I recently met with a leading figure in the field of entrepreneurship and social innovation who, before dedicating himself to the non-profit sector, had extensive professional experience in the corporate world, where he was able to grow on the strength of consistent partnerships. He confessed that one of the first thoughts he had when he dedicated himself to the social sector was that he would find it much easier to work in collaboration with other organisations in this sector. And it was with great surprise that he realised he was completely wrong. He felt that it was not only very difficult, but in many cases almost impossible.
I've been working exclusively in the field of social innovation since 2007, and I've seen the same thing year after year. It's notoriously difficult for people in this sector to co-create together in collaboration. We often meet people who are dedicated to the same social cause and are trying to solve it in very similar ways, with the same complaints: lack of people to help, lack of funding, lack of time. As an incubator, our first instinct is to put them in touch, so they can get to know each other and see how they can help each other and, perhaps, work together, getting more people and more strength. And what a surprise it is when we realise, all too often, that these meetings rarely result in effective joint work. We've been reflecting a lot on how to create more opportunities for collaboration and one of the reflections led us to possible causes for this difficulty.
- Passion: social entrepreneurs are truly passionate about their "cause" and "solution". Their work is intertwined with their life, their family budget with their professional budget, their work time with their family time, their friends with their work colleagues, in an immersion of professional mission and meaning of life that makes a possible collaboration much more than that: it can jeopardise, or even distort, something very precious, which is much more than a professional challenge.
- Difficulties: social entrepreneurs face serious financial difficulties (it's not surprising that this is always the first and most important difficulty mentioned), very tight budgets that often end in negative balance sheets and many, many hours of volunteering. Often, in this immense effort to find financial resources for "their" project, there is no energy left to think about collaborative projects which, because they involve more than one organisation, would involve (even) more effort.
- Unshakeable confidence: in order to face all these difficulties, of course, they have a secret: unshakeable confidence in their solution (usually created by themselves in a mix of entrepreneur/founder). It's almost as if there are no more social problems and, for that particular problem, that's "the solution"! And this confidence is truly a great power that allows you to withstand times of incredible adversity and to resist when everyone around you thinks "how can he/she do it?".
- It's your voice. It's your face. It's rare for a social entrepreneur not to give lectures, talks, take part in meetings, be associated with awards, recognitions and win competitions. I would say that the ratio at which this happens, compared to so many other professions, is clearly higher. This stage, which is also fundamental for reinforcing and validating the entrepreneurs' "solution", increasingly prevents them from detaching themselves from that same solution so that they can build something different.
- It's not me, it's him. On top of all this, when we ask people (and there are many) this question: "why don't you work together?", the answer is always that the cause lies on the other side. It's always the other side that copied the idea, that didn't come to me to propose anything (if they did, of course I'd accept). Of course we're not going to co-construct with everyone, but even with those we truly admire, who we feel would build something exceptional, it's very difficult to take the first step.
And it is this commitment, often unconditional, this extreme dedication to a social cause, often without financial resources, without enough people, without the right means, that entrepreneurs live by that makes co-creating so difficult, even when the cause is the same and the solution "plays to the same beat".
At IRIS we do a lot of "mea culpa" and we too, who share so many of these difficulties, adventures and misadventures, try, whenever we can, to call on those we admire for joint projects and we hope that one day the conditions will be in place for us to co-create much more, despite the difficulty this represents in such a challenging environment.
Sometimes we make this task of creating synergies with other organisations too complex, but in practice it's just a contact, a call, a first step away. So here's a "new year" challenge: call someone you admire and challenge them to co-creation for 2024.
The magic of duets is incredible. Zambujo and Araújo can only fill Coliseums consecutively when they play together. And they miss playing together in packed Coliseums for days at a time.
Shall we fill Coliseums?
