On Being a Social Entrepreneur — Why Risk Taking and Truth Telling is Essential to Success with Suzanne Smith, Serial Social Entrepreneur and CEO/Founder — Social Impact Architects
What does it take to be an effective social entrepreneur? Suzanne Smith provides deep insights into what it really means to be a social entrepreneur. If you want to create change in your community and the world, it all comes down to two main qualities: being a risk-taker and a truth-teller.
In this interview, Suzanne describes how we can make the systemic changes that are needed in the world.
Tell me about your business and the work that you do.
I am currently running two companies, but have started more than eight social ventures. The first is a 10-year-old business that works with nonprofits, governments and foundations to create large scale social change. That change can come in the form of strategic planning for a single organization or multiple organizations, or through collaboration or for a system. For example, an early childhood system or healthcare system. We typically come in when an organization or community is stuck, or it feels like it wants to go to the next level. We help them with transformative change, and try to work with them on how to create that change over time.
We look at the engagement from two different perspectives. We jokingly say we’re half-mechanic, half-therapist. We look at it from a mechanic’s perspective, asking what the organization needs, what operating structure is needed, and what are some of the specific best practices they should be utilizing. We want to make sure the organization is both high impact and high performance. But, we also recognize that the people dynamics often get in the way, particularly in the social sector. We use entrepreneurial mindset: the ability to take on the right kind of risk, to shift culture to get the community or organization ready for change, etc.
That’s where the therapy comes in, understanding what’s holding the organization or community back. Is it not able to understand the challenge at hand? Is it a culture issue? Is it the board/staff interaction? All those things that are considered “soft,” but make a big difference in whether an organization is successful or not.
I’ve been doing that for 10 years since business school, and it really was an outgrowth of my experience in the nonprofit space, where I fired more consultants than I hired, because there weren’t people who were doing what I needed them to be doing. I felt like there was a real void in the marketplace for talented consultants who knew the community, had a business toolkit, and brought deep experience across many sectors.
My second business is a group that started about two years ago, but officially launched in soft pilot mode this summer, called Changemaker Interactive. I’m partial owner of the business, and the majority stakeholder in it. Essentially we believe that the social sector needs to harness technology to make their difficult jobs easier to accomplish.
eLearning is the first step that we’re taking. We have one course available online now — Storytelling. We’re currently working on another course, which is on Grants. And then we’re also looking for additional equity investment to build out a platform similar to Amazon or Google for and by nonprofits and other changemakers where we’re able to provide the social sector with a lot of the resources.
What was your background originally, how did you get started with both businesses?
I grew up as a social activist. Both of my parents were very involved in social change. They were administrators of schools. My dad started out as a football coach, and my mom was a counselor. We talked about social issues at the dinner table, so I oftentimes say I was an activist from a very young age. I’ve always just felt like the way we make change is being part of the solution. I see a problem and want to dive in and try to help make a difference. That’s just one of those things that has always been part of my ethos.
Did you start your business straight out of business school, or did you have other experiences before that?
When I was in the nonprofit space, I had pretty high-level positions, both at the regional office of Phoenix House and the national office of the American Heart Association. I recognized that one of the big gaps is access to high-quality information. During this time, I recognized that that was going to be a sizable shift in the sector. I went to business school specifically to study social entrepreneurship, which was a new way of bringing the best that business had to offer to the social sector.
After business school, I spent a year working for Community Wealth Ventures, a consulting firm out of D.C., to make sure that I wanted to do the work, and not just that I wanted to do it, but that I was meant to do it. Through that experience I developed a hunger to come back to my own community in Middle America, which often gets overlooked when it comes to social change. A lot of people think about Boston or San Francisco or even Washington, D.C. But no one really thinks about Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Utah, and I felt like those were my people. Those were the people who I know to be incredibly innovative. In fact, they’re the ones that have actually settled this country and instinctively have a pioneer mentality.
I felt like part of my theory of change was that I wanted to make sure the folks that I knew and loved had access to the same information that was happening on MBA campuses. I wanted to convey this concept idea of social entrepreneurship, and also translate business practices into the social space. I’ve been doing that for the past 10 years.
I’m fortunate to be an adjunct professor at a couple of universities. One of the things I teach my students is that in order to really have a life of significance, which is very different from a life of success, you want to look for the thing that you’re the most passionate about, where you have that light within you that burns brightly. But also the thing that you’re better than anybody else. That’s what I’ve been practicing for the last 10 years, and I’ve never really looked back. It’s been an amazing ride to live a life of purpose.
What would you say is the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far throughout your whole journey?
