Beyond Personal Value Reply To Post

Beyond Personal Value Reply To Post

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“Trashy Bags exemplifies social entrepreneurship. Their motto is, “Reduce, Recycle and Reuse. (McWilliams, 2015) The company created a way to reduce plastic waste and solve social problems. Their efforts required identifying how waste could be used to make products useful to the community where the waste was occurring – thereby reducing further costs for manufacturing and shipping. Additionally, the company has brought the concept of recycling to a country making it an area more ecologically-competent. Another aspect to assist with the community’s “buy-in” is the company’s offer to pay participants twenty cents for each “kilogram of water (about 100 sachets)” delivered to the company. Other items, such as ice cream, yogurt, and fruit drink receive more incentives because it is more difficult to collect for recycling (Tutton, Mark , 2010). The company is still in operation today (See https://trashybags.wordpress.com/ andhttp://www.trashybags.org/) and participates in study abroad programs to increase social entrepreneurship in the world. The company is still in Accra, Ghana where students participate in the program (Study Abroad: Institutions: Trashy Bags, 2017). According to the Study Abroad web site, students can participate in the program on a rolling basis, year round. Doctor Donald F. Kuratko, in Entrepreneurship: Theory, Process, Practice, identifies social entrepreneurship characteristics as a “private-sector focus on innovation, risk taking, and large-scale transformation with social problem solving (Kuratko, 2017, p. 82).” Trashy Bags follows the pattern of social entrepreneurship also known as social innovation as well as civic entrepreneurship because the company also looked beyond limited resources, exhibited a heightened sense of accountability, and pursued a social value beyond personal value (Kuratko, 2017, p. 83). Indiegogo, according to the New York Times, is a social entrepreneurial company that provides opportunities for innovators to solve social problems (Cowley, Stacy, 2016). While not all start-ups are matched for social entrepreneurship, many ventures that would never get off the ground have been made possible by Indiegogo. By allowing “arm chair venture capitalists” to hunt for start-ups, creative ventures are funded that would be overlooked for social entrepreneurship. Therefore, Indiegogo is trend setting by allowing projects to come to fruition that would typically be overlooked due to lack of funding and support for innovation. According to the Huffington Post, Indiegogo’s mission statement is to, “empower everyone to change the world, one idea at a time (Bisharat, 2015).“ The company’s mission also correlates to Kuratko’s definition of social entrepreneurship. The company adopted a mission to create and sustain social value (beyond personal value), engaged continuous learning and innovation, and ensured action beyond the at-hand limited resources for companies through its mission to connect innovators and venture capitalists for small business public entrepreneurs (Kuratko, 2017, p. 83). Overall, companies that engage in social entrepreneurship are necessary today in an over-populated world that needs innovation to solve social problems in communities.”