Good intentions are not enough, you need to think critically about impact to ensure your efforts are not wasted and you can always work with communities near you to solve social problems.

1. Empowering
communities
through social
innovation
By Robin Low

2. Business Impact
Businesses definitely have impact in
their communities.
When businesses exploit their
communities for short term profits,
everyone loses.
Many brands build belonging – they
connect people. The brand is the
hero, and people mostly interact
with the brand, rather than with each
other.

3. Today
Billions go into fighting poverty and
yet more people fall into poverty
everyday.
NGOs have provided food, medicine
and shelter for people, but requires
more funding.
Giving food to people today does
not reduce their need for food
tomorrow.

4. Giving does not mean you are
doing good.
 Millions of mosquito nets given free in
Africa to fight Malaria has destroyed the
mosquito net industry, and some
recipients are using the nets to catch fish.
 Food Aid in Haiti after the Haitian
Earthquake in 2010 is still pouring into the
city, making it hard for any farmers to sell
their crops.

5. Giving does not mean you are
doing good.
A promise of new water filters in the
village with the filthiest water supply
prompts villagers to poison their
own water supply in India.
In the Asian Tsunami, a can food
drive donated much luncheon meat
and hotdogs (which contains pork)
to survivors in Indonesia who are
Muslim.

7. Giving Bicycles to Myanmar
 Mr Than bought 10,000 bicycles in
Singapore and Malaysia to send to
Myanmar.
 Mr Than plans to modify the bicycles so
that they can better suit the needs of the
children in villages.
 He also plans to remove the solar panels
and digital locks attached to some of the
bicycles, and give each beneficiary a
manual lock which “works better in the
villages”.

8. What next?
How would the villagers find spare
parts to fix the bicycles?
Due to limited numbers, who will
receive the bicycles?
Will this create more waste?

9. Milo Wall
Have you been to a flat in Jalan
Kukor where the beneficiary has
stack milo cans she received and it
filled the whole wall?
None of the cans are opened and the
bottom ones are rusty. Is this doing
good?

10. Social Enterprise
A social enterprise is an organization
that applies commercial strategies to
maximize improvements in human and
environmental well-being, rather than
maximizing profits for external
shareholders.

11. Success - Scale - Fail
Social Enterprises may seem to be a
great solution which may solve a lot
of problems today.
Running a small scale business to
benefit a small group of people may
prove to be successful, however,
when these social enterprises scale,
most of them tend to fail.

12. Success - Scale - Fail
Social Enterprises tend to run on a
lean model, with limited budget to
hire top talent. Most of the time, this
is enough to have a profit and the
founders do not ask for much, and
believe in spending less and doing
more, however, like most charities,
this does not attract the talent and
experience needed for it to scale.

13. Success - Scale - Fail
 Many Social Enterprises like startups,
are nimble and adaptive, but as the
organization gets bigger, bureaucracy
sets in and it is harder to deal with the
changes on the ground.
 Some Social Enterprises get funding
from VCs who seem to focus on
returns, and the focus of social impact
may become send to the focus on
generating profits.

14. Need for Social Innovation
Most social problems are more
complex and when solutions come
from one discipline or simply
focused on “patching” the problem,
the problem rarely gets solved and
often becomes more complex as
time goes by.

15. Need for Social Innovation
 Social innovation is the best construct for
understanding and producing lasting
social change.
 However, many organizations, including
social enterprises are merely doing "social
fixing“.
 Innovation may require a more drastic,
cross disciplinary solution to dissect the
problem and creation of various models to
test the solution.

16. A definition of social
innovation
“We contend that social innovation is the
best construct for understanding and
producing lasting social change. We redefine
social innovation to mean: A novel solution
to a social problem that is more effective,
efficient, sustainable or just than existing
solutions and for which the value created
accrues primarily to society as a whole
rather than private individuals.”
Source: Phills, Deiglmeier, and Miller (2008)

17. Why Community?
 Marginalized communities are not helpless
communities.
 There is untapped human capacity.
 Communities are capable to solve their
own problems in the long run.
 People in similar communities can benefit
from their solutions.

18. Why now?
 Technologies have advanced enough now that it
makes it easy to communicate and organize.
 Social media is a low cost and convenient way to
generate awareness and share ideas.
 People do not think about themselves as part of a
community anymore. People like to compete even in
poorer neighborhoods.
 Society is much fragmented and many living in the
city care only about themselves.

