Size does not matter: dispelling the myth of scale in social entrepreneurship
For centuries, entrepreneurs have been lulled with the false idea that economic growth and scale are synonyms of success. Scale often neglects the actual beneficiaries and discourages humble social entrepreneurs to undertake actions.
Global agreements are needed, but global actions must be limited, and local actions encouraged because of their more ethical, sustainable, and inclusive essence. The narrative of local actions, however, has remained widely unheard. It is therefore critical for local social entrepreneurs to share their own form of success and make local actions the new standard.
In this short article, I first explore the reasons for social entrepreneurship to exist and then argue for a more local social entrepreneurship — mainly focusing on the development context. I finally share the story of Abbé Pierre, a local, yet renown, social entrepreneur.
Mainstream Social Entrepreneurship
The not so recent field of social entrepreneurship is particularly cynical from what it says about a society that has to define an entire new field to characterize initiatives that aim to achieve social good. Whether or not it is a new playground for academics or entrepreneurs to satisfy their ego or a sad reality about our modern society, I believe that social entrepreneurship has an important role to play in addressing systemic flaws. However, it must be reformed.
Social entrepreneurship is a response to a societal need that both public and private sectors have failed to address. While definitions vary, it mainly encompasses five characteristics: leadership, innovation, sustainability, performance, and ethics. It often originates from a passionate person who observed an unaddressed societal need and undertook to tackle it by providing an impactful, sustainable, and innovative solution.
The United States as the spearhead of capitalism has led the mainstream of entrepreneurship, in which high benefit and scale have been the main criteria of success. Such characteristics raise ethical issues and intertwined complexities in the mission of achieving social good.
On the one hand, market pressure pushes profit as the primary goal of most corporations — specifically for-profit, although more socially-driven structures such as non-profit or hybrid exist. On the other hand, populations with the most needs are also the ones with the least money. This controversial duality creates conflict and diverts most social entrepreneurs from their original mission, thus perpetuating injustice and leaving underserved populations neglected. In the best case scenario, social entrepreneurs resign to cope with that mismatch by modestly tweaking the current system instead of fiercely confronting it.
Scaling has been one of the common approaches for social entrepreneurs to drive prices down and increase affordability. However, its unfortunate tendency to both categorize people and rely on quantitative approaches to evaluate success is unethical and unsustainable, especially in some areas of development such as increasing access to basic needs.
History has shown that quantitative methods have failed our society and minimized the severity of harmful interventions. Data can indeed be manipulated — consciously or not — to achieve specific goals, as demonstrated by Jason Hickel with the Millennium Development Goals (The Divide, 2018, Part 1, Ch. 2). Furthermore, scaling does not necessarily increase accessibility for the beneficiaries.
But growth is convenient for politics and leaders who argue that interrupting water supply for thousands of inhabitants or firing hundreds of employees is fine because they are helping thousands or hundreds of thousands of other people. But having an impact at scale does not excuse any harm. Although scaling and the pressure of the global market inevitably come with collateral damages, no one deserves to suffer from them.
What are therefore the alternatives?
Contrary to the popular belief, I argue that local actions led by social entrepreneurs can have a wider impact if the dominant narrative for success is replaced. Local actions are community-centered but not isolated; sharing knowledge and information among entrepreneurs and communities remains a key component. Furthermore, I argue that local actions are by nature more ethical, sustainable, and inclusive.
Local as the new standard
Local is more inclusive
A local intervention serves a group of people sharing similar needs and usually living in a delimited area, such as a community. Expansion is not the priority, but rather providing a tailored solution for the specific needs of the community. Local interventions also benefit from a smaller set of stakeholders, thus allowing a better inclusion in their design, which often includes collaboration, iteration, and commonly defined goals.
Scaling cannot offer such tailored approach, thereby spreading the market with generic products and services. Local social entrepreneurs should however be careful to not become clubs that too restrictively serve their purpose.
Local is more sustainable
Local interventions being inclusive, local knowledge can be leveraged and outside knowledge can be taught, thus allowing the intervention to be owned more easily by its beneficiaries. Both the lack of dependencies from the global market and the ability of the communities to control the parameters of the interventions allow the development of sustainable solutions.
The intervention being constrained to the local context, both exploitation of resources and employment are local. The environmental impact is lower and the socio-economic impact higher. However, innovation becomes more critical — and challenging — as resources might become more scarce.
Local is more ethical
The limited reach of local interventions prevents adverse effects to spread. Moreover, the limitation — but not the non-necessity — of national and international stakeholders that are necessary for scaling, such as investment funds and consulting groups, reduces imbalanced power dynamics.
