The Social Innovation in Business Leadership Course (SIBLC), formerly the Socialpreneur leadership Course, is a course I created in order to help business leaders take their organizations to the next level of business and social engagement.
My goal is to show organizations (profit & non-profit) that they can be profitable and reduce the negative impacts of social problems by simply increasing their involvement in the overall societal ecosystem.
The problem
The world population is growing exponentially every year. Today, there more than 6.5 billion people on the planet. According to the UN’s “World Population to 2300” study, by 2050 the population size is expected to increase to 8.9 billion.
More than 60% percent or 4 billion people on the planet today earn less that $2.00 a day and live in poverty. If this percentage of people in poverty were to stay the same, over the next 40 years more than 5.3 billion global citizens would live in poverty and we would all suffer from unfathomable social challenges. Could you imagine what the world would be like if everyone on the plant today was in poverty? This is the magnitude of our problem.
In the U.S, according to the 2007 U.S census, 37 million Americans live in poverty (earn less than $21,000 a year). Record numbers of people in poverty put a strain on all economies and traditional philanthropic models. Moreover, poverty is also a leading cause and indicator of other social problems to include; lack of education, violence, disease, substandard housing, lack of technology, etc)
Under traditional models non-profits and government agencies are the only organizations established to meet the social needs of people. Non-profits receive funding from the government, corporate foundations and individual donors. The government funds its social programs through increased taxation. Today, each of these entities is suffering from major economic pressures and are all fighting for every dollar they can find.
The aforementioned challenges actually represent an opportunity to rethink the way society has traditionally viewed the roles of citizens and key member organizations business, non-profits, and government agencies.
Our existing model of serving an ever growing population of people has reached its tipping point.
The Solution:
The model I propose is called social innovation. The goal of the Social Innovation model is to apply business principles to the process of eliminating social problems and increasing the quality of life for all.
Much like Dr. Edwards Deming’s Total Quality Management model (Which was initially scoffed at by American automakers but embraced by the Japanese who later went on to dominate the auto industry) sought to eliminate waste and increase quality control in manufacturing through systems redesign; Social innovator seeks to eliminate social issues by redesigning how we engage our political, social and economic ecosystem. Participants who attend the SIBLC learn learn skills that will allow them to just this.
Xtreme Business International (XBI) is a cause-related marketing firm and leading supporter of social innovation in the Southwestern U.S. and throughout the world.
