What Inspires Social Entrepreneurs?

5/14/2018

What actually inspires social entrepreneurs? You are probably wondering why all those people are so much concentrated on devoting their time to create positive impact. Of course, social entrepreneurs are, first of all, focused on running their organisation in order to be able to contribute to either the environment or the society.

Social entrepreneurs use innovative and creative approaches to tackle community, national and international issues. Their approaches are sustainable and practical which benefit society. They aim at financially stable activities to be able to make an impact and reach their social mission. Of course like any entrepreneur, the social entrepreneur needs to have that inspiration and motivation to be able to keep their operations alive and to be sustainable.

Social Entrepreneur's Inspiration

Social entrepreneurs have user-friendly and ethical ideas engaging as many people as possible in order to influence the number of citizens who will grasp the idea and to act on it for impacting others. In other words, social entrepreneurs are not only role models but also change makers, change agents who create new approaches and solutions to change the society and our planet for the better.

To present cases of what could inspire social entrepreneurs, we have extracted quotes from the SocialBusiness.org article of 100 Inspirational Social Entrepreneurs. The article is based on a hundred of interviews with social entrepreneurs from all over the world in a variety of industries, who share their inspirations.

We have chosen a few powerful phrases from all those 100 social entrepreneurs on how they got or are getting their inspiration:

"The daily contact with the reality of doing it is inspiring. Implementing a plan that has been so long and deep in the making is insanely inspiring and exciting. Seeing, essentially, so far, how most of our ideas and details of how we thought we would roll this out, most of them were turning out to be on target or better than we had expected."
Eric Reynolds, Founder and Executive Director of Inyenyeri

"Personally, my main source of inspiration comes from our own headquarters. We all live and work together in a small chalet and you really do get to know people under those circumstances. The genuine passion, hard work and positive energy that exists under our roof after two and half years of exhausting bootstrapping is phenomenal."
Sam Bruce, Co-founder of Much Better Adventures

"My personal inspiration comes from the people I love and my friends. The fire that drives me to put my heart and soul into Fashioning Change is the social injustice that results from a culture of flash and trash consumerism and the impact it has on people and the Earth."
Adriana Herrera, Founder and CEO of Fashioning Change

"A lot of my inspiration comes from the dissection of frustration. Whether it is my own frustration or that of others, there always seems to be a better way to do things. I really get satisfaction from breaking down a problem and slowly inching towards an alternative solution."
Calvin Kwok, Designer of STITCH & LOCKE

"We saw that an overwhelming majority of consumers felt our solution was something they would absolutely value and we saw that there was a lot of frustration with the status quo. Alex and I were inspired by these results and it really affirmed our decision to start Køge."
Alex Hyssen and Andrew Lenjosek, Co-Founders of Koge Vitamins

"Our number one inspiration comes from the small-scale farmers we buy from in places like Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, the Philippines and Thailand. They are under-privileged and work in harsh conditions in remote areas of the world. Some of them are among the poorest people on this planet, yet they have a dignity and strength that is admirable."
Mathieu Senard and Edouard Rollet, Founders of Alter Eco

"The recession has seen the makers among us –- those with practical skills such as sewing, knitting, baking, jewelry making –- take center stage and whereas "green" and "ethical" were once seen as a bit worthy, dull and hippie-fied, now the designers and craftspeople who hold these values dear are creating with beauty and style. I’m overwhelmed by the abundance of talent and want to share it!"
Katie Fewings, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Ethical Weddings

"We have over 100 brands that have incredible stories: brands that are supporting and working with fair trade co-ops of women in Guatemala, brands that are committed to producing their designs here in the US, brands that are finding ways to make their clothing from recycled water bottles. It's inspiring to work with these brands who are creating beautiful designs that are making a difference and protecting our environment or providing hope and possibility to the artisans they work with."
David Dietz, Founder of Modavanti

"Today, there is a constant stream of news and information about social problems and the individuals and organizations who are working hard to solve them. I try and stay updated on the latest and greatest efforts in the social business sphere, which gives me my daily dose of positive inspiration!"
Iman Fadaei, Founder of Ethical Art

"My instructors and my inspiration are the Afghan women themselves. My work with ARZU has simply confirmed what I have long believed to be true—that what women have in common outweighs the individual differences of religion, culture and geography. Motherhood creates a universal hope that one’s children will grow up educated, in safety, in good health with adequate nutrition and medical care, and with economic opportunities to support themselves and their families."
Connie Duckworth, Founder of ARZU

"We get inspiration from choosing to think about things differently. We see disability as a difference, and difference creates value. Sometimes people just forget that when they leave university and get into the business world."
Edouard de Broglie, Founder of Dans Le Noir

"When you see parts of the developing world that force you to reflect on your own life and habits, you can’t help but be changed. We saw places so rich in culture and so full of life that we couldn’t help but wonder why they should bear the brunt of the western world’s consumption. These experiences inspired us to start thinking about our own shopping habits, where our clothes come from and to start asking the same questions of others."
Founders of All of Us Revolution

Conclusions

As you can see from all these 12 cases of inspiration of social entrepreneurs, inspiration comes in different forms for each individual. However, they all have something in common: they are striving towards providing positive change for the society or for the environment. They were all inspired from their personal experiences with reality resulting in either their frustration from the status quo and from consumerism, or by simply getting inspired by passion, positive energy and bravery.

Additionally, all those social entrepreneurs keep themselves constantly inspired by their surroundings, i.e. the team they work with, by the support they get from their friends and family, by the community and most importantly by the impact they create.

Author
Partner @BASET
Caban Capital

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