SIRGUPDATE Nov, 2012
UPDATE
Taiwan is famous for its night markets. Pictured to the right is Shilin Night Market, considered one of the largest and most famous night markets i n Ta i w a n . T h e shimmering glitz belies this 1000 year old tradition.
Social Innovation Research Group Newsletter Contents 1. Implications of the Financial Flow - Wendy Pan 2. Fair Trade 2.0 - Remi Kanji 3. Novel Method for Ecosystem Analysis - Reza Mirza 4. Resolving the Tension Between Marketing and Social Impact - Remi Kanji 5. Realigning Incentives - Melinda Jacobs and Remi Kanji 6. Inside and Out: Prioritizing Local and International Causes in a Global World - Melinda Jacobs 7. Social Enterprise Spotlight: Guang Yuan Social Enterprise - Wendy Pan
Nov. Highlights 1. Interviewed the founder of iHealth, a social enterprise by a UToronto Alum 2. Attended the Social Enterprise Discussion Forum 3. Interviewed serial SE entrepreneur and founder of 6 Doctors 5 Patients (a preventative healthcare SE) 4. Attended the Social Enterprise Development Round Table 5. Listened to a talk by the founder of Rainforest Cafe. a fair trade SE
1
SIRGUPDATE Nov, 2012
Implications of the Financial Flow By Wendy Pan
In the last newsletter, I briefly introduced the financial flow model for categorizing social enterprises. After recently meeting a few social entrepreneurs in Taiwan, I would like to add on how the model could be used to measure the impact of a social enterprise and how profit division strategy differentiates social enterprises from traditional NPOs. Multiple fits are better than single fits In order to maximize its impact in the targeted community, a social enterprise needs to fit in multiple categories defined by the financial flow model. For instance, a social enterprise sells a product to a marginalized group in a developing country. If the product is produced by a large factory owned by a multi-national corporation elsewhere, the social enterprise is less integrated with the marginalized group than if it were to produce the products in the community. Since the priority for social enterprises that serve the poor as their customers is cost cutting, by training people in the same community to provide the service or to produce the product, these social enterprises effectively cut costs, such as labor costs, transportation costs and import taxes. Producer model is more flexible than employee model It is important to clarify that “marginalized group as producer” and “marginalized group as employee” are two distinct categories in the model. “Producers” are business owners who have the ability to make decisions independently, while “employees” do not have nearly as much flexibility. The former are usually more sustainable financially than the latter. If a “marginalized group as producer” social enterprise closes down, its producers can still sell products and participate in the market, with all the knowledge gained by working with the social enterprise. However, if a “marginalized group as employee” social enterprise becomes insolvent, its employees will lose their jobs and face unemployment. Two of the most common organizational structures for “marginalized group as producers” social enterprises are farmers’ cooperatives and fairtrade enterprises. These social enterprises often act as links between the producers and wholesalers or consumers. Sometimes, the enterprises will provide producers technical training or market information to effectively bridge them with the market. In return, the social enterprise distributes the products on the producers’ behalf and takes the gross margin, calculated as the difference between the prices it sells the products and the prices it purchases them. Guang Yuan Social Enterprise, Da Wang’s Food Stand, and Thai Craft Association are all examples of this type of social enterprises.
There are two major types of social enterprises falling within the “marginalized group as employee” category – social enterprises that hire people with disabilities or social enterprises that hire people in developing countries who live in extreme poverty (without exploiting them, of course). Social enterprises that hire people with disabilities bear a particular type of risk – a reduction in market demand could lead to a decrease in revenue. At that time, they will face the dilemma to either keep themselves afloat or let some employees go. In addition, these enterprises have to pay extra for employee insurance and health benefits, which could become burdens in times of financial difficulty. This could be why most of these social enterprises register as foundations or NPOs. In this way, they can receive funding from government agencies, private donors or other NPOs serving the same group. Flexible profit division is crucial for success. Profit division methodology plays an important role. A social enterprise could allocate parts of its profits to the marginalized group it serves in the form of donations, allowing it to scale its impact beyond business. A local example in Taiwan is Guang Yuan Social Enterprise. For example, Guang Yuan Social Enterprise donates 3% of its revenue back to Ma Na, the partnering NPO it works with, to provide technical training to aboriginal farmers in the Ali Mountain area. One of the most prominent features of social enterprises is the “efficiency premium”, which most traditional non-for-profit organizations (NPOs) do not have. If an NPO is well-managed and spends only 9 dollar out of its 10 dollar budget to accomplish its mission, what happens to this NPO? There are two possibilities. 1) It saves the dollar for the next fiscal year. 2) It will receive only 9 dollars next year. In order to prevent option 2 from happening, that NPO could try to spend that extra dollar so it does not get penalized. What would happen to a social enterprise in the same scenario? It would have many options. A social enterprise can allocate its efficiency premium to its managers, shareholders, designated charities, employees, or some or all of the above. Since it is an enterprise, its managers and employees are eligible to receive bonuses as incentives and have extra financial drives to outperform. This is a luxury that managers and employees from traditional NPOs do not have. This can also partially explain why social enterprises are general more effective than traditional NPOs in attracting top talents.
