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How to Change the World

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How to Change the World

Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas

Oxford UP,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

What if your business was to save lives, cure AIDS, help kids? That's social entrepreneurship — the work of good works.

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

You could fill a small library with books on what entrepreneurs do, how and why. However, until now, that library would have little to offer readers interested in non-profit entrepreneurship. The nine successful social entrepreneurs profiled here are global agents of change, risk takers and organization builders. However, they measure success not by how much money they make, but by how many lives they change. They care about helping abused children or parents with AIDS or impoverished farmers. In a saga that began as an article for The Atlantic Monthly, author and journalist David Bornstein profiles Bill Drayton, who founded an organization to support social entrepreneurs and foster citizen involvement. The book is a unique treatment of an important subject, and therefore valuable. Organizationally, it suffers from the author’s decision to chop up the Drayton story and interject profiles of social entrepreneurs between the segments. The technique would probably work well in a television documentary, but gets a bit disjointed here. That quibble aside, getAbstract highly recommends this very significant book to anyone who wants to make a difference.

Summary

From Ashes to Ashoka

Born in New York, N.Y., in 1943, Bill Drayton was the son of decidedly unconventional parents. His father, a descendant of English aristocrats, dropped out of Harvard to try his hand at gold mining, archaeology and sundry pursuits in climes ranging from British Columbia to the Sahara. His mother was a concert cellist who became an agent for other talented musicians.

Drayton earned his entrepreneurial spurs early, starting a small newspaper in the fourth grade. He edited the literary magazine at the elite Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and courted expulsion by joining the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) where he organized a boycott of a local retail store.

Drayton developed a fascination with India, particularly with one of its most significant social entrepreneurs, Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), and eventually with the work of Ashoka (269-232 B.C.), the great pioneer of social change in ancient South Asia. His other heroes were Thomas Jefferson and Jean Monnet, the "architect of European unification."

At Harvard University, Drayton organized a weekly meeting he named The Ashoka Table...

About the Author

David Bornstein specializes in writing about social innovations. His first book, The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank, won second place in the Harry Chapin Media Awards and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. His articles have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times.

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