As the rest of us commiserated, one of our mentors leaned forward and simply said; “you just keep working the edge.”

Lunch ended, but the phrase kept coming back to me. It’s been months now, and I don’t think the full meaning has crystallized yet, but this much I know:

Whether we’re tucking into a massive slab of steak, turning a misshapen hunk of granite into our generation’s David, or trying to vanquish diarrheal disease in the Central African Republic, the best approach (sometimes the only one with any hope of success) is to consistently work the edge.

Attack whatever bit of the problem is most accessible. Nip away at it where it’s thinnest for now and some day (probably sooner than you think) the impenetrable, dark, tangled heart of the thing will (miraculously, but also reliably) have become “edge.”

Connect with their Intellect : It has to make sense. “I know the fiber and whole grain in Frosted Mini Wheats is good for me”

Satisfy their Emotions : It’s got to feel good. “The hint of sugar on Frosted Mini Wheats makes me feel like a kid again–makes something that’s good for me enjoyable.”

Fit Effortlessly into their Lives : It has to be easy. “Neither the fiber nor the frosting will get me to eat Frosted Mini Wheats if I don’t eat breakfast.” [But, convince me that it's a great snack for when I'm stuck in traffic, or that my three-year-old will love them and you might have a chance.]

*Note: don’t confuse attractiveness with irresistibility. Attractiveness grabs, Irresistibility retains. One is about you, the other is about them.

I think this site is a great idea, and I went ahead and added my drops to the bucket, but I have to admit that I feel a little funny giving money to a country whose government is so violently homophobic. I know that’s all too common in sub-Saharan Africa, and it’s certainly no reason to deny children clean drinking water, but it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

And there in a nutshell is one of the great dilemmas of development work. In most of the countries with the greatest need in our world, social conditions are–shall we say–less than ideal.

By giving anything–money, resources, volunteers, even attention–to these countries, are we not somehow complicit in their corruption, their repression, their cruelty? Are we not somehow saying that it’s okay to be violently homophobic, to treat women like cattle, to make those who oppose you conveniently ‘disappear,’ to rule by fear and perpetuate idignity, to live in splendor while millions around you starve?

On the other hand, should all citizens of a country suffer because their government embezzles millions from the aid they receive? Should children continue to die of malaria because the government oppresses their mothers? Should peasants remain landless and destitute because their courts can’t be trusted?

Where’s the line? and how do you know when you cross it?

I don’t really have an answer–and the deeper I get into this world, the more often I get that “bad taste in my mouth.” Still, I believe in compassion, I believe in cooperation, and I believe that it is better in the long run to dig in and engage with a problem (even if you get your hands dirty) rather than standing on the sidelines waiting for the situation to be less messy.

Had an unexpected conversation this week–with a DC lobbyist (referred by an angel investing group we’ve been working with) who seems absolutely convinced we would be a “slam dunk” for some of the millions of federal dollars congress will allocate to various non-profits through this summer’s appropriations bills.

“Some” meaning on the order of 10x what we’ve spent on everything we’ve done so far—enough to finish building out the site, update the iPhone app, create a Facebook app, start our fellowship program, host a social entrepreneurship training conference, and establish our evaluation endowment. (Not to mention start paying some of our employees a livable wage…)

So, what’s the catch, right? There isn’t one—except if you consider the fact that the money would come through earmarks in the bill a catch.

The IDEALIST says that earmarks were originally developed as way to empower members of congress to bypass the crippling bureaucracy of the executive branch agencies to fund time-sensitive projects for the good of the people.

The CYNIC says that earmarks are a symbol of all that’s wrong with government—a loophole exploited by corrupt politicians and lobbyists too mired in the morass of personal and political favors to even see it’s wrong.

The REALIST says that such diametric thinking is almost always an oversimplification and that the practice is still used in both those ways to accomplish both those ends.

The PRAGMATIST says that if they’re going to toss money around (and they are), we might as well be open for the pass, especially if we can catch it without getting our hands dirty.

Those are the voices screaming at each other in my head. What do you think?

Twitter is a social media site for filtering information and interacting with like-minded people you may or may not know. If you are new to it, are skeptical about it, or just want to weigh more facts and opinions there are some things you may want to consider to help get you started.

Twitter is an interactive site. It’s more than announcing to no one in particular that you are hungry or tired. In fact, those tweets are boring and ignored. Your twitter interaction needs to be just that—an interaction. There are four main ways to interact on Twitter.

• @name. When you mention someone by putting the @ sign in front of their twitter name, it will show up on your twitter thread, but they will also see it. So, it’s a public interaction. Singling someone out but everyone can still see what you are talking about. It’s important to be genuine and courteous when mentioning another user this way.

• #topic. If you want to see who is talking about, say the world cup. You can search in the search bar to the right “#worldcup”. This acts as an aggregator to everyone who is talking about that topic and tagging it in their tweet with the pound sign. Keep it short and one word, even if it’s several words mashed together, i.e. #WishYouWereHere. You can see on the right bar what popular “conversations” people are having all over the Twitterverse.

• Direct Message or DM is a good tool to say something to @someone without everyone else feeling like they are eavesdropping on your conversation. The catch is that DMs only work if both parties follow each other.