2
SIRGUPDATE Nov, 2012
Fair Trade 2.0 By Remi Kanji
The idea of a ‘living wage’ has inspired recent controversy in the United Kingdom. W h i t e h a l l cleaners – the d e d i c at e d a n d p a t r i o t i c janitorial staff dedicated to cleaning up after the UK government –have been fighting for a wage that would sufficiently cover their basic living costs. What does that mean? Enough money for rent on their subsidized apartments outside of London, food for their families and transportation to and from work. A fair wage. And such a wage increase even has economic benefits. The University of Staffordshire calculates that for every £1 contributed to a living wage, a benefit of £1.63 is created in the wider economy. Both the Living Wage efforts and the Fair Trade Movement share a parallel morality – namely, that those who must rely on low-income work should be paid enough through that work to meet their basic needs. Fair trade consumers pay a premium on a product, a higher price for their coffee for example, in the hopes that the farmer makes enough for rent, food, and transportation. While the moral oblig ations interwoven with fair trade and living wage movements ensure that low-income workers have access to the basic necessities, Fair Trade 2.0 provides them with class mobility, in addition to unlocking their creative talents for use in the wider economy. While at two conferences in Singapore and Taiwan, SIRG members met Elisa Lion and Eriko Yamaguchi, two entrepreneurs running enterprises forming the basis of the Fair Trade 2.0 Model. Smateria is owned and operated by Lion and her business partner Jennifer Morellato, while Eriko Yamaguchi founded and operates Motherhouse. Both companies manufacture designer handbags that I love, but cannot afford because of my student budget.
What makes Smateria and Motherhouse like Fair Trade? First, they offer a pay package and benefits better than living wage. Both Lion and Yamaguchi offer above market salary – Yamaguchi gives twice the amount usually paid in the local market. They are able to be selective about who they hire, ensuring that quality of work produced improves. Workers know that Smateria and Motherhouse are some of the best available employers and are likely more willing to stay on with the organization, learn, and work hard to keep their jobs. Smateria is different from mainstream fair trade in its benefits package – it is particularly geared towards women. Mothers are given an unusually long maternity leave as well as access to free childcare en site. All workers are given one month of annual leave and the organization takes pains to ensure that all International Labor Organization standards are met in day-to-day operations. But what makes Smateria and Motherhouse better than Fair Trade? What makes the two organizations the second, improved iteration? They both offer opportunity for advancement. Both Lion and Yamaguchi spend time on the factory floor with workers, finding out who is flexible, creative, and a leader. These individuals are then given the opportunity to undergo further leadership training and become managers. The promise of upward mobility inspires workers to be better. Education and training further develops an individual, allowing them access to work that is more creatively and financially rewarding. Upward mobility allows workers and their families to meet their needs beyond rent, food, and transportation. For those who are not necessarily enamored with fair trade and living wage morality, it is interesting to note that neither Smateria nor Motherhouse rely on the ethical component of their businesses for marketing. Instead, they market their products based on design and quality. And it is easier to demand good quality product from engaged and happy workers. In addition to illustrating ways in which fair trade should improve, they also showcase that fashion does not need to sacrifice social good for profit and style.
Right: A stylish Smarteria bag made from r e c y c l e d garbage bags using innovative manufacturing.
