You Do Not Need to be a Certain Age to Create Change
By Ahmed Muneeb, Cofounder
In 2015, the United Nations released the Sustainable Development 2030 Agenda.
The sustainable development agenda includes 17 goals to hopefully be met by 2030. This has served as my personal ethos and working hard to build a platform for aspiring social entrepreneurs be able to share their ideas, mission and goals and have readily available access to tools and resources to help make their ideas a reality.
In the next few days, we will launch the first iteration of the 1M1L platform hoping to highlight stories from every day people looking to make a difference like yourself.
As you can see, the first goal is to eliminate poverty. To help make your idea a reality you need to do a few things:
1. Clarify your Mission.
It is very easy to say you want to help the poor. It is the how, that would need the most thought because it will be the framework to your execution. You need to clarify this mission a bit more. How will you help the poor? Raising money is just one aspect but how will the money be used is another question. It may be helping them have access to digital tools and technology so they could have sustainable jobs. Look in to the concept of impact sourcing to provide more of a context. It may involve them entering non-profit centers for re-training. How you gear the direction in helping them, will be a clear distinction for you and in turn, potentially gaining a powerful support system for your goals.
2. Strategic Partnerships.
You will need help here. A lot of help. After you clarify your mission and the direction you want to take it to. You may need to get support from other experienced investors, angels or sponsors and other non-profits who have the resources to help provide the proper support. You will need to craft your plan and really be persistent in your mission.
3. Tools and Resources.
The internet has opened up various funding sources for many social projects. This is great, but not enough and also very passive. You will need to do some ground work here and travel to the respective country to understand the structure a bit more so that your fundraising efforts end up in the right hands. Once they are in the right hands and hopefully the organizations that you have partnered up with take up your cause and you could provide a strong effort in going after your mission.
I would think of yourself as a business or social enterprise and ask for mentorship from experienced social entrepreneurs for execution purposes. I would also once your goals are developed more, create that enterprise centered around your mission and your angle towards helping the poor.
You would have a much stronger impact that way as an enterprise, because it will help you develop those partnerships as you grow. Start off by familiarizing yourself with organizations working along that same mission and volunteer for them and immerse yourself in the NGO space to learn how they operate.
It will set you apart.
Note: Read Leila Janah’s story and the founding of her antipoverty social enterprise, Samasource.
Their work over the last decade towards eliminating poverty has been remarkable.
Originally published at www.quora.com.
