First Steps
Jessica Jackley didn’t start Kiva with a business plan. She started by going out for coffee. After hearing Muhammad Yunus, the founder of microfinance, speak, the idea of starting her own microfinance organization inflamed her. She journaled about starting her own organization, had coffee with experts, and connected with people already working in microfinance. That deep dive into people’s stories and experiences became the foundation for Kiva, now one of the world’s largest microlending platforms. Jessica started with curiosity, not a pitch deck. By listening and learning first, she zeroed in on her sweet spot for success.
Step 1: Find Your Sweet Spot
Think of social entrepreneurship like a Venn diagram with three question circles. What does the world need? What are you passionate about? What are you really good at? Look at the area where those three circles overlap. That’s the sweet spot of success. Starting here gives the best chance of creating lasting social impact.
What is your sweet spot? Spend 30 minutes drawing your own diagram. Mind map your passion, your skills, and community and global need. Be honest with yourself. Suppose you love marine biology but hate public speaking, maybe your path isn’t giving TED talks about ocean conservation. Instead, you might develop educational apps about marine biology or work behind the scenes on a research project. But who knows, later on you may develop the skills and mindset of a speaker. Moving in the direction of your passion will change your life. Once you’ve mapped it, ask yourself What’s one small step I could take this week?
Step 2: Think Like a Designer
Move from idea to action using a design thinking model adapted for social change. As described step-by-step in Design Thinking: A Guide to Innovation (DTAGI), the process has six phases: Notice/Reflect, Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. If you’ve never used design thinking or haven’t used it recently, it’s worthwhile reviewing each phase. The new step, Notice/Reflect, is part of the Design Thinking for Social Impact model (ST4SI), added to support co-design, authenticity, and ethical practice in DTAGI.
You’ll spend most of your time in the first two phases, bouncing between personal reflection and deep community research, between the Notice/Reflect phase and the Empathy phase. Having brilliant ideas in isolation is ultimately unworkable. Taking the time to understand the actual problems of real people creates meaningful change.
Step 3: Notice/Reflect: Two Lenses to Help You Find Your Role
As you start designing your organization, think about your motivations and intentions. Ask yourself these essential questions:
Personal check: Are you seeing yourself as a partner or a rescuer? There’s a vast difference. Partners listen, learn, and work alongside their partners in the community. Rescuers assume they know best. People don’t want saviors.
Community standing: Do people in this community actually know you? Do they trust you? If you’re an outsider (which is often the case), how will you earn that trust? How do you demonstrate commitment and sincere intentions? Degrees and credentials won’t count for much until people see you as a credible partner. Teddy Roosevelt once said, “They don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”
Step 4: Zoom In
Global problems are overwhelming. Local problems are solvable. Instead of trying to end world hunger, focus on food access in your city or town. Instead of solving the education crisis, look at after-school programs in your neighborhood.
Learn how your specific community works. What are the networks, relationships, and informal systems that make things happen? Who are the connectors? What works well already? What has the community tried before?
Step 5: Do Your Homework
Research isn’t just googling. Seasoned investigators use four approaches to learn about a community: reading online or library documents, one-on-one conversations, focused group discussions, and structured, conscious observation, which is often overlooked (ha!) as a method. As Yogi Berra noted, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” Each technique gives you different insights, and using several helps you add to and cross-check your findings.
Keep a Journal. Document everything about your investigation: conversations, insights, contact info, even random observations. This becomes your project playbook and keeps you from repeating others’ mistakes.
Step 6: Start Small, Start Today!
Why not get started now? Don’t wait for perfect conditions. Pick one small action you can do now:
- Map your sweet spot (or update it) with a specific community in mind
- Answer three Notice/Reflect questions about your motivations and readiness from above in your Design Journal
- Contact two people doing this work already to schedule a coffee conversation
Every social enterprise starts with listening to understand deeply, first to yourself, then to the community you hope to serve. Care enough to listen deeply and act thoughtfully. Don’t wait for the perfect idea or the perfect moment. As Woody Allen said, “Ninety percent of life is showing up.” Every successful social enterprise started exactly where you are right now: with someone who paid attention and cared.
I’d like to listen to how your process is going. Email me at Fred3Estes@gmail.com.