3
SIRGUPDATE Nov, 2012
Novel Method for Ecosystem Analysis Part 1: Introduction By Reza Mirza
It’s clear that data is taking over: from the Obama campaign’s analytics team that grew five-fold from the 2008 election to Har vard Business Review’s pronouncement that ‘Data Scientist’ is the sexiest job of the 21st century. My goal is to use untapped data to efficiently flesh out an ecosystem that wouldn’t be possible on foot given limited resources. When I first came to Taiwan as part of the Taiwan Field School to represent the University of Toronto -- swine flu was breaking out around the world. In a fascinating twist, Google managed to predict flu outbreaks by region using the frequency of search queries related to flu symptoms. They validated their algorithm to be 97% accurate using CDC data to be 97% accurate. The paper I presented to Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs discussed how Google’s Flu Trends could be adapted to become a generalized epidemic detection tool, speaking to Taiwan’s enterovirus epidemics. Clearly search queries can be an extremely flexible tool in doing broad analyses. Before using such data to make predictions or real world pronouncements, it’s key to first identify whether the data is internally consistent. I did this by comparing Taiwan’s overall search frequency for “社會企業” (Chinese for social enterprise) with the average search frequency of three Taiwanese social enterprises with an engaged web audience (i.e. 248農學市集, 地球樹, 吉甲地). The idea is that overall interest in the field should be correlated with the aggregated interest in three social enterprises. And indeed, if you look at Figure 1, you see a moderate correlation (49%) between the search frequencies suggesting the data is internal consistent.
One difficult question this kind of analysis can answer is where to focus our research efforts. Though Taiwan isn’t a large country, it’s important for us to be efficient and minimize the amount of time spent finding social enterprises. By drilling down and looking at regional patterns for the term “社會企業” we can find hubs of SE interest, which act as proxies for the activity we’re searching for. Figure 2 below illustrate this. Of course Taipei is where most of the activity is located, but it’s fascinating to learn that Tainan and ChuNan, places we have yet to investigate, have a huge interest in social enterprise. And finding unknown hubs efficiently is just the tip of the iceberg of how such data can be used. In Part 2, I intend to validate whether search query data is representative of actual activity, as measured by the number of enterprises in the region. I expect there to be a correlation between search queries and the number of strength of the community, using metrics like the number of existing enterprises. supporting organizations (like accelerators), and the amount of capital available. Figure 2. Regional Interest
Figure 1. Internal Consistency 70.0
52.5
35.0
17.5
0 2012-02-11
Left: Correlation (R=0.49) between the popularity of Google searches for the Chinese word for SE (社會企業) vs. average 2012-08-11
2012-02-12
Average Queries of 3 SEs in TW
2012-08-12
Queries for "社會企業"
searches for three Taiwanese Social Enterprises. Above: Regional breakdown of search frequency for 社會企業
Note: The numbers in both Figure 1 and 2 are values indicating relative popularity and not actual frequency of searches.
4
SIRGUPDATE Nov, 2012
Realigning Incentives By Melinda Jacobs and Remi Kanji
Social impact bonds are a new social-purpose financial instrument, proposing a sustainable solution for the creation of social value. By aligning the monetary incentives of investors with the creation of a social good, everyone wins. However, there are many circumstances and models in which the financial and social incentives are not aligned - a problematic situation for a growing sector that aims to be defined by pairing financial and social success. The New York based Social Impact Bonds and the Taiwan-based organization 5 Doctors 6 Patients (5D6P) provide contrasting lenses to evaluate the ability of new financial models to create and sustain social behaviors. Social Impact Bonds were first introduced in New York to fund rehabilitation programs for Rikers Island prisoners. The bonds were an unusual instrument funded by an unexpected creditor: Goldman Sachs (backed by Bloomberg Philanthropies). Sachs gave the government USD $9.6 Million up front – without this initial investment, the rehabilitation programs in question would not exist. They filled a service gap. In exchange, the government will be monitoring the group of prisoners benefitting from social impact bonds. Their recidivism rates will be compared to that of the general prison population. Once the government calculates savings from reduced recidivism (if these savings do indeed exist), it will pay Goldman Sachs back its initial investment with interest. However, as with any investment, there is a risk of limited returns, no returns, or even a loss. At the same time, Goldman Sachs found the rehabilitation program to be a sound enough long term investment that it put what would for most other investors be a substantial amount of capital into funding the program. This model is exciting in that it incentivizes a financially-driven organization to invest in social value creation, while also filling a service gap that