The social enterprise Coffee for Peace (CFP) was set up to assure the financial sustainability of its peace advocacy, Peacebuilder Community, Inc., (PBCI) which was first established as a grant-taking NGO. As such, the social mission was well designed and embedded in the core of CFP, which shares the leadership and key staff with PBCI.
The choice of coffee as the product to carry the social enterprise contributed to the SE’s success because coffee technology is well established and which CFP learned quickly. Obtaining global yield levels is shown by the financial evaluation to be lucrative and, with a strategy of fair trade marketing, lucrative for the social enterprises and the social entrepreneur, CFP, who is orchestrating the enterprise ecosystem. Yet given the multiple bottom lines of peace and financial sustainability and the primacy of the social mission, the success of CFP would not have been possible without a special ingredient, a social innovation, in fact. The case outlines CFP’s leadership development process starting from the recruitment, training and qualification process for the internal CFP leaders as well as those for the financial sustainable offspring peacebuilding social enterprises. The uniqueness of this social innovation in leadership development is highlighted by four caselets of seemingly ordinary people selected and imprinted with the CFP social mission for leadership in the building ecosystem as well as training in business skills. The pacing of social enterprise building, in this case dominated by the three-year coffee growing cycle, as well as the importance of community selection, the writing of a contextual offspring peacebuilding mission, and their social preparation is also highlighted.
Tahanan by SUMIKA, a spin-off unit of the EDAYA platform, is a homestay program coupled with a community tourism program for travelers to immerse themselves in the lives of the people in the rural Cordilleras. The project found target markets in Baguio--dubbed the summer capital of the Philippines and education center of the North--as well as in participants of the AIESEC program, and the growing number of young local and international tourists in the Philippines. Through the participation of these travelers, Tahanan will provide an alternative source of income to these families living in poverty. As the Tahanan project is careful not to overwhelm the indigenous communities of the Cordilleras with a lot of tourists, participants of the project have to be chosen diligently. However, the number of participants was too small to make Tahanan a viable social enterprise. Tahanan aims to establish operations in the Abra province to expand and diversify its locations, and accrue greater financial return. While Tahanan could potentially receive training and support programs from the government pursuant to the National Tourism Act of 2009, the ASEAN resolution to develop a comprehensive homestay standard to be adopted by the member states poses as a challenge to the project. The stringent criteria and requirements laid out by the ASEAN standard might discourage communities from participating in the project, or exacerbate the already-great financial strain of these communities.
Communities in the municipalities of T'boli and Lake Sebu are governed by a patriarchal mindset where men are accustomed to being the breadwinners and decision-makers of the household, and; women are to stay at home to do everyday chores and take care of the children. These traditions perpetuate the inability of women to maintain a stable source of income, as well as result in cases of domestic abuse and exploitation. From 2002 to 2004, LASIWWAI, a non-profit organization, sought the empowerment and improvement of the quality of life of the T'boli women by teaching its members to grow and harvest plants and vegetables, and grow native chickens. While produce was made for consumption, members were free to sell their goods for extra income. In 2004, the organization promoted the business of t'nalak weaving--an art in which the T'boli women are well-versed--for its members. Owing to language and communication barriers, and the unfamiliarity of members to business processes, LASIWWAI incorporated education in their mission. Through these efforts, LASIWWAI hoped to create better opportunities and learning experiences for its members. As a caring and trustworthy community-based enterprise, LASIWWAI was successful in organizing weavers and generating opportunities to make a profit. Partnerships with other charitable institutions resulted in the construction of infrastructure, such as a school and a post-harvest facility for public use. LASIWWAI aims to invest more in training and upgrading of the skillsets of its weavers to increase their income.
Happy Helpers is an exemplary case on social innovation that puts emphasis on the “software” of people. It fits the bill in terms of careful and insightful designing and implementing programs that have to do with mobilizing, organizing, incentivizing, energizing, capacitating and most of all, empowering the helpers as they go about their daily tasks for rendering professional cleaning services. It highlights how a good human resource aspect forms the heart of Happy Helpers’ operations. Likewise, it demonstrates how operational excellence relies heavily on its good human resource management. It recalls the story on how the triumvirate of Maan Sicam, Jo Endaya and Memey Mendoza was able to operationalize the enterprise with a high regard for the quality, delivery and price expectations of its meticulous clientele while addressing the issue that it encounters in terms of Human Resources which form a large chunk of its enterprise operations. Despite this, the founders are contemplating on whether they are ready to expand geographically through social franchising. There is this uncertainty whether the expansion could operate while carrying on the social mission as started by its founders.
The Lamlifew Village Musuem and School of Living Tradition was the “first living museum operated and managed by an indigenous women association in Southeast Asia.” It was brought about by the need to preserve, restore and promote the B’laan’s cultural heritage. The social enterprise was thought to be well managed, but constraint for growth was that only the top two or three people had the capacity to take on roles completely. Upon the death of its president in 2017, Maribeth Ditan, treasurer, recognized that LTWA needed help especially in training the people on management strategies as very few of them were truly knowledgeable on the trade. LTWA also only relied on the concerted efforts of its members, customers and partners to effectively market their cultural services and products. Its downward growth was manifested in its financial status wherein from an operating profit of Php 40,760 in 2016, they were only able to achieve Php 1,536 operating profit in 2017.
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