Tag Archives: fellows

Feb 14 2012
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Good Profiles, NGOs

Good Profile – Monisha Kapila (ProInspire)

Good Profiles feature members of our Good Generation who are either out there in the field doing interesting work or still in the trenches of schools and institutions waiting to make their mark on the world. Have your own story to tell? Know someone who would be great to be profiled? Please sign-up or leave a note here!

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What do you do for a living nowadays?

I am the Founder and CEO of ProInspire, a nonprofit building the next generation of nonprofit leaders by expanding the talent pipeline, developing professionals, and increasing diversity.  As CEO, I oversee the growth of our program and expansion into new areas related to developing leaders for social change.

Is “doing good” a key reason why you chose this job? 

I started ProInspire because I was passionate about connecting nonprofits with talented business professionals who wanted to pursue careers where they can “do good.”  Like any sector, talent is critical to ensure that nonprofits can be effective in achieving their missions.  I believe I am doing “good” in the world by leading this organization.

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Jan 08 2012
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Career, Reflection, Social Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship

The Limit of Social Entrepreneurship – Room for heroes, not for followers

Key Questions in this Post:

  • Is social entrepreneurship a “calling” or can it be a “career choice”?
  • What’s there to do for wannabe social entrepreneurs without a cause?
  • What happens if we all become entrepreneurs?

Every day as I peruse the web for the latest and greatest news on social innovations, I cannot help noticing what I could call an obsession with social entrepreneurship. More precisely, an obsession of funders, investors and all kinds of umbrella organizations to highlight the importance of individuals starting their own socially do-good company and then scale it and change the world. While I once started my own journey in the social sector with a curiosity about and an admiration for the accomplishments of social entrepreneurs, I have come to realize over the years that we are starting to forget something really important. We are forgetting (drumroll) … all the other people. Call them ingloriously the “followers” if you want. Or call them the teams, the supporters, the “also were there” people.

Let me put it differently: hardly anyone would dispute that it takes a certain type of character and personality for someone to become a social entrepreneur. One that will be successful in the long term, at least. Also, in any given population, it is probably fair to say that only a minority is cut out to be social entrepreneurs. Thus, it would seem that we could categorize people in this space into (1) those who will actually go and start their own organizations and (2) those who are strongly interested in being involved with social entrepreneurship but may not want to be founders themselves. There is no word today for the thousands of people, especially young people, in this latter category. For this article, forgive me for calling this group the “armchair entrepreneurs” who have not yet found their place in the social innovation world, but love to read about it, talk about it, and plan for their great debut.

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