the government cannot address. Though the ROI is slow, investing in a rehabilitation program is actually a comparatively low-risk undertaking. After gaining work skills, former prisoners have more employment options and a vested interest in not committing another crime. A survey report produced by the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice emphasizes rehabilitation programs that focus on employment, addiction treatment, sex offender treatment, mental health, and behavioral programs. Experienced professionals who have researched comparative criminal justice systems clearly recognize the value of rehab programming – Goldman Sachs believes it is making a safe bet. Social Impact Bonds relate to an NPO we interviewed in Taiwan: 5 Doctors 6 Patients. The NPO aims to encourage preventative and holistic healthcare, charging
members a subscription fee for access to a package of services. They too address a service gap – whereas services were previously individually available and patients would have to seek them out for access, 5 Doctors 6 Patients (5D6P) bundles them in a one-stop shop. Moreover, it creates a consistent and supportive community around holistic care, encouraging members to partake. The ‘investors’ in 5D6P’s model are patients who pay a monthly subscription fee to the service. However, ‘interest’ is calculated based on a patient’s healthcare costs after a set number of years in the program – if these costs are reduced, then Taiwan’s National Health Insurance will pay patients the difference between their past and present costs of care. 5D6P’s model relies on two behaviors: firstly, that people believe the bundling of health promotion services (exercise, nutrition, community, etc) together is meaningful enough they will pay for a subscription, and secondly that people are more likely to subscribe and be active users if they have a monetary interest in displaying that behavior. However, if bundling of services is compelling enough to get subscribers, the organization would not need to give the subscribers a financial stake in the health rewards of that behaviour -they’ll do it because they like the product, not because of financial incentives. The behavior of health promotion (a social good, in their model) can operate based on its comparative advantage as a service, without more financial intervention in the form of incentives or profit sharing. On the other hand, if the goal is to financially reward participation in health promotion, the organization could test if monetary incentives were enough to compel would-be subscribers to exercise and subsequently reduce healthcare costs. 5D6P could test using already established paying patterns at other health and wellness institutions - if you increase your use of the gym by 30% per month, refund your fees 50%. This would actually be easier, because increased fitness does not necessarily decrease costs of a per patient level because 5D6P uses historical averages. (In that way “healthy” people or those who have incurred no doctor’s visits are financially punished if they decide to use a doctor, which could actually encourage the wrong behavior for the person’s health.) The New York social impact bonds facilitate a behaviour in the consumer’s best interest to create. 5D6P is similar, but its consumers have a financial stake in improving their health, with number of doctor’s visits and health care use as the metric for success. Unfortunately, giving customers a financial interest in the creation of health promotion may incent the right behavior for the wrong reason: it could create recidivism that would damage the group when the “consumer” starts living healthily again, either when they stop participating on their own accord, or the financial incentive is not longer strong enough. An integrated value system that clearly aligns the social and the monetary assumptions and behaviors makes it easier to see why a model will succeed or fail.
5
SIRGUPDATE Nov, 2012
Inside and Out: Prioritizing Local and International Causes in a Global World
steeped in the local conditions that instead of empowering innovation, submersion in local issues can stagnate thinking with all the reasons why things can’t or haven’t changed. These justifications for the status quo are the biggest barrier to even the most enthusiastic social entrepreneurs.
By Melinda Jacobs
More ironically, a similar rationale has been used in favour of addressing social problems outside the local sphere. Because outsiders are less likely to see the reasons why a social problem exists, they are somehow keener to believe they can change them. If we only did x, y, z we could meaningfully change x problem in y society. This logic has led to many (what I believe are half hearted) attempts to create sustainable social good, predicated on the assumption the group is equipped to do so. This is my primary contention with “voluntourism”– organizations that rely on fee-paying volunteers to fuel the creation of social value, often in the form of infrastructure and mostly within developing economies.
One simple but meaningful way of distinguishing between social organizations (non-profits and social enterprises) is by analysing where they are focused. Do they seek to resolve inequities or empower marginalized communities within a local environment, or in more distant, foreign environments?
