The Social Entrepreneurship Quadrant desrcibes the orientation of a social entrepreneur. Each of the Quadrant offers a different approach of business and can help an entrepreneur model his/her social enterprise accordingly. Moreover, the Quadrant can also help impact investors, grant making agencies, and several other stakeholders options to consider the form of models before making a decision. Therefore, this Quadrant can also be used as a decision making tool.
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Quadrant I:- This Quad is also known as the Traditional Not for Profit Quadrant. This Quad represents organizations that are driven by social mission and do not make profits. They are not bound by taxation, and still have to raise enough money to meet the expenses. Foundations, Trusts, Societies, Religious institutions, etc., come under this quadrant. They rely on grants, donations and charity money to support their socially driven operations. This quad is also considered the birthplace of modern social enterprise, because the organizations in this quad achieve social goals by design. Social entrepreneurs belonging to this quad, sometimes design their organizations to provide some goods or services for which they can charge a fee, in order to raise money for their operations. Examples from India are CIBART, CTD, and TRIBAC (Tripura).
Quadrant II:- This Quad is also known as the Tipping Point Quadrant. This Quad represents Organizations that are not only driven by social mission but are also profit oriented. The Organizations and Social Entrepreneurs belonging to this quadrant hold the promise for bringing about an economic transformation. Depending on whether their “multiple botton-line” approach to business reaches critical mass in the marketplace, they may tip the scale for how all business performance is measured. Some examples from India are Bamboo House India , GreenFlip , Green Venture Camp.
Quadrant III:- This Quad is also known as the Transient Org Quadrant. This Quad represents Companies, which are market driven, but are not profit oriented. hence, they may be operate for short periods of time. As Dorado says, the motivation for social entrepreneurs is not the creation of a new enterprise, but the creation of a path defined so participants can solve a complex social problem; whether or not the initiate derives profit is irrelevant. Organizations in this quad find support from public and private companies, grants or governmental support. They identify a need in the marketplace; and then use the proceeds from satisfying that need to support a social cause. Examples from India are ThinkChange India , ACCESS .
Quadrant IV:- This Quad is also known as the Traditional Biz Quadrant. This Quad repersents the most classical form of businesses, which are profit oriented and market driven. They produce goods and services the marketplace wants and they use the profits they generate to pay investors and taxes as well as to expand and grow. If they fail to generate profits, they cease to function or will be bought by the competition or close. Their startegy to grow is by following the market and change suit as per demand. if and when the marketplace decides that a social issue is worth paying for, the social entrepreneur in this quadrant addresses it by supporting activities that are useful in generating sales because they are considered socially responsible. Usually Companies in this Quadrant, donate part of their profits, build ‘green’ facilities, offer free and/or low cost services to social organizations. Few examples of such companies from India are Joint Leap Teachnologies , and STRATESSENCE.
Traditional businesses have focussed till now only on profit maximisation, seeking to focus even more narrowly on those chosen set of activities that produces the maximum monetary returns for the owners. The marketplace is their theatre rather than their audition within society. Therefore, their social costs have been mounting. Its important that a new breed of social entrepreneurs emerge to tackle social problems and at the same time bring economic change in the society, with new models of businesses.Which Quadrant do you belong to?
Once we decided upon the name of the brand for our green products, and were happy with the sleek and unique name, we invited couple of our friends over momos and coffee to share our ideas and get their feedback as potential consumers. In the meantime, D had designed a brilliant logo for our brand, which further enhanced the name. M & L were our sounding board for the evening over yummy roadside momos [bootstrapping has its own unique flavors], we talked at length about our branding exercise over GreenFlip. We even talked about some tag lines, and L came up with ‘Fashion Flip to Green’, which won by 4:1 vote then and there, and we accepted and adopted the tag line. We finally had a cool brand name, brilliant logo and an excellent and tasteful tagline, all in sync. Read the full post HERE
