Product Description

Now published in more than twenty countries, David Bornstein's How to Change the World has become the bible for social entrepreneurship-in which men and women around the world are finding innovative solutions to a wide variety of social and economic problems. Whether delivering solar
energy to Brazilian villagers, expanding work opportunities for disabled people across India, creating a network of home-care agencies to serve poor people with AIDS in South Africa, or bridging the college-access gap in the United States, social entrepreneurs are pioneering problem-solving models
that will reshape the 21st century.
How to Change the World provides vivid profiles of many such individuals and what they have in common. The book is an In Search of Excellence for social initiatives, intertwining personal stories, anecdotes, and analysis. Readers will discover how one person can make an astonishing difference in the
world.
The case studies in the book include Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for the international campaign against landmines she ran by e-mail from her Vermont home; Roberto Baggio, a 31-year old Brazilian who has established eighty computer schools in the slums of Brazil; and Diana
Propper, who has used investment banking techniques to make American corporations responsive to environmental dangers.
The paperback edition will offer a new foreword by the author that shows how the concept of social entrepreneurship has expanded and unfolded over the last few years, including the Gates-Buffetts charitable partnership, the rise of Google, and the increased mainstream coverage of the subject.
The book will also update the stories of individual social entrepreneurs that appeared in the cloth edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2018 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-17
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Journalist Bornstein (The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank) profiles nine indomitable champions of social change who developed innovative ways to address needs they saw around them in places as distinct as Bombay, India; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and inner-city Washington, D.C. As these nine grew influential when their ingenious ideas proved ever more widely successful, they came to the attention of Ashoka, an organization that sponsors a fellows program to foster social innovation by finding so-called social entrepreneurs to support. As Bornstein interviewed these and many other Ashoka fellows, he saw patterns in the ways they fought to solve their specifically local problems. To demonstrate the commonality among experiences as diverse as a Hungarian mother striving to provide a fuller life for her handicapped son and a South African nurse starting a home-care system for AIDS patients, he presents useful unifying summaries of "four practices of innovative organizations" and "six qualities of successful social entrepreneurs." Bornstein implies that his subjects are in the tradition of Florence Nightingale and Gandhi; the inspiring portraits that emerge from his in-depth reporting on the environments in which individual programs evolved (whether in politically teeming India or amid the expansive grasslands of Brazil) certainly show these unstoppable entrepreneurs as extraordinarily savvy community development experts. In adding up the vast number of current nongovernmental organizations and their corps of agents of positive change, Bornstein aims to persuade that, "without a doubt, the past twenty years has produced more social entrepreneurs than terrorists.".
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bill Bradley
"The social entrepreneurs chronicled in this book are part of the vital generation of independent, creative leaders . . ."

Review
"Wonderfully hopeful and enlightening.... The stories of these social entrepreneurs will inspire and encourage many people who seek to build a better world." --Nelson Mandela

"The book is must reading for anyone who cares about building a more equitable, and therefore more stable, world."--William J. Holstein, New York Times

"David Bornstein's How to Change the World provides a wonderful introduction to social entrepreneurship. It is engaging, inspiring, and informative, weaving Bornstein's thoughtful commentary with a set of rich, diverse, and instructive examples. It is the first book I recommend to interested students." -- Professor J. Gregory Dees, Faculty Director, Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business

"A fascinating book.... Well-documented cases of grassroots entrepreneurial activities to tackle such diverse social problems as child abuse, disability, illiteracy, and environmental degradation give life to it." --Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Business Week

"This pioneering book details the development of social entrepreneurship globally with useful case studies and thoughtful analysis throughout. It represents one of the core teaching materials we use at Oxford."--Dr Alex Nicholls, Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship, Said Business School, Oxford University

"One of the most powerful transformative forces in this century is social entrepreneurship and this book insightfully probes these entrepreneurial change agents driving this process. Enriching reading for students and practitioners seeking to build a better world."--James E. Austin, Snider Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, and Co-Founder of the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative

"I've told everyone within earshot about it. Besides, I'm confident that those who've read the earlier volume will appreciate the update...Buy extra copies of the book as gifts-someone you know may be looking for a future with meaning."--Portland Alliance

Customer Reviews

How to change the world
Good and useful, but probably need some updating and more information on current sources of financial support, specially for projects in developing countries.

Single best book I have read in past five years
I read a lot, almost totally non-fiction, and for the past several years, after accidentally becoming a top Amazon reviewer on the strength of 300 reviews lifted from the annotated bibliographies of my first two books, I have been dedicated, as a hobby, to reading in the service of the public. My goal in life at the age of 55, what I learned from this book is called an "encore career," is to be intelligence officer to the five billion poor, and--I now realize from this book--to the social entrepreneurs that are changing the world on a scale and with a speed that governments cannot match.

This book blew my mind, literally. It has not altered my course, but it has dramatically accelerated my ability to make progress by illuminating a path I thought I would have to discover. This book is the first "map" of a completely new form of endeavor, profoundly individual in inspiration and global in scale, that of social entrepreneurship, not to be confused with non-profit or non-governmental, more traditional forms.