Helping someone at home or abroad is morally equitable in the moral framework of philosopher Peter Singer. His famous example of a drowning child is meant to compel the bystander to take action to save the child, short of endangering the bystander’s life. Whether the drowning child is at home or broad has no relevance in determining the moral rationale for intervention – Singer would find no problem with a social economy supporting both local and international causes. But are we equally well equipped to address both sorts of problems? Do social entrepreneurs have equal or greater capacity to be agents of change in their home environments as abroad? All societies leave people behind, and it can be hard for residents of so called “developed economies” like Canada and Taiwan to account for societal extremes. Although there is no doubt that marginalization exists, social problems are less permeating,. Acknowledging and addressing those social problems that conflict with the popular conception of what it means to be from Canada or Taiwan is politically sensitive. Last year’s crisis in the Attawapiskat community of northern Ontario is a prime example of Canadian reluctance to publically engage in dialogue let alone sustainable action toward improving its most marginalized communities, despite on going domestic efforts toward alleviating social problems elsewhere. If we are encouraging market based solutions to social problems, it is easy to see why a social entrepreneur in a relatively thriving society might look elsewhere: the market size of social problems is often larger. When evaluating the opportunity for social change, should we look at the “market size,” the nature of the social problem, or our ability to address the problem at hand? Being a social entrepreneur is often most accessible at home: you have the most political rights in the country of your nationality, and presumably benefit from proximity to personal networks. However, the people with vested interests in social solutions may lack access to networks or resources, despite having the capacity to develop solutions. Further, it can be difficult to evangelize resident to local needs: residents are so
The Taiwanese social enterprise ELIV takes Taiwanese students (who pay a fee) to do development work in Cambodia. Without getting into the intricacies of their model, I would argue this concept benefits Taiwanese students more than Cambodian communities. Even if beneficial for the Cambodian host communities, their ability to extract value from ELIV is limited by the number of Taiwanese students willing to pay into the Taiwanese organization. Although ELIV does aim to build local capacity in Cambodia, the brain trust it creates in its participants ultimately comes back to Taiwan. But is this the best vehicle to educate young change makers? Or just the most “sexy”? There are some variations on the voluntourism model that are creating meaningful and even sustainable social value within their host communities, but their most lasting impact is within the participants and their skills. Perhaps the same allocation of their time and economic resources within a local economy would achieve more tangible results and social impacts in the short term. The prioritization of local and international causes is particularly salient in the Taiwanese context: youth here are extremely motivated and able, but because of the island’s tenuous political position Taiwan is seldom the beneficiary of foreign attention. Aside from missionaries and other groups association with religion, there are no formal organizations bringing foreigners to contribute to Taiwanese social causes. The solving of Taiwan’s social problems lies firmly with the Taiwanese, and should serve as a greater impetus to target socially minded efforts within the local economy. Should social entrepreneurs care more about closing the gap of relative wealth and privilege across countries or within them? Should they seek to create greater prosperity in societies that already enjoy high standards of living, or to increase the prosperity in societies with relatively less? When looking to become a social entrepreneur, the ultimate assessment should be one’s own ability to serve as an agent of change, regardless of the location.
6
SIRGUPDATE Nov, 2012
Social Enterprise Spotlight: Guang Yuan Social Enterprise By Wendy Pan
One major landmark for a social enterprise is the day it breaks even - achieving financial independence. However, not many social enterprises in Taiwan have reached the break-even stage. One social enterprise that has successfully gone beyond breakeven is Guang Yuan Social Enterprise. On October 25th and 26th, SIRG visited Guang Yuan’s site in the Ali Mountain. During the visit, we participated in coffee tree trimming, grass cutting and ate a type of food we never would’ve tried. In the morning of the second day, we interviewed Mr. Wang, the chairman of Guang Yuan and Ms. Chen, the CEO. We’ve chosen 10 questions to ask Guang Yuan and documented their answers below.1
1. SIRG: What's your definition of a social enterprise? Mr. Wang: “If you think of a spectrum, one side is non-forprofit organizations, the other is for-profit businesses. Social Enterprises are anything in between. We describe it as ‘Socialism at heart and Capitalism in mind’.”
2. SIRG: How did you start? From whom did you get the first funding? Ms. Chen: “We used our personal savings at the beginning. Later we found a good angel investor, who shared our vision. That person invested in us and now owns a part of the equity. He (the investor) would go around, ask our stakeholders what they think about the business, and he evaluates us that way.”
3. SIRG: How do you build trust in the community? Ms. Chen: “It took a long time to connect and convince the farmers. I have been working with indigenous people for about 10 years. I worked in social projects. But only women and children come. Men didn't. I asked the men in the community why they chose not to come. They said they want economic projects. That’s why a social enterprise model works well in this community. I also think I need to get more people involved. It's better for the house to be built by 100 people. To give you an example of our integration with the community, we funded the farmers' children to go to Philippines to learn English. We believe that would help them improve their English skills and broaden their horizon.”
