The most exciting things happening in Memphis these days aren’t in the halls of power or among the power brokers. Instead, they are produced by a burst of entrepreneurship unseen here in 30 years
However, this time, the energy comes from a special breed of entrepreneurs – social entrepreneurs.
It shouldn’t be surprising that our city’s rich history of business entrepreneurship should be followed by an era of social entrepreneurs who measure success in social value rather than profits. They see citizens as sources for solutions rather than as problems. They also are not inspired by small-scale ideas but by ideas that can change Memphis. Most of all, they don’t wait for City Hall or any other leaders for permission.
Signs of the Times
Signs of their work are everywhere.
Margot McNeeley’s Project Green Fork. Ekundayo Bandele’s Hattiloo Theatre. Aaron Shafer’s Skatelife Memphis. Emily Trenholm and Sarah Newstok’s Livable Memphis. Brian Stephens and Darrell Cobbins’s Rebuild Government. Melissa Petersen’s local food movement. Charlie Santo’s Memphis Music Magnet Project. Roblyn Webb’s Freedom Preparatory Academy. John Kirkscey’s Memphis Art Park. Eric Mathews’s Launch Memphis. Laura Adams’s Shelby Farms Park. Brad Leon’s Teach For America. Elizabeth Lemmonds’s MemphisConnect. Austin Baker’s Spirit of Memphis. Jamal McCall’s KIPP Academy. John Lawrence’s anti-sprawl work. Cardell Orrin’s African-American arts and business leadership. And many, many more.
What they have in common is that is that all would resist being given credit for any of these important projects, because they know their success came from many people. It is this ability to rally others around their big ideas that characterizes social entrepreneurs most. That and the need to scratch for money and beg for help that define a large part of their day.
Heroes
That’s because unlike business entrepreneurship, it’s rare for their socially minded counterparts to find the equivalent of a venture capital fund to encourage them and help them along. While a PBS special refers to them as “the new heroes” and universities research the best ways to create them, many of our social entrepreneurs admit that the harsh realities of Memphis grind many of them down before their ideas have a chance to prove their value.
It’s too bad, because their projects prove they are not mere dreamers. They are intensely focused, they know how to develop business plans and ambitious strategies to implement their visions, qualities they share with business entrepreneurs. What is different from the private sector is the limited access to money, and unfortunately, the general complacency in Memphis about the innovations that flow from them sends the message that grassroots opinion doesn’t count.
To counter that, Kirkscey suggested that a social venture fund “would open up a pool of entrepreneurs and attract the best and brightest who want to be part of creating a real, authentic, creative city rather than going into investment banking.” For social entrepreneurs, he said, it’s about the same risk/reward ratio that business entrepreneurs use, because “altruism isn’t enough to keep people here if they can’t earn a living.”
Nothing Ventured…
He proposed that a social venture capital fund could set milestones and require business plans, designs, and goal posts for progress. “Each time someone reaches a milestone, money could kick in,” he said. “Seed funds just need to be a small amount that allows people to live while proving that they can reach the first goal post. If they don’t make it, there is no more money. If they do, they get funds so they can move to the second goal post, and if they reach it, then there is more. There is no money without progress and success.”
Ed Glaeser, Harvard University economics professor and Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, told Leadership Memphis recently that the smartest thing that a city can do is to find, develop, and attract smart people and get out of the way. That advice applies to entrepreneurs wherever you can find them, he said.
To quote Kirkscey: “People doing socially beneficial things should get paid for their work. Otherwise, we have perverted the incentive system and it does not reward people who want to create a good society. Creative people, artists, and entrepreneurs all take risks, and together, we can make Memphis the Petri dish for creativity. Now, many people feel like they are hacking through the jungle with a machete trying to find the way to a real, authentic city.”
In a city constantly in search of its brand, helping these social entrepreneurs succeed just might be the best one of all.
This was previously published as Memphis magazine’s City Journal column in the July edition.
Yeah? Well what about me? I’ve been at it longer, I actually graduated from Harvard, and my blog has been a darling of the search engines for half a decade, with readers from all over the world.
Anybody can blog. These folks are making things happen and doing rather than writing.
“To counter that, Kirkscey suggested that a social venture fund “would open up a pool of entrepreneurs and attract the best and brightest who want to be part of creating a real, authentic, creative city rather than going into investment banking.”
For our times:
Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, reborn. The old forest needed a friend so these folks stepped up. They proved that no good deed goes unpunished. Long live the old forest and Overton Park! Larry J. Smith
Damn right, Larry.
What about a meeting of everyone who reads Smart City Memphis with presentations by some of the social entrepreneurs mentioned here.
We could have a citizens summit in some good sized hall donated for the good of all. No particular agenda, just talking up ideas. No result, just interactions. RSVP would be necessary to get head count but the event would be BYOF. Attendees would agree to clean up at end. The event would be after all elections end for the year and before any start up for next year and no elected officials would speak.
MC would be a volunteer from out of town. Anyone who can keep a conversation moving forward.
“People doing socially beneficial things should get paid for their work. Otherwise, we have perverted the incentive system and it does not reward people who want to create a good society. ”
The very strategy of the opposition, the status quo, IS to make our city so that it does not reward those people, and they have succeeded for generations here. Now they have lost. They have made Memphis intolerable from within and untolerated from without.
There is a movement, an underground, if you will, of people from here and outside to make all that go away.
We don’t want to change Memphis, we are transforming it, for the people. There are good people here, they have been used up. Enough is enough. There is plenty of money for funding, the biggest names in money have a charity that they have pledged and given half to all of their multibillions of dollars to.
We will destroy the status quo, only because it does not work anymore but refuses to see reality. What works is very flexible, what doesn’t work is inflexibility. The past is over, now is now and the future must be designed well to come into being and we don’t have to have a stagnant, static design, it can change for the better as opportunities arise, as long as all things are considered.
If you want a miracle to happen, try creating it but not taking credit for creating it.
That’s what it takes.
You have just witnessed miracle number 3.
Know that the next target is the people behind the people we just got rid of.