So, what makes a successful social entrepreneur? In his book “How to Change the World,” David Bornstein disputes the common assumption that highly successful entrepreneurs are more confident and persistent than most others.
Instead, he found that what distinguishes successful social entrepreneurs is the quality of their motivation; they were the ones who were most determined to achieve a long-term goal that was deeply meaningful to them.
With this, he sets out six qualities of highly successful social entrepreneurs:
- Willingness to self-correct. Inclination to self-correct stems from the attachment to a goal rather than to a particular approach or plan.
- Willingness to share credit. A willingness to share credit lies along the “critical path” to success, because the more credit entrepreneurs share the more people will want to help them.
- Willingness to break free of established structures. By doing this, entrepreneurs can gain the freedom to act and the distance to see beyond orthodoxy in their fields.
- Willingness to cross disciplinary boundaries. Independence from established structures not only helps social entrepreneurs break free of prevailing assumptions but also gives them latitude to combine resources in new ways.
- Willingness to work quietly. Many social entrepreneurs spend decades steadily advancing their ideas.
- Strong ethical impetus. At some moment in their lives, social entrepreneurs get it into their heads that it is up to them to solve a particular problem.
courtesy The NonProfit Times
Thank you for this..
my organization Katef chama support families of chronic patients by inovative and uniqe ways.
I consider Katef Chama as a group of entereprenures who has all the good resones and qualities mentioned above- all but one, that is very hard to accept: we can handle with the willingness to work quietly- but in order to spend decades advancing our ideas, we need to be able to celebrate suceesfull actions evry now and than, even if we are here for the long term.
We are in a celebration right now,as our first two support centers work, and the first 30 families are participating at the Taam Hachaym program of Leadership and social support.
Family members of chronic patients are here for the long term and they too want to succeed. what we do reconect them to their abilities- just like you do.
I believe a person or an organization must taste some success while committing for a long time process -and if the Jewish community wishes to encorage entereprenures,a search for the quiet workers and idea advancers whos’ resources are limited must be made by the people with means, to promote those ideas, so everyone can celebrate some times.