4. SIRG: What are some innovative practices you apply to the business? Mr. Wang: “We use our group power. Our farmers have formed a group to purchase inputs. We let our farmers learn from each other. They share lots of information together so that they can further innovate. We empower our farmers as if they’re running their own businesses. They learn during this process and run their own ventures. Our hope is to have every farmer think of himself or herself as a business owner. We build trust within the group by organizing the farmers to go to the field and work collectively once or twice a month. We also grant small amounts of micro loans to our farmers. Currently, microfinance is not legal in Taiwan, only the banks can make loans.2 We got around this rule by only allowing people our members to be borrowers. Our farmers have to fill out application forms explaining exactly how he/she would spend
Above: Different produce from the farmers of Guang Yuan.
the money. Our payment schedule can be quite flexible. We know exactly when a farmer harvests his produce as well as his personal character, which big banks won’t know.”
1. Responses are not verbatim. 2. That’s why this portion isn’t translated into Chinese.
7
SIRGUPDATE Nov, 2012
5. SIRG: What are some of the major barriers/ obstacles you’ve faced? Ms. Chen: “Back in 2009, we’ve signed a contract with a counter party. The party breached the contract and left us. On the other hand, “88 Wind/Water Disaster” destroyed most land and properties in the area we were about to farm. So we would not have been able to fulfill the contract even if the other party didn’t cancel he contract. We were grateful that the farmers wanted to continue working with us. That was also the time we started internal ‘microfinance’ program.”
their land, and the amount they loan from us (if they do). We will compare different farmers, analyze their performance and communicate that to them. All data is open to all farmers in the group.”
6. SIRG: Do you have any major competitor? Mr. Wang: “The agricultural sector is facing some big issues in Taiwan. There are many social enterprises focusing on agriculture here, but quite a lot of them only focus on social marketing. Many companies want to come in and copy Guang Yuan's model, but it is very difficult to execute. For example, not many people have the persistence to travel every week here to the Ali Mountain for years.”
7. SIRG: How do you allocate profits?
阿里山的訪問-光原社會企業 達到收支平衡對於社會企業來說是一個重要的里程碑，它 代表著一個社會企業初步實現了經濟上的獨立。目前在台
Mr. Wang: “We use our profits mainly on expanding the business instead of dividing the fund. Our shareholder didn't demand dividend. He is quite affluent and invests in other social enterprise as well. We also contribute 3% of our revenue to Ma Na, our partnering NPO.”
灣還沒有很多達到或超越盈虧平衡的社會企業。然而，有
8. SIRG: What’s your scaling strategy? Have you
修剪了咖
faced challenges with scaling? Mr. Wang: “We try to find local connections, someone we can trust and build the relationships. For example, our partnering NPO Ma Na, started in 1996 and is now already connected with many groups across Taiwan. We designed the model from the beginning to be a twin social enterprise and NPO. The major concern with scale is there aren't enough workers for us. And we have to spend time building the whole value chain. Our next step is to build a store in Fujen University to sell our products as well as products from other social enterprises. We would also like to educate more students about social enterprises.”
一個社會企業已經成功地超越了盈虧平衡點，它就是光原 社會企業。在民國101年10月25日和26日，社會創新研究 小組 (SIRG) 參觀了光原在阿里山的場地。訪問期間，我們 樹，除了草，吃了一種我們可能不會主動嘗試
的特別食物。第二天上午，我們採訪了光原董事長王先生 和執行總監陳女士。 我們選擇了10個問題對光原進行提問，並記錄了他們的回 答。 1. SIRG：你認為社會企業的定義是什麼？ 王先生：“如果你想像一個頻譜，一邊是非營利性組織， 另一種是嚮往利潤的公司。社會是介於兩者之間的。我們 形容它為社會主義的心臟和資本主義的頭腦。”
9. SIRG: Does being a social enterprise influence your customers?
2. SIRG：光原是如何開始的，又如何籌集第一筆資金？
Mr. Wang: “We have two types of customers. One type deals
陳女士：“我們用個人
with us because our product quality is good. The other deals
好的天使投資人，他與我們有相同的願景。
with us because we are a social enterprise. But actually very
在擁有我們的一部分股權。他（投資者）有時會去詢問光
few fall into the later, because we mainly sell our products to
原的其他利益相關者我們做得怎樣，並用
wholesalers.”
