Social VenturingThe late twentieth century created and still will create an unprecedented wealth, both through earned wealth, especially by the IT-entrepreneurs, as well as the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next. This "wealth venturing", defined as the wealth generated by "new manufacturing" of (digital) information goods in the product-based as well as the knowledge based organisations, came along with a wave of inventions of new technologies. This worked out in a wave of new challenges and opportunities for people. It provides also a potential of profit earnings, where new markets opened, with a vast amount of money "expected to be earned". Unparalleled economic growth and its corresponding disparity, for the "excluded" unprivileged nations and communities is a key question. New sorts of entrepreneurs, using market-based approaches to solve social problems recognize their capabilities of acting as a social entrepreneur. The new philanthropists, who got their affluence in the high tech sector, try to build sustainability by investing social venture capital rather, then traditional grant making via donationsi. In the May 1998 issue of The Economist, an article, "The challenge for America's Rich", said: "For if 1900 marked the high point of one era of wealth creation, with enormous who seized new national markets just then opening up, 2000 may mark another with the opportunities flowing this time from globalisation, new technology and corporate restructuring. America at the last count, had 170 billionaires, compared with 13 in 1982.ii" The reason for these social investors is not to get another huge capital gain, but rather to devise market-driven and venture capital concepts to intensify the relationships with the target group of social enterpreneurs via partnerships and shared responsibility of investment funders and social action organisations. Besides money, time and energy, they want to share their business experience and networks, which brought them prosperity. These social entrepreneurs focus on performance and want to make projects self-sustaining. The model here, is that "business ventures", being stable, produce an affluence, which can be applied in "community project" activities, together with knowledge and abundant business experience to start activities in "excluded" communities or underprivileged regions, for sustainable development, leading toward value creation and "wealth venturing" in these areas. The social venture capital people believe strongly in equipping people with tools and investing in them to go and "create" value and wealth is a vital part of their philanthropy. In fact, this is a variant on what Churchill, England's prime minister, in the past told US president Roosevelt "Give us the tools and we will finish the job". This social venturing world uses other words like "grant equity" instead of "grants", They are investor, not funder and like to measure the performance, rather then evaluate and last but not least want to see a business plan, not a "grant proposal". Where many of these social entrepreneurs did emerge from the high tech sector, it is very likely that the kind of business plans they will consider are related to ventures regarding information technology intensive "knowledge based manufacturing". They mostly are targeted to stimulate education improvement programs together with sustainable ventures, build upon feasible business outlooks for information goods. They can be produced with global recruited digital production means, syndicated via the Internet to customers on totally different customer places. iReis, T.,(1999) Unleashing new Resources and Entrepreneurship for the Common Good, a scan, synthesis and scenario for action, W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
iiEconomic Policy Institute concludes the same, www.epinet.org; annual report 1999; page 5.
iiiTuan M., Emerson J., (2000), A Case study on Venture Philanthropy, Roberts Entreprise Development Fund, www.redf.org
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