Contrary to scaling, which often delocalizes production and management and thereby contributes to the extinction of indigenous cultures, local knowledge becomes a central part to the intervention.
Scale is discouraging
While one of the characteristics of social entrepreneurship is performance, which is commonly associated with scale, scale can easily discourage social entrepreneurs to start and overcome obstacles. Social entrepreneurs must recall that any social impact is valuable; scaling should come last, if ever.
If the solution or the intervention can be replicated somewhere else, scale will naturally follow. Only few solutions will satisfy a whole population or be applicable to other contexts. The only way to scale while remaining inclusive, sustainable, and ethical, is to grow slowly. Starting small and growing slowly allow unharmful failures, insightful learning, and a safe growth, both for the communities and the entrepreneurs.
How to break the growth stereotype and move from global to local?
Growth showcases a false idea of success and ignores the impact of most people. Although some entrepreneurs leading wider — but not necessarily more positive — social interventions are inspiring, their stories should not monopolize the public debate. That dominant narrative must be moderated if not replaced.
A new narrative
Shaping the new narrative
Social entrepreneurs should not rely on strict definitions and general frameworks to evaluate their success, as fiercely pushed by the dominant narrative. They must find, alongside with their beneficiaries and collaborators, their own form of success.
The new narrative will emerge from stories that highlight the incredible variety of definitions for success. There is neither one form of success nor one type of impact; success and impact are both personal and localized. Rue Mapp, founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring quality outdoor experience among Black people, shared in a conference her definition of success:
“For me, success is not the number of Outdoor Afro leaders, it is the quiet and peaceful moments that we share on the hikes.”
By following her own definition of success — a more social and human definition — Rue Mapp ensures that her actions are always aligned with her social mission.
Success can be a greeting, a smile, a laugh, a feeling, a smell, or even a margin or a number of employees. However, the mainstream indicators of success associated with growth (e.g., number of employees, number of customers, profit ) should be moderated. Other forms of success not intrinsically calling for scale open new horizons for a more sustainable, inclusive, and ethical future.
Some would still argue that a smile does not feed, yet if a smile drives you, it will help you both overcome the obstacles of entrepreneurship and achieve your social mission. Entrepreneurship is hard; social entrepreneurship is even harder. That is why social entrepreneurs should listen to their passion and never bow to the pressure of the current system.
Sharing the new narrative
Reversing the trend about success won’t be easy. For decades, global media has shared stories of world celebrities and startups raising millions of dollars but barely stories of medium and small entrepreneurs having local impacts. The idolization of these success stories has harmed the value of local actions and has perverted the public opinion on what success is. As a result, local social entrepreneurs have been disincentivized to communicate on their impact, leaving their voice unheard.
In an ever more connected world, local social entrepreneurs have the appropriate communication channels to share their stories and reverse these biased dynamics. However, they must organize and join forces to share their own form of success and be heard. Conjointly, their stories will build a new narrative which will gradually encourage a greater number of entrepreneurs to undertake local social actions.
Eventually, achieving social good and intervening locally will become the core and ideal principles of our society.
Local social entrepreneurship in action
To illustrate local social entrepreneurship and contribute to the new narrative, I would like to share the story of Abbé Pierre, a French Catholic priest who lived in the 20th century.
His journey started when he initiated the Emmaus movement in response to the World War II postwar crisis. In 1949, after joining the Resistance and having a brief transition in politics, Abbé Pierre decided to dedicate his work towards providing housing to homeless people. To achieve his social mission and gather funds, he creatively started to collect and resell used goods, as well as modestly fix houses.
Facing the government’s inactions during the deadly cold winter of 1954, Abbé Pierre stood up by delivering a speech of solidarity. The genuineness of his speech prompted changes in public housing policies and participated to the growth of the Emmaus movement and later to the creation of the Abbé Pierre Foundation, which still pursue its social mission today.
Abbé Pierre’s mission highlights the characteristic of social entrepreneurship, including leadership, sustainability, ethic, and innovation. Unlike mainstream social entrepreneurship, Abbé Pierre’s impact grew naturally; he started small, grew slowly, and always followed his passion. His ambition — providing a roof to everyone — alongside his engagement, kindness, and determination allowed his voice to be heard and his social impact to live up until today.
Conclusion
A countermovement narrative must emerge from local social entrepreneurs to compete with the stereotype that growth is the only path to success. Interventions at scale must be limited and local social actions must become the new standard.
Capitalism is not a monolith. Growth is not success. It is now time for local social entrepreneurs to collectively stand up and share their stories, which conjointly will build a new narrative for a more inclusive, ethical, and sustainable future.
Acknowledgments
This article has been written in the context of the “Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship” class at the University of California, Berkeley taught by Dr. Cleveland Justis.
