CHRISTIAN VANIZETTE MAKE SENSE FRANCE, ASHOKA FELLOW 2013 http://beta.makesense.org/ https://www.ashoka.org/fellow/christian-vanizette
PROBLEM Social entrepreneurs are confronted with more and more complex challenges and therefore have difficulties in solving them in isolation, slowing down their efficacy and innovation capacity. In the same time, citizens’ engagement in the social innovation sector has been changing dramatically these past few years: new generations are less inclined to engage on a long term basis and prefer to participate in punctual actions where their competences are needed and results are concrete. However, there are no bridges between the skills needs of new citizens organisations and the engagement interest of these new generations.
IMPACT In France Alone, MakeSense supported more than 235 social entrepreneurs and hosted 450 workshops to solve social challenges. In addition, Christian has developed a network of 10,000 Sensemakers in 100 cities around the world, engaging 15,000 people. MakeSense has organised more than 820 hold-ups creativity workshops aimed at solving a concrete challenge of a social entrepreneur. Over 520 social entrepreneurs benefitted from support and 89% of them were satisfied with the support received and the impact it has on their work.
SOLUTION Christian Vanizette has designed a very accessible, yet highly structured approach for social entrepreneurs worldwide to resolve their strategic and operational challenges within a short period of time by tapping into the collective intelligence, passion and resources possessed by individuals willing to engage their skills and creativity in accelerating positive social change. MakeSense is a collaborative platform where a social entrepreneur can present a problem to an online community. The core members of the community, a group of highly committed volunteers, define the best approach to tackle the challenge (both online and offline) and then mobilize inside the community a team of problem solvers to support the social entrepreneur. The tools used are in a continuous improvement process, as the members of the community share the solutions founds and the challenges of the process, contributing to refining the methodology and therefore increasing the social impact. To render the community as open as possible, Christian has created entry points, engagement formats and incentives for anyone who wants to participate in positive change to easily join MakeSense either online or offline, in hold-ups, SenseDrinks, SenseCamps and other events.
VISION
Christian Vanizette aims to foster a global community of thousands of individuals passionate about social change and eager to contribute to finding innovative solutions to social issues. Within two years from its launch, MakeSense community has grown to reach over 10,000 members in Europe, North America, China and Russia and by 2017, Christian expects MakeSense to have 300,000 members in order to allow any social entrepreneur to find a relevant solution to their challenges within three to five days. More recently, Christian and his teammates have designed engagement processes for new audiences, such as the SenseSchool, which develops and offers workshops to professors and universities to engage students in structured, highly effective problem-resolution processes for social entrepreneurs, and CommonSense, which offers companies problem-resolution activities that engage their collaborators in intrapreneurship processes. Both SenseSchool and CommonSense operate as business entities whose incomes serve to fund the actions and expansion of MakeSense.
ROADMAP CHRISTIAN VANIZETTE
With the support of
ROADMAP CHRISTIAN VANIZETTE SCALING STRATEGY To scale Make Sense, Christian adopts an open source partnerships strategy. He aims to create first a strong local community and demand and then assess the potential of expanding the market-based component of the hybrid model he created in order to better sustain the not-for-profit activities of the community.
SHOWCASE
FIND PARTNERS
SCALE
MEASURE LOCAL IMPACT
SCALING MAKE SENSE IN ITALY Christian and his team have started to build a local MakeSense community in Italy since 2014, with the support of Ashoka Italy. Christian participated in several events and meetings, including Ashoka’s “Innovate to Restart” event on February 26, 2015 in Milan. Moreover, Manuela Minnozzi and formerly Valerio De Cecio, researchers at the UNILINK Digital Administration and Social Innovation Center, Christian’s Local Advisors, have proved key in starting Make Sense in Italy, supporting him on the ground, opening doors and organizing events to attract new members. In addition to local changemakers who have been trained and voluntarily created local Make Sense hotspots in various cities, Christian has started conversations with several potential partners such as CISCO, Eltis and BNP BNL. By February 2015, MakeSense volunteers have organized five SenseDrinks in Rome, Milan, Bologna, Torino and Florence aimed at promoting the various activities and further building the local community, three Hold-Ups to support social entrepreneurs to solve their challenges, and collaborated with CISCO ACADEMY in a major event, involving over 1500 coding students and more than 10 000 online. Currently, Alberto Campora is discussing a partnership with Unilink and University of Trento to develop Sense Cube, an acceleration program for social enterprises, and Sense School, aimed at promoting social innovation among students. Last but not least, Make Sense is also planning a tour in Northern Italy in 2015 to launch a new approach in dealing with the problems social entrepreneurs are trying to solve.
SCALING MAKE SENSE IN SPAIN Through This Works, MakeSense expanded in Spain as well. The local Ashoka team is supporting the local team by opening doors with potential partners and investors, as well as with the organisation and communication of various events. Since 2014, MakeSense organized 12 hold ups, and another one is planned for June 2015. They also organized a SenseCamp with the support of Ashoka, focusing on solutions for employment in Spain which gathered over 120 people and supported 4 social entrepreneurs find solutions for their challenges. Another SenseCamp is planned for the end of 2015 and they are currently organizing a MakeSense Room on May 22nd in Madrid to blend talks on social innovation with artistic performances.
SCALING MAKE SENSE IN GREECE Supported by Ashoka, Christian has started to bring Make Sense in Greece in 2014, when MakeSense organised an Impacthon with SAP and a hold-up in Athens. In 2015 Christian also organised a workshop on Social Entrepreneurship together with City College of the University of Sheffield International Faculty for more than 140 students as well as two hold-ups for local social entrepreneurs. Christian is now discussing a more stable collaboration with City College around the Sense School program, while continuing to work on building the local Make Sense community. Should you be interested in helping Christian to scale in one of the three countries or partner with him, write to Ashoka Spain – comunicacion@ashoka.org, Ashoka Italy - italy@ashoka.org or Ashoka Greece – ashokagreece@ashoka.org !
With the support of