Two Key Ingredients to scale social impact:
Causes and multi sectorial collaborations
(Para el artículo en español AQUÍ)
I
t’s been almost two years since I got involved in the amazing world of social entrepreneurship, and they have certainly been the most challenging years of my life. Since I knew MakeSense almost a year ago, I was at the beginning of my life transition, a journey to encounter myself and align my passion with my everyday activities . Since then, MakeSense has played a very important role, I have met incredibly crazy people whose only willingness is to do things differently … right and better. MakeSense has also taught me a completely different way of seeing things, of working, of collaborating and being aware of the power and potential that human beings have as change makers. That is why I decided to go forward with MakeSense and lead one of the most ambitious projects of my life, which I will detail in the next few paragraphs. :)
Only two years in the sector of social entrepreneurship have convinced me that we are living in a time of transformation. A stage where we are increasingly aware of the social and environmental challenges that we face as a society. Though, why is it still so difficult to address these problems? Do we really understand them? Are we really considering adequate solutions?
Let me share with you two important lessons that I’ve learnt since I became part of the full-time team of MakeSense, replicating SenseCube in Mexico:
There are still not enough support and favorable conditions to scale impactful projects. In addition there is a terrible disconnection between the different stakeholders when trying to solve any social or environmental challenge .
Before giving you more details about these two lessons, I would like first to tell you a bit more about my city: Mexico! As it is a city with over 20 million inhabitants in an area of almost 1,500 km2, it is a clear example of a chaotic city, but also an example of favorable place to trigger big changes thanks to the concentration of bright minds and innovative solutions that emerge everyday. As a megacity, the social and environmental obstacles are infinite, and plenty of them start from the most basic human needs such as access to quality health or education as well as security, and also, uncontrolled territorial growth, pollution, mobility, but one of the most important and where I’m going focus throughout the article is: WATER.
As these challenges seem to be infinite and “unreachable” … So, How can we solve them in a more effective way?
I dare say that the multi sectoral collaboration is and should be one of the main pillars to achieve real impact.
What do I mean? I mean to create more comprehensive projects and solutions that gather citizens, the private sector, government, social organizations, academia, social entrepreneurs and artists.
Is this possible or just an utopia? … This is already happening, and MakeSense is one of the pioneers pushing and connecting various key stakeholders at the global level through specific causes. An example of one of the projects that MakeSense leads, is the replication of the social acceleration program SenseCube in Mexico.
SENSECUBE MEXICO, URBAN WATER PROGRAM
Seven months ago, SenseCube Mexico was formally launched focusing on the water issues in Mexico City. One of the most urgent, complex, ambitious and controversial issues in the country and in the city. When we launched the first call for projects we were in the blur as we dealt with a very, very specific topic: URBAN WATER. Our surprise was when we received nearly 70 proposals! … Yes, we received 70 project proposals that address water problems in Mexico City, many with incredible potential … and this just showed us the interest by citizens to improve the situation of Mexico city through innovative solutions. (Meet our incredible entrepreneurs here)
This has made us a pioneer acceleration program focusing on specific challenges in Mexico, and this will definitely be the future of acceleration programs in the world.
How do we achieve this? Structuring a collaboration around a set of goals to solve a specific cause: The problem of water in Mexico City defined by these different challenges: access, quality, reuse, education and awareness, leaks and payments. SenseCube Mexico has become more than an acceleration program, we have become the missing piece of the puzzle to propose viable solutions to the problems of water. We´ve developed collaborations with the private sector through the support of Veolia — the world’s leading company for management resources — the Government with the support of the Water Department of Mexico city (SACMEX) and the City Lab — A new experimental initiative to involve citizens into public affairs - Social Organizations such as Ashoka and CO and MakeSense Community.
This has made us one of the few pioneers acceleration programs that focus on a specific cause in Mexico and that will certainly be the future of acceleration programs in the world.
Why am I so sure of that? It is very simple: We are on the same boat!
For entrepreneurs, offering a program focused on a specific issue or cause facilitates collaboration among them which can then lead to the development of better and more comprehensive solutions…. What am I doing? What are ypu doing? … Oh wow … if we do this together we can achieve much more!
An example of these collaborations is the case of Alberto and Sebastian of Soluciones Hidropluviales with Sinuhé and Jesus of Conciencia Hídrica who met thanks to SenseCube México and realized that their projects can be complementary.
For private organizations, the Government and social organizations, to work on a common cause with predefined objectives and patterns, is a meaningful proposal to become closer to innovations.
This model has proven to be successful. Replicating it around the world is therefore not only viable, but also necessary. And Google is aware of this as it selected MakeSense as one of the 10 most promising social enterprises to change the world! :) How cool is that? As MakeSense we know the power of mobilizing citizens and organizations around social and environmental causes and to support entrepreneurs in specific challenges. In just five years with little resources we have really succeeded in mobilizing more than 20,000 change makers and we have supported more than 1,100 entrepreneurs in more than a 100 cities all over the world. Can you imagine what we could achieve with half a million euro? We would be able to mobilize more than ONE MILLION people in 10 new regions! SDiscover our plans to go forward at forward.makesense.org