• Posting links. With the prohibitive nature of a 140-character allowance per tweet, the most effective way to share information is to post a hyperlink. Briefly introduce what the link is about and insert the link. If the link is too long, you can shorten it at www.bit.ly.

The appeal is that you become a source of information for those that follow you. And you get an aggregation of information personally customized to your interests because it’s from people you follow.  It’s the information age and part of living in it is tweeting in it.

The argument (proposed by Josh Cohen and Aaron Hurst of the Taproot Foundation) centers around the burgeoning demand among the emerging US workforce for careers that allow them to make a living and a difference, and social entrepreneurship and innovation training universities have begun providing in response. They conclude:

“Leading social entrepreneurship program Ashoka offers only 110 fellowships in the United States, and other social entrepreneurship opportunities are equally limited.
With 100,000 MBA graduates annually, social entrepreneurship is not a scalable solution for engaging Generation Y in work that fulfills their desire to make a positive impact.”

So…we’re setting this incredibly driven, innovative, ethical (even compassionate) generation up for failure because we don’t have a fellowship available for all 100K MBAs–not to mention the millions graduating in other fields equally committed to making a difference in the world?!

Last I checked, huge demand and limited supply was the perfect recipe for opportunity, not failure.

Social Innovation fellowships, though wonderful programs and responsible for much of the ‘boost’ the field has received in recent years, are NOT the essence of social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship/enterprise/innovation is about perceiving opportunities, engaging stakeholders, and iterating solutions. And the field is flexible and emergent enough to allow each of those self-actualizing individuals to make a difference in their own way.

So, no, we don’t need a new conceptual framework. We need to dig in and get our hands dirty, engaging with a generation determined to make a difference as the myriad faces of “social entrepreneurship.”

PS: Check out Nathaniel Whittmore’s response here

Much of the time, these conversations refer to SROI measurement. First off, only things that exist on an ratio scale can even BE measured. And I think we can all agree that there is no “absolute zero” on the scale of social good and that the “units” are hardly regular or continuous. (Seems to me we’d be lucky to even agree on an ordinal scale for something as context-dependent as social good.) So, in the strictest sense, measuring SROI is not even an option.

Organizations that acknowledge the stickiness of the measurement issue often claim to calculate SROI instead…It sounds less concrete perhaps, but often ends up just as arbitrary. One well-known (and arguably quite effective) US foundation literally uses a multiplier termed the “(Foundation Name) Factor” to calculate how much of the “measured” social change is attributable to their programs. Most SROI calculation schema I’ve encountered have produced this same unidimensional, artificial, even misleading oversimplification–though the amount of time and effort required to arrive there varies widely.

I’m in no way suggesting we stop looking for ways to wrap our heads around the effects of our efforts, but I think the obsession with quantification does not serve us well. So…

Should SROI be measured? Good luck with that.
Should it be calculated? Perhaps, when it fits.
Should it be demonstrated? Whenever possible.
Should it be explored? Always.

Sure, it sounds ridiculous. But the McDonaldization of society is has significant implications for social change in general and philanthropy and social entrepreneurship in particular.

Here’s an example: our most recent bucket–a partnership to provide cataract surgeries and training in Uganda–tipped this morning. (yay!) And we’ve already received numerous requests for photos, video, and other updates on the status of the program. (They’re not even on the plane yet, people!?) Nothing says “American” like instant gratification, eh?

This is exactly the attitude that the founders of Kiva perceptively tapped in setting up their program as a person-to-person loan experience. You select an entrepreneur (May I take your order?) make a loan (Sure. I’d like…) and within days or weeks start getting updates on the repayment of your loan and the success of that entrepreneur’s micro-business (Thank-you! Have a nice day.)

It’s apparent to all but the most casual observer that the cycle there is WAY shorter than the time it would actually take that particular $25 to make it through the system of international banks, national micro-finance institutions and local loan officers to the individual borrower (even if that pathway weren’t a morass of bureaucracy), let alone for that borrower to bring together all the other forms of capital (human, social, natural, etc.) necessary to launch and grow a business and begin repaying the loan. Yet, many Kiva users were distraught (and even angry) to discover that the individual borrowers profiled on the site had actually been given loans months ago.

Granted, there are many other issues in the current conversation about Kiva (and microfinance in general)–interest rates, revolving-door loans, profit, and more–but the “revelation” about this time delay opened the can of worms.

So, which is it, America? You want an authentic giving experience (the exact dollars you contribute going to the exact project you chose to support) or you want to see photos of newly-sighted Ugandans within hours of your gift? You can’t have both.

Changing the world is not a drive-thru. (We have figured out, incidentally, how to put it on the dollar menu, though. Check it out.)

Special thanks to Jacob Richardson, Brad Morgan and Derrick Bowen–stellar programmers who could have easily put together some meaningless sticky game that would capture the fleeting attention of hoards of Japanese teenagers and win them $10,000 in the BYU app competition, but they chose instead to build an app that would help bring renewable energy to a school in the DRC, healing creativity to victims of domestic abuse in Utah valley, restorative vision surgery to Thai peasants and so much more. Kudos guys for building an app with the potential to change the world.