Entrepreneurs Discuss Non-Profit Ventures at Conference

A broad spectrum of professionals, professors, and students came together to discuss the mechanics of creating successful social ventures at Harvard Business School’s (HBS) Sixth Annual Social Enterprise Conference held on Saturday.

The event featured over 60 presenters and drew a crowd of nearly 850 participants who came to HBS to learn how utilize for-profit business strategies in the non-profit sector.

“Business is about getting results. Politics is about power, and non-profits are about process,” said Mark Boyce, a founder of a social venture fund, Silk Roads Ventures, and a graduate of HBS.

Several panel speakers addressed the process and problems of creating social enterprises in the 25 events held on Saturday.

Many of the speakers at the conference focused on management topics for developing enterprises with humanitarian goals in developing nations.

“We’re beginning to see companies utilize all of their skills and business knowledge to address the unsatisfied needs of the bottom four billion people in the world,” said Michael Chu, panel moderator and Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at HBS.

Part of the process of addressing those needs is “serving the poor not as needy people who require assistance, but as clients.”

To assist those in need, Chu said companies must know “how to understand the poor and how to understand the social value that is being created.”

The conference allowed people with experience in serving the poor to exchange ideas with business-oriented professionals and identify key sectors to implement new enterprises.

Manjiv Jayakumar, a conference attendee from Sri Lanka, a country formerly torn by civil war and extensive poverty, said he has come to understand that “the revival of an economy can lead to peace process.”

While several panels addressed social action in developing nations, Saturday’s events also highlighted urban youth and education as appropriate venues for new benevolent enterprises.

The conference concluded with a contest, “Pitch for Change: 30 Seconds to Social Impact,” in which participants presented half-minute plans for new social ventures, followed by an open career fair featuring 39 companies, including Habitat for Humanity, City Year, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Victory Schools.