Week 3: How to Change the World

I read another 2 chapters of "How to Change the World." The first chapter was very interesting. It showed me that many social entrepreneurs do not get the attention for the work they have done. Even if they make some of the biggest change in the community, they will not get any acknowledgment or recognition.  This idea that people who enter this field will never be well known for the change they have created might not enter the field because they want someone recognize their work. For me I feel that getting recognition will not make the work that these social entrepreneurs better but it could make it worse. When some people get recognition, they stop trying to improve which stops change because problems will while they stay the same. I feel that I could make it in this type of work because I do not need the recognition to be happy with changing the lives of others.

The next chapter was about a mom in Hungary who wanted to have her disabled son to get the best quality support. In Hungary, the government had not made laws or reforms to help people who have disabilities. The treatment that these people were very dehumanizing, sometimes at these centers that help disabled people, the people were locked up in cages because some people they think are a danger to everyone around them. When this mom saw this treatment, she knew that she would not want her son to be treated like that. So she started her own center for disabled people, where they are treated like normal people. She could not get any funding from anyone but still kept on working at it. When the Hungarian government created laws that helped the disabled, she was making huge leaps and bounds to improve her center. I was very touched by this story. She was able to make huge changes for many people in the country for the purpose of helping just one person. It might seem selfish but she still made the lives of so many disabled people better. If she did not have a disabled son none of that might have happened. When the people that are closest to you are affected by a problem, you try your best to change that problem. I feel that causes some of the best work to be done.

Class: Week 3

This week, we were able to get a lot of things done for both of my groups. My groups is much more committed to our project since we change what we were doing for our project. For the storefront project we were able to finalize the cost. We were also able to figure out the revenue and gross profit per month. We gave our project some very generous numbers on who would buy our membership fees but they are not too out of  the realm of possibility. From looking at the estimated gross profit we will be making around $100,000 per year after the second year. I feel that it is great that our storefront has the chance of making that much money by year two. The only thing that gives me some concerns is the cost of the first month of our store. The cost of the first month is almost the same amount of our gross profit of the whole year. It gives me a sense of fear that if the store does not make enough money to make up for the first month in the first 6 month, the store will be failing at that point. All we have to do now is to make our pro forma and finalize the layout of the store front.

For our two hundred dollar project we already bought our product and now we need to wait for the t-shirts to come in. after we get the t-shirts we will have start putting our designs on the t-shirts. We have a couple people designing some images for us. We need to figure out how to compensate them. Last week I was very lost on the direction of the project but it seems very clear on what we are doing. I am very happy with both of the projects now.

Week 2: How to Change the World

I read three more chapters of "How to Change the World." These three chapters were mainly about two people, one who wanted to change the environmental policy in the US and one who wanted to change the way kids can communicate their problems in India. The first person, Bill Drayton  had this very extensive list of achievements and so many credentials that can get him any job he desired but he chose to change the way the U.S. can deal with environment issues. I was impressed with this man, he gave up so many potential careers. He graduated from Harvard and Oxford and then went to Yale for Law School. He had jobs to be professor at Stanford, and Harvard. He had so many ways different ways and different opportunities to change the people of society that very few people could ever get. He chose to work at the EPA to change environmental policies with his idea of the bubble. Even though his initial attempt to change the policies at the time, he kept on working and gaining support. It is unrealistic for me to think that I will be in the same exact position as Drayton and to be as qualified as him would also be impossible for me. Even though I am discourage by the amount of things he was able to achieve with his qualification, I am still eager to see what I can do with changing societies perceptions and social constructs.
The second person Jeroo Billimoria, created Childline, a 24 hour helping and emergency response system for children in distress. This social entrepreneur is a little different from the other ones that I have been reading about. She created something would directly solve each kids individual problem while others usually create something that tries to solve the problem with a system that can affect everyone as a group. I see the benefits of helping every single individual and the benefits of helping everyone as a group. I see helping everyone individually is the solving the short term problem but the goal should be solving the long term problem so I think that people who are trying the whole entire problem are the best plans to make change.

Class: Week 2

During this week a lot of things have changed for my group. We decided to completely redo our plans for the store front and the $200 project. I think our decision to scrap our previous project and start a new one was our best decision. If we continued on that path, things could have been become ugly. I feel that this new store front idea has a lot more potential than our previous idea. I used to frequently go to stores that had open spaces for things to do when I was in middle school and I assume that nothing has changed since middle school, so students must still like hanging out at those types of things. I am excited about researching and learning more about building a store that I would have went if there was one. This store front is also a lot more appealing than our previous idea of a knick knack store. We are still behind the other groups on the parts for the store front project but I think we are doing things much faster than before so I think we will be on the same page as all the other groups.

For our $200 project, we are hitting some problems. We got rid of the holiday card idea because it is just not feasible to get the cards and sell them before the holidays end. Since we got rid of it, we hit a slum of what other products can we sell but our group has not come up of anything. The best idea we came up with is selling spray painted t-shirts which is probably not going to sell. Right now I am thinking of more ideas for $200 project and I am planning on bouncing these ideas with my group and I hope one of them can make our whole group agree on one item.

Class: Week 1

This week in class was a lot of research and working on our storefront project. I think that my group has been in a bad a situation this whole week. All four of us work together once this whole entire week. We only had class three times this week and I was out on one of the days. The only way we can be productive is if all of us are together. I feel that as soon as our whole group is together and everyone catches up with everything, we can start being very productive. Even though I only had class for two days, I did a lot of work figuring our storefront's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. I also did a lot of research on our competitors and see how they could affect our business. I think that the next step for our storefronts is to figure out what our inventory will look like. Our inventory is the important thing to our store, it defines what we are. We are not sure about what specifically we want and how much of each item. We are not sure that if too much variety will cause our downfall or make us more appealing to bigger a demographic. We are also not sure if we should have a low volume of merchandise or high volume of merchandise because the benefit of too much inventory is that we will never lose a customer for not having what they want but we will suffer from having products sit on the shelves for a long time.
I am also doing some work with my non-profit organization. I have been exchanging emails with Mr.Grande and seeing if he can help my group with some problems that I have with my plan for Partners in Health. I also just want him to mentor us on how to start a large scale fundraiser since he has experience with volunteering for Partners in Health.

Week 1: How to Change the World

I read the first three chapters of "How to Change the World" by David Bornstein. The first chapter of the book helps me better understand what a social entrepreneur is.  When I first thought of entrepreneurship, I did not think about that there was a social aspect to it, and only thought about the startups that made millions. Then I found out about social entrepreneurship and it sounded like I could do something meaningful in that career path.  I really wanted to learn more about social entrepreneurship because I have always been passionate about the social issues. The book assured me that it is possible to become social entrepreneur and be successful. It said that the nonprofit sector was one of the fastest growing sectors showing me that there will be opportunities for me to be a part of that success.

Chapter 2 and 3 of the book were about two people who changed the community they lived in with their ideas. One was an Indian teacher that came up with a new way of teaching students and the other one was a man living in Brazil who wanted to bring electricity to rural Brazil. What I notice in both of these people's story they both were constantly criticized for their new ideas. They were both outcast for these ideas even though they were doing a good thing. In the Brazilian man's situation, I thought the government would be willing to consider his ideas as a option to solve their problems with rural Brazil but it was the opposite, they constantly stopped his work. In the end his dream was accomplished, so it did not matter what really got in his way. It really showed me how much perseverance social entrepreneurs need to accomplish their goal for social change. I cannot expect to instantly help people if I have an idea. I have to understand that there will be failures and success.