Blog

Odin Muhlenbein shares a report he co-authored with Florian Rutsch, Katharina Wagner, and Paul Ziesche on how governments can unlock the potential of social entrepreneurs for the common good. 

One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seem further out of reach, it is clear that the need to find, fund and support transformative solutions for the challenges we are facing has grown more urgent.

In January 2020, Ashoka and McKinsey, together with Echoing Green, Schwab Foundation, Skoll Foundation and Co-Impact joined forces with systemic social entrepreneurs, united under the Catalyst 2030 banner, to produce a report that framed their endeavours: Embracing Complexity: towards a shared understanding of funding systems change.

Building on that foundation, the New Allies report explores how governments can benefit from collaborating with systemic social entrepreneurs, and the measures they can take to foster that collaboration.

The need for this report is undeniable. With multiple compounding crises to navigate simultaneously, governments across the world are coming under increased pressure to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals. It is equally clear that governments will find it increasingly challenging to realise the structural changes to existing societal systems that are urgently required without the support of systemic social entrepreneurs.

Systemic social entrepreneurs develop participative, people-centric solutions and deliver innovative approaches which can be a great complement to the macro-level perspectives of governments. Systemic social entrepreneurs can be defined as transformation guides for society. They are driven not by economic profit but by the desire to make a positive impact on the world and to find innovative solutions to unsolved challenges.

Key points include:

• How governments can improve access to information, funding, and capabilities
• How governments can enable cooperation across sectors
• How governments can institutionalize proven social innovations via policies and government programs

Access the full report, New Allies: How governments can unlock the potential of social entrepreneurs for the common good, on Ashoka.org.