Rescue Mission Can American entrepreneurs help solve social ills?
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Trained as an eye doctor, Jordan Kassalow had worked in morethan 40 countries, helping treat river blindness and otherailments. "For [each person] who needed sophisticated eyecare, there were 30 people who needed basic reading glasses,"says Kassalow, 43. "There was a huge market failure, and ahuge market opportunity to sell cheap reading glasses."
Kassalow believed entrepreneurs were best positioned to fillthis niche. "Smaller companies can take cost margins [sellingto the poor] that larger companies may be unwilling totake."
Along with partner Scott Berrie, 39, Kassalow launched ScojoFoundation, a nonprofit organization that identifies entrepreneursin El Salvador, Guatemala, India and other poor countries; trainsthem to sell reading glasses; and helps them find small loans tostart eyeglass-selling businesses in their villages. ScojoFoundation plans to help sell reading glasses to over 350,000Indians within the next three years and has been recognized by theWorld Bank as an innovation leader.
Over the past five years, American entrepreneurs haveincreasingly focused on bringing social enterprise overseas. Thereasons for the shift: today's traumatic global politicalenvironment drawing America's attention abroad; high-techbillionaires starting foundations and VC funds to aid for-profitcompanies that promote international social good; and businessexperts like C.K. Prahalad, author of The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid,bolstering the idea that companies can make money selling to theworld's poor.
Net Impact, a San Francisco-based clearinghouse forsocial-enterprise entrepreneurs, has more than doubled its numberof member chapters in the past six years, while prestigious U.S.business schools, including Harvard and the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology, now offer programs focused on international socialentrepreneurship. The United Nations is catching on, refocusingsome poverty reduction efforts from giving aid to boostingentrepreneurship.
KickStart, a nonprofit firm started by Martin Fisher,47, and Nick Moon, 50, in San Francisco, has developed a nichedesigning low-tech agricultural equipment specifically for poorAfrican farmers. KickStart trains small manufacturers abroad tomake this equipment in bulk and trains small retailers to sell it.The retailers then sell the equipment to the farmers. Today, thefirm has a staff of 174 in Africa and five in the United States.According to Fisher, the equipment allows farmers to make more than$30 million in profits each year.
During the Vietnam War, Lee Thorn served on a U.S. ship thatlaunched bombing missions over Laos. Returning to Laos in 1998,Thorn was shattered by the extent of the bomb damage, and he vowedto help the impoverished country. But as a lifelong businessman,Thorn was skeptical about the ability of pure aid organizations. Sohe launched a for-profit company, Jhai, to seek entrepreneurialLaotian coffee-bean growers, form a cooperative, train them to pickthe highest-quality beans, then market that coffee in America. HisU.S. nonprofit arm, the Jhai Foundation, channels some profits from coffeesales to Laotian village development and funding for the farmers."We played to Laotians' strength--the truly organicelement of their coffee," says Thorn, 62. Jhai is doubling theamount of coffee it ships to the U.S. each year, with 2005-2006sales projected at about $500,000.
Noting all this success, some foreign governments are searchingfor a few good American small-business owners to offer expertiseand capital. Fisher notes that the government of Ghana is currentlywooing KickStart. And Becky Rottenberg, Net Impact's newventure director, says the governments of Uruguay and Chile havewelcomed Endeavor, a New York City-based social enterpriseorganization that helps fund entrepreneurs overseas. SaysRottenberg, "The U.S. is still viewed as the gold standard ofentrepreneurial activity."
