The Social Entrepreneur’s Guide to Changing the World

Year: 2016
Published in: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
Cited as: “The Social Entrepreneur’s Guide to Changing the World Copyright (c) 2016, Filipe Santos, João Cotter Salvado, Isabel Lopo de Carvalho e Carlos Azevedo (c) 2016, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian”

The Social Entrepreneur’s Guide to Changing the World

“The capacity for entrepreneurship and innovation is one of the primordial aspects of human nature, founded on our impulse to create and the need to resolve problems and overcome obstacles. The history of humanity, since its very beginnings, cannot be separated from entrepreneurship and innovation. This view of human history also finds echoes in the path pursued by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which seeks to perpetuate the spirit of its founder, a great entrepreneur of his time who, at the end of his life, made the philanthropic gesture of offering his fortune in the service of society.
Throughout its nearly 60 years of existence, the foundation has made the promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation the driving force of its approach in all of its focus areas – Art, Education, Science and Development. In this latter field, which includes the foundation’s social interventions within the scope of its Gulbenkian Human Development Programme, the concepts of entrepreneurship and social innovation serve as the pillars of its actions. This means engaging all of its efforts in seeking new and improved solutions for ongoing social needs, including those affecting the most vulnerable groups in the population.
The manual we present here exemplifies this model of approach. Its content was developed by the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship and INSEAD as training modules for the FAZ – Ideias de Origem Portuguesa [DO IT – Ideas of Portuguese Origin] initiative. This initiative is a civil society movement that aims to promote social entrepreneurship in Portugal and invites the Portuguese diaspora to actively contribute in the areas of ageing, social inclusion, intercultural dialogue and environmental sustainability. Under the moto “Lá se pensam, cá se fazem” [It’s conceived there, it’s done here], it aims to encourage, share and select ideas and to support the realisation of social entrepreneurship projects that help transform the migration phenomenon into an effective opportunity for Portuguese society and Portugal. Today, this movement is comprised of thousands of members spread around the globe and teams that are engaged and motivated to transform the society in which we live. From the very beginning, the initiative has worked with the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship and INSEAD as a partner in training, and we would like to thank them for the exemplary manner in which they have carried out this work, as shown in the publication of this manual. Amidst these times of crisis in which we live, we often hear that we need to “do more with less”. We believe, however, that the true response to the urgent issues that we have to deal with is to “do more with more”: more people, more resources that are not exclusively financial, more institutional involvement in the execution of projects, more capacity to create effective partnerships based on a shared agenda of causes. The publication of this manual aims to illustrate how to better pursue this path. Together, we will transform the world each day by making a positive difference in the name of our society’s greatest causes.”