Early success indicators for social entrepreneurs have to do with human behavior. If they can build hope for the future then they can look for more quantifiable results.

“Southwest Creations supports us in our dreams for a better life for ourselves and our children. It's not just a job, it's a family” says Fermina Lopez, a contract sewing worker at SCC. She has been with SCC since it was founded and thinks of it as her family unit.

In its first twelve years of operation SCC has had only one employee turn-over. Similarly, number of DE centers has been increasing; they see increased teacher motivation and co-operation among students - even, in one case, students helping slow-learners through the use of media programs. VB has been able to get children to come back to its tele-center repeatedly in after school programs (the first pilot was done with about thirty youth and 80% came back – note to be confirmed stat).

Operational details are provided below to illustrate how a social mission as strategy yields high economic and social value with almost zero financial overhead:

An example of a social metric is the Buena FE (families+escuelas) program in SCC’s Strong Families Initiative to expand support and encourage job retention. It is a partnership with schools and other parent advocacy groups to facilitate the involvement and collaboration of 100% of employees in their children’s schools. They track their employees’ kids’ educational health as a metric of employee health.

This is how it works: SCC employees must spend 1.5 hours/month (paid) visiting the child’s teacher where they discuss insights into things that could affect learning. The teacher and parent are drawn into a contract where they are both vested in keeping the child in school and performing at capability. At the beginning of the school year a formal contract is drawn up outlining expectations and issues to overcome. This contract is updated and monitored at each visit and submitted at the end of the year to SCC management. SCC management sets an expectation and watches progress. Instead of having 1:1 meetings, they have group meetings where information is shared openly with a spirit of supporting one another thus achieving the right balance of support and peer pressure.” The result is a self-managing worker program with no extra management overhead and a financial investment of just 1.5 hours/month/employee that results in more children graduating from high school as well as a more motivated employee.

Social Mission as Strategy: What makes it Hard?

“It is an honor and privilege for our foundation to work with Southwest Creations Collaborative. The model they are developing is one that gives us hope for the future.” EMA Foundation (SCC brochure)

Case studies like SCC, DE and VB make you wonder why every business isn’t rushing to use this concept of doing good to the society it operates in as a business strategy.

That is because creating businesses for underserved markets is new and social entrepreneurs are using different approaches, appropriate for the local conditions- e.g. while a social mission is the strategy in all three case studies, it is not the same mission.

David Shipley in his book, The Working Poor: Invisible in America, has documented some heartbreaking stories of people whose fortunes remain unfound. As he says “the term working poor should be an oxymoron”. Many of these are women, often in low income jobs and having high needs with regard to raising their offspring. In spite of a growing American economy, these people (coming from all ethnic and racial backgrounds) remain invisible (14). What becomes obvious is that each story is individual and the factors that lead to change are also unique.

Thus, local understanding plays a noteworthy role in determining a successful outcome for social mission as strategy.