more and more products that don’t require my own time, so that I can scale my impact without working more (I co-wrote a book for example. Whether we sell 1 copy, 100 copies, or 10 000 copies, our amount of work is exactly the same, and the impact has (almost) no limit).

Now I don’t look at the amount I work, but at the quality: how can I better impact the people I want to help without spending more time working? How can I have a better work-life balance?

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Creators for Good’s summer office (in the south of France!)

My question to social entrepreneurs is what could you create so that your impact goes beyond the amount of hours you spend (and make your life even more enjoyable than if you had a ‘traditional’ job)?

LESSON #2 Think of what you can do instead of what degree you can get

At school we are taught to study first, get a degree, and then work. Being an entrepreneur doesn’t require any specific degree-and you get to learn along the way!

This is maybe the most limiting belief of all: “Am I ready to start?” “Shouldn’t I be more qualified?” are questions I hear all the time from aspiring entrepreneurs. And it makes perfect sense in a world where the norm is to build your CV, to become an employee.

But when you are an entrepreneur, it’s not your degree that people pay attention to. What people look at, is whether or not your service/product will help them resolve a problem or challenge they face. They only care about themselves, not about you or your qualifications!

For example, you don’t buy bread from the baker that went to the best bakery school, but from the baker who makes the best bread in your area (he may have graduated from a good baking school, but also is using delicious ingredients, has a clean and attractive store, has a smile on his face when you come in to buy bread, etc. In other words, many things that go way beyond the theory of bread making).

With Creators for Good, I invested in a 6 month coaching program at the very beginning, to make sure I set the right foundations to start my business, because I knew my Master’s Degree in Sustainable Development was only good “in theory”.

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Skype session with my coach Delphine Boileau-Terrien (she lives in the US and I live in Turkey)

Later, I completed training on how to blog (to make sure the hours I spend on writing content actually become useful for the people I wish to help through that medium), social media training (to make sure many people know about the help I can provide), finance training (to not go broke and sustain my impact over time). I also read books, blogs, watched YouTube videos and attended webinars on a weekly basis to make sure I put in place the best practices available for my business and clients.

My question to you is, instead of putting emphasis on your academic background (or wait to finish a degree to launch your own social enterprise), look at all the areas you want to perfect over time. Get started on something that you love and perfect your product/service and it’s delivery along the way. There is no better school than ‘the school of life’ and actual client feedback to know what and how to improve!

LESSON # 3 Think collaboration instead of competition

At school we learn that individuals perform at the expense of others. Only one person gets to be top of the class (or get the best job), and helping others means you diminish your own chances to ‘win’. In entrepreneurship – or at least in social entrepreneurship – helping others is actually the best way to move forward!

When I started Creators for Good, I opened a folder called “competitors”. I used to save all websites I came across, of companies doing the same thing as me (helping social entrepreneurs get started and grow their impact). Sometimes I felt so small looking at all the great work they were doing. Sometimes I wish they didn’t exist.

Until I realised, there is room for everyone! And until the problem I am working on solving (it is hard for people to start their own social enterprise) was not solved, everyone is needed. PLUS every so called competitor could actually become a collaborator, one way or another!

I renamed the folder “potential collaborators” (amongst many other actions) and here’s what happened:

  • Ashoka – the largest network for leading social entrepreneurs worldwide – invited me to moderate one of their conferences in Istanbul.
  • MakeSense – a global association encouraging citizens to solve social entrepreneur’s challenges – invited me to give a conference in France.
  • For my blog I interviewed the co-founder of SocialStarter – an awesome program allowing people to travel and support social entrepreneurs in developing countries.
  • Right now I am writing this article for PATHFINDER!

And those are just a few examples amongst many!

The most successful partnership is the one with Danielle, the founder of theSedge.org. We both are on the same mission: guiding social entrepreneurs get started and grow. We even have the same tool – we work online with individuals around the world. Our formats are slightly different (she offers online courses, I offer 1on1 programs). We could have “competed” on our own. And yet, when we started to work together, awesome things started to happen!

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Danielle Carruthers & Solène Pignet joining forces during the 1st “Global Socent Lab”

We started with a one-shot online event (where we invited both our communities to join a 1 hour live question-answer session). This transformed into a lively facebook community (with over 500 members in less than a year, and growing every day!) FAR beyond our expectations. We are now working on a common service that we will launch in June 2016 (spoiler: it will be called Changemakers Association).

AND we actually wrote a book together! Something that was far out of our comfort zone, but together we felt we had the strengths to make it happen. This book is actually based on our experience of driving a successful collaboration forward as impact entrepreneurs and the tons of research and interviews we did to put together an actionable tool for fellow changemakers. It is called “Meetings of the Minds: the Social Entrepreneur’s Roadmap for Collaborations That Work”.

About Solène Pignet

Portrait Solene - Creators for Good - 2015

Solène is a globetrotter, committed to sustainable development and passionate about alternative entrepreneurship. She founded Creators for Good in 2014. She provides online consulting services to (aspiring) entrepreneurs willing to make a difference in the world, in a financially sustainable way.

Learn more!

 

For more information about her and Danielle Carruthers’ book, “Meetings of the Minds: the Social Entrepreneur’s Roadmap for Collaborations That Work” visit the website: http://globalsocentlab.com/roadmap-for-collaboration-that-works/

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Congratulations to Agri-Cycle Namibia!

PATHFINDER wants to extend huge congratulations to our partner project, Agri-Cycle Namibia, for receiving the Total “Startupper of the year” Award. They were selected, along with two other projects, as the winners from Namibia. For more about the award click here.

Agri-Cycle Namibia is a start-up seeking to make a difference in Namibia’s development by creating a Nutrient Recycling industry and providing solutions to environmental issues faced by Namibians, the Namibian Environment, Agriculture and Aquaculture Sectors.

Check out their exciting project!

Way to go, Agri-Cycle Namibia!