The author, apart from mapping examples (33, focused on education, health, protection, and access to electricity and technology), provides what I consider to be the single best preface/introduction I have ever read. Here are a few of the underlined bits:

+ hidden history unfolding
+ landscape of innovators
+ ratio of problem-focused information to solution-focused information is completely out of balance
+ reality distorted, people deprived of knowledge they could use
+ individual social entrepreneurs advancing systemic scalable solutions
+ new sector of social entrepreneurship now being taught, funded, and respected
+ two Nobel Peace Prizes (2004, 2006)--micro-finance now micro-everything
+ Ashoka, founded by Bill Drayton is the spine of the book
+ conceptual firewalls coming down, "whole brains" being used
+ influencing conventional businesses (going green, good) and governments (adopting unconventional education, kids teaching parents, etc)
+ "social entrepreneurs are uniquely suited to make headway on problems that have resisted considerable money and intelligence"
+ government are looking at problems from the outside, social entrepreneurs see problems--and solutions--from the inside
+ scale still a challenge, but coming
+ Students and local groups actively interested in hearing about this now
+ Students are leading the way, pushing for change in curriculums
+ optimism, hope, energy are being unleashed as never before--but not being properly mapped, reported, or appreciated outside small circles
+ new pathways being discovered every day in every place
+ changemakers far more numerous than any might have imagined
+ many levels of changemaker
+ charaqcterized by first-hand active engagement in reality
+ individuals driven to understand, and driven to remove shackles from others with shared knowledge (e.g. kids learning to fix pumps and spreading knowledge across villages with a speed and energy only quick-witten children could apply)
+ social entrepreneurship network now has sensors everywhere, millions of changemarkers, tens of thousands of organizations
+ far better mechanism to respond to needed than we have ever had before
+ decentralized and emergent force

BAD NEWS:
- not yet properly financed
- lacking holistic public intelligence for voluntary harmonization against the ten threats, with the twelve policies, with a special focus on the eight challengers. (Learn more at Earth Intelligence Network)
+ emphasis on metrics slows down the needed pace of funding for innovation

Core principles for social excellence (chapter twelve):
+ Putting Children in Charge
+ Enlisting "Barefoot" Professionals
+ Designing New Legal Frameworks for Environmental Reform
+ Helping Small Producers Capture Greater Profits
+ Linking Economic Development and Environmental Protection
+ Unleashing Resources in the Community You Are Serving
+ Linking the Citizen, Government, and Business Sectors for Comprehensive Solutions (this is where shared public intelligence and a shared Range of Gifts Table can harmonize disparate capabilities with a common interest in stabilization, reconstruction, humanitarian assistance, and relief)

The book ends with a superb resource section including the following headings for lists of one-line access points:
+ Resources for People Seeking Jobs and Volunteer Opportunities
+ Organizations that Identify and/or Support (or Invest in) Social Entrepreneurs
+ Management, Funding, and Networking Resources for Citizen Organizations
+ Academic-Based Resources
+ Resources for Funders
+ Resources for Businesspeople

The notes and index are totally professional.

I put this book down with one final note: WOW!!!

This is an Earth-changing book, an utterly brilliant, timely, ethical, wonderful piece of scholarship, journalism, vision and information sharing. I actually have tears in my eyes. This book is Ref A for saving the Earth seven generations into the future and beyond.

Other books that support this one, but this one is unique:
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)

See also the books I have written, helped edit, or published, including our forthcoming COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, edited by Mark Tovey with 55 contributors. It will be on Amazon 1 March 2008, and is offered free online at Earth Intelligence Network.

In addition, I recommend the "52 Tough Questions" with transpartisan answers at Earth Intelligence Network, that address the ten high-level threats to humanity as identified by the UN study on "Creating a More Secure world" (free online and also sold via Amazon), the twelve policies that must be harmonized, and the eight challengers whom we must help avoid our mistakes of the past 100 years.

This book by David Bornstein could not have come into my life at a better time--the New York Times calls it a bible in the field, I consider it to be my inspiration for my encore career. Simply spectacular. AMAZING--not just the book, but every person and organization the book names and discusses. WOW!!!

Entrepreneurship at its Best
As a serial entrepreneur and teacher of entrepreneurship at the college level, I see social entrepreneurs emerging all around me. While many of the tools and techniques used by social entrepreneurs are the same as those learned and used by their more traditional counterparts, there's a tremendous amount to be learned from role models who are focused on developing enterprises that target social causes. This book does a wonderful job introducing social entrepreneurship through the stories of people who are actually doing it. The individuals profiled in this book, along with their causes, are diverse and can teach us a lot, irrespective of how we label ourselves as entrepreneurs. In general, I found this book to be well written, informative and inspiring, and believe that it has a lot to offer to anyone who wants to make a difference in the world.

Steven K. Gold
Author, Entrepreneur's Notebook: Practical Advice for Starting a New Business Venture