19. Are you guilty of?
 Ignoring trash in your path outside your house and
walking on, thinking someone else should clean it
up?
 Donating and not caring about how the funds are
getting to be used.
 Stop supporting other causes because you have
done some “good deed” not too long ago.

20. Are you guilty of …
 “Liking” a post or posted something on Facebook on
a marginalized community, but have never known or
tried to know anyone who is in that community.
 Thinking that volunteering or donating is for others
(not you) who have more time and money.
 Believing that things cannot change and it is
pointless to do anything about it.

21. Agent of Social Change
 Being an agent of social change is not
hard, there is always time if you plan for it.
 Generating social impact does not cost
you a lot of money, you can always work
out how it would fit in your budget.
 You get to learn a lot from the experience,
and it will give you have creative inputs to
solve a pressing problem.

22. Never Help:
Engage
Enable
Empower
Connect

23. Empowering Communities
 Training marginalized communities to view problems
as opportunities.
 These communities know their problems and
environment most.
 When local solutions are found, scaling to other
areas can be done to benefit many others.
 Resources can be directed at other problems once
communities can be independent.

24. Building Social Communities
 Helping marginalized communities is
continuous.
 Donations to marginalized communities
have one life, once used, more donations
are needed.
 Empowering communities that support
themselves will be a sustainable way to
bring more options to the community.

25. Positive Mindset
 Believe in yourself and the people you
want to engage. Nothing is impossible.
 Do not do it out of pity. Do it because your
inputs matter.
 Reframing questions from “can” to “how
can”
 Accept it as a share responsibility.
 If you never try, you can never succeed.

26. Take Action
 Instead of talking about it and spend a long
time planning, you can start immediately.
 It’s a shared project. Talk to the community
you want to be involved in and work on a
shared solution.
 You can start small, create a prototype and
test assumptions. Adapting to the situation is
more important than a good plan.

27. Change Paradigm
 Instead of donation – investment.
 Instead of teaching – learning.
 Instead of volunteering – partnering.
 Instead of problem – opportunity.
 Instead of pity – empathy.
 Instead of help – Engage, Empower,
Enable & Connect.

28. Join a Community
 You do not need to do it alone, there are
always businesses who can align with you
on a social goal.
 Organizations like Brands for Good can be
a good place to start.

29. The best brands build a
belonging

30. And some for-profit brands are identifying
this opportunity. Thinking beyond
“customers,” “fans,” or “followers,” the
next frontier for great brands is stepping
into the cultural need and market
opportunity for deeper, real-world person-
to-person connection.

31. Apple “Town Square”

32. Apple “Town Square”
Apple has concept stores: “Town Squares,”
complete with communal spaces and a host
of classes that enable people to gather in
different ways, such as Photo Walks where
people learn photography techniques
together while exploring their city.

33. “If you want to make a
society work, then you don’t
keep underscoring the places
where you’re different – you
underscore your shared
humanity”

34. The Power of Crowds
Communities have ability to solve
problems.
 They understand problems better
 They are not stupid
 They don’t need pity, donations or aid.
 They must be allowed to try new ideas to
get out of their bad situation and allowed
to fail and learn from the experience.

35. Champion causes
Instead of funding an activity to feed
the elderly living in poverty, can
there be engagement with these
elderly to see why are they in this
situation?
Employees may have a cause they
are passionate about and it may be
aligned with the values of the
company, can these causes be
further studied?

36. Champion causes
Can the community and your
customers (and their networks) be
involved?
You don’t have to run this alone, but
engaging the community and
highlighting the problem can build
brand affinity with others who have
similar values.

37. Brands should create spaces,
experiences, products, and
services that deliberately foster
the conditions for diverse people
coming together in respectful
environments for shared
experiences.

38. Conclusion
It is not easy to do good with real
impact.
Problems may seem overwhelming,
but you do not need to do it alone.
You get to share your values and
perhaps, contribute to a fairer, just
and more inclusive society.

39. Conclusion
Through engagements, you may
gain extra insights beyond new
customers, followers and fans that
may open up new markets, create
new products and services.
Engage, enable, empower &
connect.

40. Robin Low
https://www.facebook.com/socialhub