估我們。”
10. SIRG: How do you measure impact? Ms. Chen: “We have our measurement matrices. We track how many people we have, their income for the year, their children,
蓄開始。後來，我們找到了一個 位投資人現
樣的方式來評
3. SIRG：你是如何建立起（與農友之間的）信任的？ 陳女士：“我們花了很長的時間去連接和說服我們的農
8
SIRGUPDATE Nov, 2012
友。我（在建立光原前）當了10年的社工，一直在努力與 原住民溝通。舉個例子，我曾在做社工的時候發現，很多 集會只有婦女和兒童來了，村里的男子很少會出席。我問 村里的男子為什麼他們選擇了不來。他們表示，他們希望 看到的是經濟項目，不是單純的扶貧互助項目。 什麼用社會企業的模式來運作會很合適
就是為
個社區。我覺得
我們需要讓更多的人參與進來。一個由100人建起來的房 子會更好。為確保於與當地社會的相容性，我們會去資助 農友的孩子去菲律賓學習英語。我們相信
將擴大他們的
國際視野，讓他們學到更多知識。” 4． SIRG：光原在運作上有什麼創新的地方麼？ 王先生：“我們充分利用我們的集體力量。我們的農友有 時會集體批購投入物資，比如肥料之類的。我們讓我們的 農友互相學習，互相分享信息，使他們能夠進一步創新。 我們讓我們的農友看到那是他們自己的事業，他們必須參 與學習的過程，並自己去運營。我們希望每個農友都認為 他或
是自己企業的老
。為了建立信任，我們會組織大
家一起去某個農友那裡集體勞動，每月一次或兩次。”
們合作的非營利組織瑪納。 ” 8． SIGR：光原的擴展戰略是什麼？你在過去建立規模時 是否遇到挑戰？ 王先生說：“我們試圖找到本地連接，作為我們可以信任 的人來建立關係。例如，我們的合作NPO瑪納，創始於
5. SIRG：你們在創業的過程中有遇到過什麼困難或障礙
1996年，現在已經與台灣各地的許多團體有合作。我們從
麼？
一開始設計的模型就是一個雙胞胎類型的社會企業和
陳女士：“早在2009年，我們曾經簽訂了一份供給合同，
NPO。拓展規模遇到的主要問題是我們有沒有足夠的合適
但後來對方違約。另一方面，“88風災”破壞了農場和我們 運營地區在的大部分土地。
其實還算幸運，因為即使對
方沒有違約，我們也不可能履行合同。更讓我們感謝的 是，農友沒有要停止，並希望繼續與我們一起工作。
也
是我們開始在內部實行“小額信貸”計劃的時候。 ” 6. SIRG：光原有主要的競爭對手
的員工。我們還必須花時間來建立整個價值鏈。我們的下 一個步驟是在輔仁大學建立一個商店，來銷售我們的一些 產品，以及其他社會企業的產品。我們還要培養更多的學 生了解社會企業“。 9． SIRG：作為一個社會企業會給
的客戶帶來影響
？
王先生：“我們的客戶有兩種類型。一類和我們打交道因
？ 裡有很多
為他們知道我們產品的品質優良。另一類和我們交易因為
農業型社會企業，但相當一部分只專注於社會化營銷。許
我們是社會企業。但實際上前者大大多於後者，因為我們
多公司都希望來複製光原的模型，但是
主要將產品銷售給批發商。”
王先生：“台灣的農業正面臨一些大的考驗。
個模型執行起來
是非常困難的。例如，沒有多少人可以每星期堅持開車來 阿里山，一直
樣
麼多年。”
7． SIRG：光原如何分配利潤？ 王先生：“我們的利潤主要用於擴大業務，而不是用來發 放或分紅。我們的股東沒有要求分紅。他本身比較富裕， 並投資一些其它的社會企業。我們貢獻3％的收入給與我
3. 其中一個圖片給出了光源與農友分享茶葉種植成果的例子 4. 其中一個圖片給出了光源與瑪納之間的關係及提供的服務
10. SIRG：光原如何測量自身的影響
？
陳女士：“我們有我們的測量矩陣。我們知道在組織中有 多少農友，他們的年收入，他們的孩子怎樣，他們的土 地，等等。我們會比較不同的農友，分析他們的收益和效 率，再去和他們溝通。所有的數據都是對組中的所有農友 公開的。”
9