A couple of things: Being a risk-taker and being a truth-teller. I think that we’ve got to take great risks in the social space to create change, which sometimes means that we have to shake up the existing system. There are uncomfortable moments associated with that, but there’s a great return associated with it, too. I’m the person that asks why the system is built the way it is? Why do we have to accept the existing model?
With all the seismic shifts that are happening in the world, some of those models have become outdated. People are different. Technology has created differences. So I think I’m a truth-teller and a risk-taker in that way. I would say my lesson learned is that those are very important roles to play in a community. I’m fortunate in that I get to play those roles because I’m issue-agnostic — my only loyalty is to the community. In fact, one of the first conversations that I have with prospective clients, even though a client is paying my paycheck, is that my real client is the community. I’m not going to do anything that will cause harm, and I only take on projects that I believe will be beneficial to the community.
I’ve put all of my effort into creating sizable social change. If people are looking for a cookie-cutter solution, that’s not me. To do this work, you must be a truth-teller and a risk-taker, and have faith that if you’re putting good out in the world and you’re putting your best product out there, that people will take notice and you will always have a market for what you do.
What advice would you give to other social entrepreneurs?
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this over the summer. I’ve actually got a provocative article that I’m honored to be working on right now with a first-generation social entrepreneur. (I’m a second-generation social entrepreneur, and I’m teaching third-generation social entrepreneurs.) Unfortunately, our thesis is that social entrepreneurship has been watered down. It’s just like a game of telephone. It gets manipulated and changed based on who’s telling the story and what people hear.
I think the thing I would say as advice to social entrepreneurs is before you call yourself a social entrepreneur, learn the essence of who we really are and why we exist. This is one of the things the article will talk about — there is an important origin story around why the first generation invented social entrepreneurship. Because our current model didn’t work. There’s a lot of people who are using the word social entrepreneurship carelessly. Don’t get me wrong — I’m a “big tent” person, but I think the people who are under the tent need to realize why the tent is there in the first place.
There are some fundamental principles of how social entrepreneurs see the world differently. It doesn’t make you a social entrepreneur just because you’re trying to do something social and you’re doing it an entrepreneurial way. I would just encourage people who are social entrepreneurs to read the origin story and understand that it is a discipline that you practice every single day.
Can you go a little bit deeper into that idea?
The original social entrepreneurs started out with this idea that the charitable model is broken, and it’s broken for two reasons. First, it disempowers people. Essentially, when you give a man a fish, they keep needing fish. When we talk about the man, though, we’re not just talking about the individual. We’re also talking about nonprofits. Unfortunately, nonprofits are often chasing the money instead of chasing the mission. The system we have created has led to these and many other issues.
When you are disempowered, people become risk-averse. It also means that they become dependent, and sometimes they’re more dependent on what the funder wants rather than being risk-takers and truth-tellers around what the community really needs. That’s why social entrepreneurship came into existence. It’s because we’re only at the edges of most problems. We’re not actually changing the game altogether.
Instead, social entrepreneurs wanted to harness the entire marketplace to create change — that includes nonprofits acting more entrepreneurial, that includes for-profits acting more social. It also is the advent of people like me who believe in market-based solutions and start hybrid corporations, such as B Corporations.
It generated a lot of buzz and enthusiasm, but it’s also been manipulated through the translation of it. So, the first reason for why the system is broken is about disempowerment. The second is about the focus on market-based solutions without an emphasis on legal structure.
The third reason — and this is one I added — is that in the beginning, we assumed that social entrepreneurism was similar to traditional entrepreneurism, meaning that you could only be a social entrepreneur if you started something. That led to an outgrowth of a lot of new nonprofits and a lot of new businesses, which essentially defeated the purpose of market-based solutions. Because if you continue to create competition, it means that you create a system that has so many different connection points and so much complexity that it is actually harder for the system to work together toward the greater good.
To that end, one of the things I’ve been really pushing is the idea that people unfortunately interpreted social entrepreneurship as requiring you to start something on your own rather than becoming an intrapreneur. Intrapreneurs work for existing organizations, so cities or existing nonprofits, and practice social entrepreneurship within those organizations. I actually encourage my students to be intrapreneur before they’re entrepreneurs for a variety of reasons. In my experience, it is much easier to work within an existing system and change it for the better than to start your own business.
