GSIF09 SUMMARIES

Social Innovation Lab 7: SIP-Columbia University: Social Innovation and the Public Sector

Friday, 2 October  

• Ashoke Joshi • Alex Matter • Surita Sandosham

Facilitated by • Jeanette Takamura

  • The role of the public sector in social innovation should be aided with the existence of responsible non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as corporations who are pragmatic in their long-term outlook.

  • One discussion leader highlighted the nature of the adversarial relationship that can develop between the public sector and NGOs. This is the result of the lack of trust that both have of each other. From the Indian context, some NGOs are not into social work, but rather, they are using government schemes to benefit themselves.

  • Therefore, as an NGO, one needs to have high credibility to operate effectively, and the aforementioned leader shared how his former role as a bureaucrat has helped him garner credibility as it allows him better access to the government.

  • The other discussion leader stressed the importance of having multi-sector partnerships in order to solve social problems. She believes in systemic changes which stems from understanding the parts of the system in order to bring about concrete changes.

  • One lesson that can be drawn from her examples is that corporations which realize that their workforce will be in jeopardy in the long run as a result of social problems will participate more actively in social causes. After all, “businesses exist because communities are there. So why don’t we treat the community as our stakeholders,” said the other discussion leader.

  • There is also a need to understand that social entrepreneurs act as merely catalysts with the goal of empowering the community to be more economically self-reliant.

  • One participant brought up the problem of government funding  to which one leader responded by sharing her own experience of how in the US there exists a kind of competitive process where NGOs compete to get funds by pitching their ideas. In the end, they will be made accountable for the money allocated to them.

  • The discussion was ended with the consensus that at the core of it all one needs the right people to be on one’s board. That is, people who play cross-over roles and are well-connected to both the private and public sectors in order to realize one’s vision as an NGO.

Download GSIF09 Social Innovation Lab 7 - Summary.