The Role of Community Engagement in Creating Lasting Impact for Social Enterprises
Part 1 of ISIP Visiting Professors 2020 Feature
by Adriel Nisperos
“I definitely don’t see a lack of enthusiasm or excitement for the social entrepreneurship field in the Philippines. There are a lot of very eager actors both in the younger generations and also in the faculty in universities who are really actively promoting their students and classes in growing this particular realm.”
Distance learning has become the new normal for educational institutions around the world due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Among our partner universities in the Innovation for Social Impact Partnership (ISIP), 68% started implementing online classes and distance learning methods despite having limited infrastructure to deliver learning content online sustainably and inclusively. [READ: Perspectives on the Current State of Philippine Higher Education Institutions]
This year’s deployment of ISIP Visiting Professors has also been greatly affected. Following health guidelines to prevent the virus from spreading, the international professors will be supporting host Philippine universities virtually. Meike Siegner, a returning ISIP Visiting Professor from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, is the first visiting professor who experienced firsthand what it is like to provide support across distances. [READ: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through Globally Connected Networks]
“We are going through an exceptional time as a global community. Each and every sector is challenged in its own ways. For academia, we are going through a rapid shift transitioning to online teaching and remote learning. We’re all making efforts to get acquainted with technologies such as Zoom,” Meike expressed. However, she also noted how, to some extent, the new setup enables people to conduct instant searches during lectures-- adding depth in the discussions.
Meike is supporting the Central Luzon State University (CLSU) in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, and the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) in Los Baños, Laguna this year. She was first deployed in CLSU to help the university in implementing their Technopreneurship 101 (T101) subject and impact measurement.
Bringing Learners Closer to the Community
Meike’s deployment addresses various needs of CLSU to increase its technopreneurial university readiness or the capacity of universities to integrate technopreneurship activities in their programs, policies, and systems. Her deployment is composed of back-to-back interactive online sessions that include T101 curriculum development, startup mentorship, and high-level talks on social entrepreneurship and sustainable business management. With the virtual setup, CLSU was easily able to invite participants within their academic community to join them in the activities and lectures. [READ: Are Philippine Universities Ready for Impact-Driven Technopreneurship?]
In one of Meike’s curriculum development sessions, she delved into community-engaged learning as a way to introduce social entrepreneurship to science and engineering students. According to Meike, community-engaged learning is a teaching method they practice at UBC where it aims to let students and members of the community collaboratively create solutions to local problems and challenges. Meike believes that this is a good opportunity to inject the social dimension in solving problems, especially in the engineering discipline.
“Community-engaged learning is really about meeting that sweet spot where we have the competency that we cultivate in students to meet the actual needs of marginalized populations that could be in your city, community, country, or region,” Meike defines.
The faculty of CLSU then shared that they have been implementing community-engaged learning in some of their classes in graduate school. However, they see further incorporating the said teaching method in their other classes including T101 where they can especially integrate social impact concepts and frameworks.
In an interview, Meike added that one of her observations based on the examples and stories from the CLSU participants is that social enterprises in the Philippines see community engagement as an important factor in carrying out social entrepreneurship practice. This is something that she also observed when researching social enterprises based in areas like Canada, Latin America, and Europe where social enterprise ecosystems are more developed.
Overcoming Challenges in Impact Measurement
Having social impact is a crucial aspect of a social enterprise. It is what sets social enterprises apart from traditional for-profit businesses. While many social entrepreneurs understand its importance, many, if not most, do not have the knowledge or skill to measure that social impact. Part of Meike’s virtual support for CLSU is to mentor university-based startups in which she shared useful tips and strategies to help social enterprises measure and communicate their impact to their stakeholders and communities.
“One of the key challenges around the idea of measuring social impact is that it’s sometimes not as easy to [put] value or communicate how you are making an impact for the betterment of the society or environment,” Meike shared.
She then introduced the Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis framework as one of the ways to measure a social enterprise’s impact. According to Meike, SROI is a more novel approach in measuring impact as it attempts to put a monetary value on the social impact created. The use of SROI can be traced back to studies focused on the public sector and non-profit impact. However, because social enterprises have hybridized business models — combining public, for-profit, and non-profit models — more social enterprises and academic scholars studying them are starting to use SROI to measure the impact of social enterprises.
Meike grouped the participants to research for an impact-driven organization online and to find out its mission. Through this, they identified possible indicators that can help these organizations measure their progress towards the impact they want to make. This activity helped participants practice their skills to identify metrics that better capture and measure impact.
Breaking Barriers to Move Forward
Studying social enterprises from all around the world, Meike sees a lot of potential in the Philippine social enterprise ecosystem. Although still in its early stages in contrast to ecosystems in the United States, Europe, and Australia, she sees that the Philippines is heading in the right direction. “I definitely don’t see a lack of enthusiasm or excitement for the social entrepreneurship field in the Philippines. There are a lot of very eager actors both in the younger generations and also in the faculty in universities who are really actively promoting their students and classes in growing this particular realm,” Meike described.
ISIP Visiting Professor Meike Siegner recommends working in the policy sector to make the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the Philippines more conducive for social enterprises.
One of the ways to move further towards that vision, as Meike suggests, is to improve on the policy environment and make the ecosystem more conducive for social enterprises to operate. Recommending for the national government to create legal forms and structures that would allow social enterprises to legally operate as a hybridized entity is an example Meike cited. Currently, social enterprises in the Philippines benefit from the same public sector support received by traditional for-profit enterprises despite having unique needs.
“It’s important to have these legal forms because social entrepreneurs rely on a variety of revenue sources. Ideally, a social entrepreneur is able to access support from both private investors and the government. But often it is difficult because if you have a legal form, say for a cooperative or non-profit, private investors wouldn’t be interested. On the other hand, if you go for the for-profit organization model, the government might be limited in the way they can support you with funding because they might have their own legal constrictions,” Meike added.
Ultimately, Meike is excited to be part of the ISIP Visiting Professors activity once again as she sees the actively growing social enterprise ecosystem in the country. She believes that her role as a researcher is to not only observe ecosystems but also actively contribute to the growth and development of such emerging ecosystems.
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Adriel Nisperos is a passionate and mission-driven communications professional. Gaining a background in development communication, Adriel uses communication to advocate for quality education, social innovation, and sustainability in and outside the work that he does. He is currently the Communications Coordinator for the Innovation for Social Impact Partnership (ISIP) project, empowering social entrepreneurs and innovators by telling stories of impact.