Is It Too Hard to Break Into the Social Entrepreneurship Field?

In a great post this morning on the Pop!Tech blog, Ashni Mohnot argues that there are some specific structural constraints to breaking into the social entrepreneurship field that have led to a deep (and perhaps hypocritical) contrast between the field's egalitarian view of the world and the demographic composition of who actually gets to participate.

She points to three particular frustrations:

1. MBAs Only: Mohnot points out that socially entrepreneurial nonprofits have a bit of a fetishization of the MBA degree as a qualification. I think she rightly suggests that while it's reasonable that many people with experience with nonprofit work will need some form of business training to thrive in more financially-driven social enterprises, the MBA is one path to that sort of knowledge and comes with it's own set of baggage (not to mention debt).

2. No Young Talent Cultivation: In a point that hits particularly close to home, Mohnot points out that many (if not most) social enterprises don't have space for young people just coming out of school. She uses a number of examples to suggest how hard it is for graduates to find compelling opportunities, and asks why talent cultivation isn't a more robust part of most social enterprises' practices.

3. White, Western Voices Only: Echoing a conversation that has been tearing across Social Edge for the last week, Mohnot argues that the conversation about social entrepreneurship is dominated by white, western voices. I think that one could argue that, at least when it comes to the blogosphere, part of this problem is that there are still major digital access issues and frankly, differences in comfort with self-promotion that dampen the number of social entrepreneurs in other countries who have any sort of active social media presence. I also think her critique overstates the case that social entrepreneurs only act as "good anthropologists" soliciting feedback rather than actively involving the poor in the design of their own programs (which is precisely what at least two of her previous examples, FORGE and Kiva, do) doesn't do quite enough to recognize the dramatic shift happening towards just that sort of approach. That said, the vast majority of the critique is still right on.

The fascinating thing is that all of this comes down, in some way, to how we prioritze the cultivation of talent as an essential element of the health of our field.

MBAs may be vital, but how do we help set undergraduates on a path to social enteprise leadership before they take on hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional debt? How do we build nonprofit cultures that value (and are willing to press donors for) professional development that could build some of this training into existing work?

How do we expand the offerings of groups like Kiva and the Acumen Fund that do have fellowship programs open to younger, less-experienced people who want to be in the social enterprise space? How do we disrupt the system to make it the norm for social enterprises to have associate training programs and other structures that would help unlock incredible talent that will otherwise find it's way to other arenas?

And finally, how do we provide the basic infrastructure, support, mentorship and opportunities to unleash the entrepreneurial talent of people in different parts of the world? Jonathan Gosier at Appfrica has found a model that certainly seems to be doing just that for East African software developers, so what can we learn from them?

The take away for me is that we have to be more dilligent in our approach to cultivating, harnessing, and retaining talent, whereever it may come from.