A visit with a social entrepreneur.
Jesalee Rose Ong is changing the lives of independent fishermen and their families in remote areas of the Philippines.
I serve as a volunteer with Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, where we help social entrepreneurs around the globe to scale enterprises that have a positive impact on the world. I’ve been involved for ten years; our mission is to bring Silicon Valley expertise to bear on helping the social entrepreneurs in the field who are doing the hard work to transform lives and save the planet.
In that role I traveled last week to Bantayan, a small island in the Philippines, to meet with Jesalee Rose Ong (everyone calls her “Jet”).
Four years ago Jet established Fishers and Changemakers, a social enterprise working to improve livelihoods for independent fishermen and their families.
There are several million fisherman in the Philippines who live in poverty (the fishing sector has the highest poverty level in the country, in fact). Without the means to buy their own boats, many of the fishermen rely on a well-entrenched system where they have to “borrow” a boat from a local middleman who also “loans” them fuel. When they return from a long day’s work on the water, the middleman buys the catch from them (at a price he sets) and deducts his fee for the boat and the fuel, often leaving the fishermen with a scant day’s pay.
Jet, with a fresh degree from the Asian Social Institute and a deep passion for improving the lives of others, observed this exploitive model and had a simple idea: What if she was able to give these fisherman the ability to cut out the middleman and sell a premium product direct to consumers?
So Jet’s organization created a new consumer brand of packaged dried fish called Balangay’s Best, and built-out the marketing, sales, and distribution network for the new brand. Dried fish is popular throughout the Philippines and Balangay’s Best is now sold in speciality stores and gift shops all over the country with packaging that describes how the fish is sustainably caught by independent fishermen whose livelihoods are being supported by the product.
With Jet’s organization providing the marketing and distribution horsepower, she then helps each village create their own cooperative which does the fishing as well as the cleaning and drying. The families in the cooperative then pack the product into Jet’s packaging, and her organization buys the finished product from the local cooperative at a premium price.
This innovative business model has several key factors: (1) Jet’s organization provides the marketing and distribution at a scale that independent fishermen don’t otherwise have access to; (2) The independent fishermen are bypassing the middlemen and getting a much better price for their catch; (3) Because the fish processing and packing is being done by a village cooperative, wives and other family members are able to participate, bringing economic development to the whole village.
There’s lots of innovation going on in the world today, and it’s not all technology-driven. Jet and her organization are a great example, as they use business model innovation to improve livelihoods for independent fishermen and their families in the Philippines.
