Skip to 0 minutes and 9 seconds Hello! My name is Marek Hudon. I’m a professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium where I am one of the co-directors of the Centre for European Research in Microfinance. I would like to invite you to an online course on the commercialization of social entreprises. A long long time ago, the world of social entreprises was a quiet sea where the social mindset was omnipresent but outreach was somewhat limited. Then came waves of commercialization or marketization… these waves have fundamentaly modified the landscape of social enterprise which today is almost unrecognizable to some early pioneers. Some industry captains considered these changes to be a wonderful opportunity to reach new horizons and impact more people.
Skip to 0 minutes and 50 seconds Other industry pioneers were fundamentally concerned by commercialization, concerned by the risk of mission drift, and that this new direction could leave the industry in wreckage. This free online course will offer you two insights on the issue of commercialization. First, how commercialization affects the management and operations of social enterprise. Second, which avenues could or should be used to avoid mission drift; that is how to stem the tide to mission drift? Most of the time we will start with a case from microfinance, which is often presented as the poster child of social enterprise. How will we address this issue? Commercialization can be operationalized both in the institutional transformation to a regulated or for-profit organisation or the increasing use of commercial financing.
Skip to 1 minute and 35 seconds While the starting point will often be the microfinance sector, we will always look to see whether our results are generalizable to other types of social entreprises, such as fair trade or work integration social entreprises. This project is intended to be participatory and inclusive. You will indeed be constantly involved in the MOOC, particularly to brainstorm about the policies to avoid mission drift. We will also have the opportunity to listen to many high-profile guest-speakers, which include not only leading academics such as Jonathan Morduch or Paul Collier but also well-known practitioners. Trust me, we will learn a lot from their experience! The MOOC will be free of charge. To register you can simply click on the link provided.
