A Different Kind of Prize
In the social venture world, there seems to to two types of prizes, money and/or a chance to learn from and connect with experts about their work. Many prizes are designed to reward people by supporting their ideas of how to “scale” or “become financially sustainable”, but I wonder….. are there prizes or support out there for people who DON’T know how to do that? Maybe there is something to the idea of giving support to people who DON’T know how to take their project to scale.
As discussed here (mostly in the comment section), I think that sometimes the organizations who are the first to jump at money being offered to support scale are not necessarily the ones who are focused the most on QUALITY. Rather than focusing on the people in the front row waving their hands at money, maybe we need to start looking in the back at people who are diligently working away, too busy “getting it right” to think about getting it bigger.
What if there was an organization supporting only the social ventures who could prove that they have very high quality offerings in their area: the best water filters, locally developed and highly successful leadership training courses, the most fuel efficient generator, etc. The winners, based on commitment to quality, get a prize of not just money or mentorship designed to support the “social entrepreneur” at the helm, but instead crafted specifically for that organization to determine a way to scale their impact without loosing quality.
Imagine the prize was a “Quality Expansion Team” – who came OUT to the project – for a period of time – say 1-2 months. They are experts in their fields: a business professor, an engineer, a top designer from Free Range Graphics, etc. These people would be hand picked to fit the specific needs of the organization and ideally the sponsors of the project would be those people’s employees who give them a paid sabbatical from work, perhaps as a prize or incentive for senior staff.
If you took a small organization doing great work and brought in a dedicated and highly skilled team of mentors, not just for a few weekly hour-long phone calls, but for a few weeks or months of intense entrepreneurial fury IN the place where the work is being done, I’m willing to bet you could take a project which had been designed for quality, and also bring in the quantity.
Who else is willing to bet on this with me? Do YOU want to sponsor or be a part of this kind of prize?