The final thing gets into our ethos. Social entrepreneurs never seek credit or limelight. It’s about the community winning. They also believe that multiple viewpoints are more important. They also believe that they’re co-creating alongside whoever it is that they’re serving, so they don’t come in in a paternalistic way and say, “I think this is what you need.” They’re there walking alongside the people they’re serving, being among them, and essentially unlocking doors for individuals that are in need, unlocking access to opportunity, unlocking solutions. But there have been far too many well-intentioned people with very good intentions, who have unfortunately created a cycle of dependency rather than unlocking doors.
Another thing that we talk a lot about, and this is the hardest one I think for people to understand, is that everything is interrelated and there are no silver bullets. You can’t really get a good education if you have asthma and you have to stay home from school multiple days a month. It’s hard to actually get a job if you have a criminal record, particularly a living wage job. All these issues that have become their own industries: criminal justice, education, health, poverty, workforce, exist in isolation, when in reality, for the people that we’re serving, everything is closely connected.
When social entrepreneurs talk about “systems thinking” — we are talking about the “bigger” system. For example, how do we create ladders up for individuals, so that we can solve for what their needs are at a holistic level, whether we help them solve it themselves or we knit together a network of people that the community can go through?
Those are just some of the different things that the original social entrepreneurs believed, and then over time people like myself, who have built multiple social ventures, have advised people who have been social entrepreneurs. It’s really an ethos of putting the community above all other things and recognizing that no one person has the solution. The best solutions come from the bottom up, and there should be no intellectual property associated with those solutions. It’s a very utopian view of social change in many ways.
What’s your vision for the future, either for your own business or for the world or both?
In the future, I would love for us to know why we’re put on earth, and to understand our unique skill sets and our self-confidence. When we don’t let that self-confidence be so all-consuming that we believe that we’re the only ones that have the answer. Some people have advantages and others don’t, by virtue of birth or opportunity or circumstances. It doesn’t matter what religion you follow, or if you even follow religion at all, but I hope there is a time when we all follow the basic tenet of “do unto others as you’d want done unto you”
I think in some ways we’ve lost our moral compass as a world. You can see that playing out in so many different things, and every issue area, whether it’s immigration or climate change or poverty alleviation or affordable housing. It creates this barbell effect where there are the haves and the have-nots. Part of what I try to do with the people I work with is not only help them listen to the people who they’re trying to serve, but also help them have a larger worldview than their little corner of the earth. I’ve been blessed to have traveled so much internationally. I wish everybody could move away from their own circumstances and walk in the shoes of someone else, in another country, so they can stretch their worldview. To really see how people in poverty can be extremely happy, and people who have a lot of money can be extremely sad. You never know who a person is by appearances.
I would love for us to move back to something like that. I do think the pendulum is shifting back. It’s slower than I think a lot of people would like, but I’m already seeing some early signs of that on a macro level. I think the United States has so much to give to the rest of the world, but I think it also has a lot to learn from the rest of the world. I would look for us to move beyond our natural hubris, and recognize that we now are united in the fact that we live side-by-side on the Earth and we now can connect with one another so quickly by flights and the internet. We can work with other superpowers to bring people together around common causes.
For me, I just want to spread the word as much as I possibly can. The word that defines me is illumination. This doesn’t mean that I have the answers, but it’s a chance for me to share my knowledge and share my experience in a mutual exchange with other people, where their knowledge and their experience is equally valued, and both of us come together to learn and grow together. Whether that plays out in consulting or in coaching or in teaching, it plays out multiple ways in my life. That’s my purpose, to illuminate, and just be an example of a life that is well-lived. And to lift up the other people who are also the examples of a life well-lived. Not perfect, but a life well-lived. I would say, if I could continue to achieve that over the next 40 years, I’ll continue to be happy as I am today.
What action would you want readers to take?
I did a TEDx Talk that was called, “Everyone Can Be a Changemaker.” (Click here to watch) I would say watch that TEDx Talk. I put some very specific action steps of how you can be a changemaker, no matter what your circumstances are.
Then, they can dig deeper into a life strategy that is about service and creating change, whether it’s on their block, whether it’s in their community, whether it’s in the world, or whether it’s just in their own lives. That will hopefully spur them into a series of actions or challenges that are unique to their gifts and skill set as they try to improve their lives and the lives of those they love.
Find Suzanne Online
Social Impact Architects: https://socialimpactarchitects.com
Changemaker Interactive: https://www.changemakerinteractive.com/ — special reader offer: $100 off Storytelling course until 08.31 with code IMPACT100.
Videos: https://vimeo.com/socialimpactarchitects
Twitter: @socialtrendspot / @snstexas
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SocialImpactArchitects
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannesmithtx or https://www.linkedin.com/company/social-impact-architects/
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