Don't Give Away A Fish; Don't Teach Someone to Fish; But Rather Revolutionize the Fishing Industry

Last night, I attended the second installment of Beyond Profit, the aforementioned social entrepreneurship club, at Cambridge. One presenter, Christopher Dobbing, founder of Oxbridge Tours, described social entrepreneurship as: "the application of business discipline to social issues, pairing accountability with sustainability." This definition encompasses a broad swath of organizations and businesses. More importantly, it highlights the importance of social accountability, doing what is right for society and ensuring that it is sustainable. I particularly enjoyed the spin-off of the proverb of "Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime." Social entrepreneurship requires individuals to find new and innovative solutions to common problems. It requires that the entrepreneur work to remedy age-old issues with new methodology and approaches.

Christopher Dobbing founded Oxbridge Tours in response to the increases in higher education costs. The company utilizes students at Oxford and Cambridge as tour guides for the booming tourist industry. The students are then paid for their service and subsequently are able to pay for their schooling. He encouraged the audience to start any venture by realizing that in social entrepreneurship people buy not how you do it, but why you do it. In his instance, his company started to provide students with a mechanism to overcome the highly contentious increases in higher education funding. As a larger example, he discussed the evolution of chain coffee shops in the UK. Cafe Normandy, a UK chain, prided itself on its quality and presentation; however, it lost its market share to Starbucks, which boasted fair trade coffee (Fair trade as opposed to free trade requires acceptable wages for workers/farmers and environmentally sustainable practices). While its products are 100% fair trade in the UK, only 20% of its U.S. coffee and tea is fair trade. Consequently, Starbucks lost market share to Café Direct who brands itself as a wholly fair trade company as well as a supporter of agricultural opportunity. Café Direct, unlike the global Starbucks trend, is grower centric: "We’re passionate about working with smallholder growers because we are passionate about taste and we believe in business being a force for good. Growers are not just suppliers, they are our partners and at the very heart of our business. We bypass the conventional market, sourcing our coffee, tea and cocoa directly and building long-term, personal relationships with smallholder growers." They pair their successful business model with the charity, CaféDirect Producers Foundation (CPF), a registered charity led by growers for growers that decides how Cafédirect’s profits should be reinvested in their communities. This type of business venture makes the Starbucks' model seem antiquated. Profit maximization may no longer be enough as consumers add ethics to their consumption preferences. Enter social entrepreneurship.