Suggested Answers to Short Quiz - How To Change The World

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johnkarls
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Suggested Answers to Short Quiz - How To Change The World

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Question 1

What famous historical figure constantly said: “Ideas create organizations and ideas blow them away”?

Answer 1

Winston Churchill.

Question 2

What is the Grameen Bank and who is Muhammad Yunus?

Answer 2

The Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 was awarded jointly to Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank which he founded in his native Bangladesh in 1976. A former Fulbright Scholar for his PhD at Vanderbilt University, Yunus became an Economics Professor at Bangladesh’s University of Chittagong.

He was inspired by the famine of 1974 to make a loan of $27 to a group of 42 families in an impoverished and starving village so that they could create small items for sale. According to our author, he/Grameen had made loans by 2007 of $6.1 billion to 7.1 million Bangladeshi villagers – 97% of them women.

The loans, of necessity, have no collateral because the villagers are destitute. However, the default rate and administrative costs are both negligible because the loans are administered by each village and peer pressure is sufficient to compel industriousness and eventual repayment.

Formerly destitute villagers have been able to feed their families, build tin-roof houses to withstand the monsoons, send their children to school and accumulate assets for old-age security.

Grameen means “of the village.”

Because of this example, by 2005 more than 3,100 additional micro-credit (or microfinance) programs were reaching 82 million of the poorest families around the world.

Question 3

What is Ashoka and who is Bill Drayton?

Answer 3

Bill Drayton joined the Environmental Protection Agency in 1977 as its No. 2 after 5 years of management consulting at McKinsey and Co. (the Cadillac of consulting firms).

However, for 15 years he had been dreaming of identifying incipient social entrepreneurs and providing the support and funding needed to make their dreams a reality.

Drawing on his contacts from Harvard College, Oxford U., Yale Law School and McKinsey, he established Ashoka (Sanskrit for “active absence of sorrow”) and began running it in his spare time at the EPA, spending his vacation time on quick trips to India, Indonesia and Venezuela to spend the $50 thousand that he had contributed himself and collected from 3 friends.

Following the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Reagan’s beginning to gut the EPA, Bill Drayton left to devote full time to Ashoka.

Most of our book, incidentally, describes the experiences of Ashoka recipients – bringing to reality rural electrification in Brazil, child protection in India, assisted living for the disabled in Hungary, health care reformation in Brazil, care for AIDS patients in South Africa (sparking the testimonial from Nelson Mandela featured in our last two newsletters), disability rights in India, etc.

(Also incidentally, David Bornstein's first book ("The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank") was selected as a finalist for the New York Public Library Book Award for Excellence in Journalism and was published by the Oxford University Press -- probably just in time to catch the attention of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for awarding the 2006 prize to Yunus and his Grameen Bank.)

By 2006, Ashoka had supported more than 1,820 social entrepreneurs in 68 countries around the world. Ashoka’s selection keys have always been – (1) is the idea absolutely unique, something never tried before, (2) is it something that can be replicated across the nation involved and, hopefully, around the world, and (3) is the individual behind it a “driving force” who can make the dream a reality?

Question 4

What did Bill Clinton say about Bill Drayton in a speech at the Global Philanthropy Forum in 2007?

Answer 4

Bill Clinton said that he looked forward to the day when Bill Drayton would receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Question 5

What is the difference between a commercial entrepreneur and a social entrepreneur?

Answer 5

Very little – they both have vision, drive, organizational ability, charisma, etc.

But the social entrepreneur is not motivated by money, except by what money can do. And cares little about personal recognition or even personal comfort. S/he wants to transform the world into a better place.

Question 6

What is the difference between an entrepreneur (commercial or social) and an inventor?

Answer 6

An entrepreneur, in the first stage, is an inventor – conceiving of something new. But mere inventors often let others make their ideas a reality or, more often, permit their ideas to languish in perpetual limbo. While the entrepreneur drives forward to do whatever is necessary to implement the idea.

Question 7

Given the vast amount of analysis of commercial entrepreneurs and the vast amount of study of them in business school curricula, why are social entrepreneurs ignored – their accomplishments being ascribed instead to “an idea whose time has come” or, if the social entrepreneur responsible for making the idea’s time come is identified, describing her/him as a “saint” with no analysis of what makes a saint “tick”?

Answer 7

There is no excuse!!! And awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus in 2006 and Wangari Maathai in 2004 (two prominent social entrepreneurs) is an obvious attempt by the Nobel Peace Prize Selection Committee to call attention to social entrepreneurs and the study of social entrepreneurship.

Question 8

What are the typical characteristics of such “saints” when they are finally analysed by our author?

Answer 8

In addition to qualities mentioned in Answers 5 & 6, our author has identified 6 important traits – (1) a willingness to self-correct, (2) a willingness to share credit, (3) a willingness to break free of established structures, (4) a willingness to cross disciplinary boundaries, (5) a willingness to work quietly, and (6) a strong ethical impetus.

Question 9

What are the typical characteristics of the organizations these “saints” create?

Answer 9

Our author has identified four special characteristics – (1) they institutionalise listening, (2) they pay attention to the exceptional, (3) they design real solutions for real people, and (4) they focus on the human qualities.

Question 10

Do these “saints” have to scrounge around for financing or does their “sainthood” exempt them from having to deal with finances?

Answer 10

Saints have to scrounge!!! And scrounge!!! And scrounge!!!

Question 11

How many of the “saints” described in “How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas” had to fight a government to benefit its people?

Answer 11

Quite a few of them. It is not unusual for entrenched economic powers to have recruited government to their side.

Question 12

How much better is it to have a social entrepreneur as President of the United States – both in terms of not having to fight the government and in terms of financial resources available?

Answer 12

Infinitely!!!

Question 13

With the election of President Obama, should social entrepreneurs retire and let him take care of everything?

Answer 13

He may be a Saint!!! But he’s not God, Almighty!!!

Question 14

Even if your answer to Question 12 is affirmative (and we hope it isn’t!!!), do you feel any responsibility for facilitating change in the rest of the world? After all, the vast majority of “saints” described in “How to Change the World” were engaged in “sainthood” outside the United States and many, if not most, were engaged in “sainthood” outside the country in which they were born and raised -- and even if you don’t feel well-enough established financially to take the plunge yet, what about donating to the “saints” who are scrounging for financing?

Answer 14

Bring your ideas for what we can do to discuss on July 8th!!!

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