Collaborating to Build Back a Better World
Individually we are one drop.
Together we are an ocean.
- Ryunosuke Satoro
To view the full newsletter or the website at Social Change Innovators. While most of us would not want to repeat 2020, the beauty of going online allowed space to attend virtual conferences and workshops for what I called, a year of learning. Looking back, a number of initiatives were launched, developed, and thrust forward with increasing impact driven by social innovators.
The COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs launched last year with the 2021 Roadmap for social entrepreneurs to drive transformative change during the pandemic. Partnerships with Euclid Network (EN) focusing on Policy Change, Schwab Foundation and Catalyst 2030 on moving the economy to become a social economy, and advanced infrastructure and data collection provided by Impact Hub and SAP, coupled with partners around the world from NGOs like Yunus Social Business and Acumen, to corporate partners to support social sourcing; the response to the pandemic has been heroic.
The accreditation body for business education, AACSB added a new accreditation standard for Societal Impact for the over 1,700 member organisations. This new standard will include thought leadership, engagement, and societal impact ratings for both scholarship and engagement in and outside the classroom. For many of us, we have been engaging community members in our courses and programmes from day one and can harness our knowledge to move our campuses forward on the value of engaging with the community.
The start of 2021 allowed us to attend the World Economic Forum where we listened live to corporate CEOs, NGO leaders, world leaders, and social entrepreneurs with awe-inspiring sessions. At the WEF over 60 business leaders from major corporations committed to the core Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics developed by the International Business Council focused on people, planet, prosperity, and governance. As the founder of Blackrock, Larry Fink noted in his session, there is a difference between companies that do capitalism the right way and those that don’t, ensuring the long-term viability of all businesses. Highlighted at the forum, the commitment to sustainability efforts, to get to net-zero, plastic out of our oceans, and plant 1 million trees, among other initiatives were emphasised. Transforming healthcare and new models to expand care and access was a major topic this year with a projected increase in global healthcare spending from $7.7 trillion in 2017 to an astounding $10 trillion expected at the end of 2020.
Perhaps my favourite quote that was summarised by Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce in a New York Times op-ed, “Capitalism as it has been practised in recent decades — with its obsession on maximising profits for shareholders — has also led to horrifying inequality…It’s time for a new capitalism — a more fair, equal and sustainable capitalism that actually works for everyone and where businesses, including tech companies, don’t just take from society but truly give back and have a positive impact.” Imagine a more fair, equal, and sustainable world that works for everyone.
While many of us would not want to repeat 2020, we welcome 2021 with renewed resilience, an amplified passion for equality, and a commitment to collaborating as we build towards a better world.------------------------------
Debbi Brock
Wingate University
Monroe NC
(859) 985-3634
------------------------------