Social entrepreneurs

Given the present economic climate, most educational institutions would be hard-pressed to feel a sense of excitement about the shoving of another class into the workforce. However, apart from the fact that it does not churn out potential employees, the AIM Asian Center for Entrepreneurship was in an exceptional celebratory mood last July 13 when it graduated student-entrepreneurs of Batch 5 because among them were the first masters in social entrepreneurship.

There are three types of entrepreneurs: the classic entrepreneur, the corporate entrepreneur, and the social entrepreneur. To cater to their various needs, the AIM-ACE designed the Master in Entrepreneurship program for the classic and corporate entrepreneurs and, for the social entrepreneur, designed the Master in Entrepreneurship for Social and Development Entrepreneurs.

What has now become a part of AIM tradition is the unique graduation ceremony of asking each master entrepreneur to stand while his ACE guru publicly shares his/her transformation and accomplishments during the 18 months of the ME program. Their record, as recounted below, speaks for itself. We hasten to share this with the rest of the entrepreneurial community who might just be in similar situations and can, thus, be inspired by these precedent-setting accounts.

Here’s the continuing saga of how ME graduates do well and do good during uncertain times:

• A provincial internet service provider has transformed a directionless firm into a value-adding innovative company whose revenue performance has improved by 50%; grown the number of subscribers by almost sevenfold; and currently serves customers with better speed (from 56 kbps to 128 kbps).

• A restaurant owner has expanded his branches from two to five. Franchising has been the means of growth. This business is now a commissary.

• An optical shop entrepreneur has repositioned his branch and changed his revenue mix from purely retail to include now institutional accounts.

• A restaurant chain owner has zoomed gross revenues to almost four times without increasing the number of outlets.

• Another restaurant owner has turned around the business from a negative 14% return on equity to a positive 27.4% return on equity operations in 18 months. Return on sales has changed from negative 12.9% to positive 10.7%.

• A pest control operator has increased sales by three times. In addition, the product line has been increased from two to 59.

• A woman entrepreneur in the packaging business has shown a 22% increase in business. The systems installed in the management of the business has also insured that things will still go as planned even in her absence.

How did the MESODEV graduates compare?

• A pioneer in the reintegration of overseas Filipino workers has successfully piloted her programs in San Pablo City. A savings and credit cooperative has been established. A micro and small enterprise development program for OFWs has also been made operational. Her success is now the object of nationwide replication.

• Another social entrepreneur has set up a livelihood and enterprise development program to reposition Share an Opportunity in Pangasinan from being a child sponsorship agency to one that builds self-reliance and capacity of marginalized families and communities. He hopes to replicate the program nationwide.

• A micro-financier has almost doubled the reach of her organization. She now serves 18,000 entrepreneurial poor partners. The loan portfolio has also hit the P50 million mark. What is great is the improvement of the repayment rate to 98%. Upon graduation, the micro-finance organization has turned in a profit of P6.5 million.

• A medical doctor has transformed a health fund for one organization to become the health care service provider for NGO workers.

• A general manager of a cooperative has transformed the core business of the cooperative from feed milling to a social enterprise in the hogs sub-sector that is dedicated to improving the quality of life of small hog raisers in an era of trade liberalization.

• A pastor has successfully transformed a Bible Christian Fellowship into a social enterprise dedicated to the poor and unserved peoples of the world.

• A person from a large confederation of cooperatives has successfully pioneered partnerships with cooperatives to build a chain of cooperatives that will make a difference in the countryside. She has piloted new models for sustainable social enterprise development.

• A Catholic priest has transformed the sustainable agriculture program for a small organic rice production program of a Social Action Center into a lucrative social enterprise. The group has become the largest producer of organic rice in Luzon.

• From a problematic livelihood project that was on the verge of folding up, this social entrepreneur has led the cooperative to transform the problem into a great opportunity. The squash canton noodle project has now become a sustainable source of income and employment of agrarian reform beneficiaries and of the unemployed and underemployed.

• A chairperson of a cooperative in Nueva Ecija has recovered from a million peso debt and has been able to secure financing for farmer-members.

• A social entrepreneur has successfully piloted a social health insurance and preventive health program in Tondo.

• Market access to community-based producers of processed foods has been made available by another social entrepreneur. In addition, there has been a transformation of the partners from being consignee producers to franchise producers of a branded product. A national chain of malls will soon carry the product in their selling areas.

• A social entrepreneur in the area of corn farming has increased the income of participating farmers from a low of 2x to as much as 3x and has been able to transform the enterprise at the cutting edge of producing and processing corn.

For these transformed individuals and their enterprises, Entrepreneur’s Helpline was delivered by their gurus, Professors Tommy Lopz and Liza Dacanay, on a real time basis for 18 months. No doubt, our STAR readers have every reason to gain just as much from our exchanges, which have been coincidentally shared over almost the same period of time.

(Alejandrino Ferreria is the dean of the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship of the Asian Institute of Management. For further comments and inquiries, you may contact him at: [email protected]. Published "Entrepreneur’s Helpline" columns can be viewed on the AIM website at http//: www.aim.edu.ph).