The idea of social entrepreneurship

It is acknowledged that NGO's face a number of challenges regardless of the stage of maturity of the organisation. Many NGO's start life as a one person's dream to do good for a cause close to their heart. They go ahead and set up an NGO which gathers strenght and support from the community and perhaps from corporate or government patrons. You can almost see the graph showing lots of growth, successful stories and increased support in the early days.
Beyond this point, as the initial expansion slows down, the NGO's will start facing internal organisational challenges. As the organisation grows the need for a clearer definition of roles and responsibilties within grows as well. Who's responsible for keeping an eye on the finances? Who looks after supporters and donors? Who organises the next fund raiser?
It is often said that, in order to survive, NGO's have to be managed like businesses and not like charities. They need to make the most of the resources they have and the donations and funds they receive. In other words, they need to bring efficiencies to the day-to-day operation of the business. Did I say business? Replace the word for NGO, non-for-profit, charity, etc. and you should get the same idea.
Some time ago I met with the director of an NGO with whom I have been involved for a few of years. In the course of that meeting the conversation turned towards an issue I had noticed while volunteering with the organisation and from an issue we turned it into an opportunity. in broad terms the question was how to make the most of the limited amount of time and resources in order to secure donations for the various projects they embark upon every year. When I suggested a technology driven improvement the response was straight away "Yes! Can you do it?" Which is not what I had in mind originally. However it brings about the suggestion that there is an ocean of opportunities for entrepreneurs with the right attitude and the acknowledgement that they're not going to retire to the Bahamas after their first social enterprise.

Ideas are like buses

I first came across Soundwave in April 2013 through my wife who said these Irish guys had just released a really cool music app. Soundwave was later reviwed in an article in the Irish Times where it was described as a music discovery app with the challenge of turning the buzz into revenue.

As a music lover I felt like an abandoned child when iTunes removed the Genius suggestions sidebar with the release of version 11 but all of the sudden there it was, a new way to discover tracks, bands, anything. All you had to do was to draw an circle around your location et voila, a rake of random songs you might have otherwise never heard of. I signed up for the beta release and despite of not having a huge footprint due to the limited number of users, I loved it instantly. Furthermore, I could see the potential to extrapolate the concept to other fields. That's when I had my eureka moment but obviously, like a tool, I didn't know what to do with it.

In my twitter feed Russell Banks, formely of Conker now CEO of Pirate Dashboard simply put it: "Apply to Wayra". Utterly ridiculous! I wasn't ready then and even at this point in time I'm still in the discovery stages of a start up but he had a point, unless you do something about your great idea, it'll never add up to anything more than a conversation starter on a night out with your mates: "Hey guys, once I had a great idea." "Yeah, right. Your round"

The next bus came along completely by accident as a result of a couple of pints a few days later.