Social Entrepreneur

How do we get more people involved in social innovation?

NOTE: For extended show notes, see https://tonyloyd.com/tom-dawkins

Tom Dawkins is the founder of StartSomeGood, the leading home of cause-driven crowdfunding, innovative partnerships, and social entrepreneur education. I first interviewed Tom nearly five years ago, on December 14, 2015. You can hear our previous interview at https://tonyloyd.com/018.

Tom keeps coming back to one fundamental question. How do we get more people involved?

“All of us are smarter than any of us,” he says. “It’s essential in a world that is evolving so rapidly. It’s never good enough to come up with a single good idea, a single solution, because things that were proven to work yesterday won’t work tomorrow.

“Those of us who care about the future, the planet, and the community, we need not just to find innovations, we need to build an innovation muscle. As a community, the best way to innovate is to ensure that every perspective is heard. Everyone has an opportunity to participate in that process of creating a better future.

“One of my foundational beliefs is that all the ideas are already out there. They’re often held by someone who has lived experience of a particular challenge.

“But so many people don’t know how to get their ideas out into the world. They don’t know how to turn it into a story that will resonate with people. They don’t know how to identify: Who is it for? What’s the value I create for them?

“They don’t have access to a network or impact investors or other types of supporters. So, we started with crowdfunding, but since then, we’re adding all these pieces that might help people make that leap as well.”

What Do Early-Stage Social Entrepreneurs Need?

“There are three key types of capital they need to underpin progress and impact.

“There’s intellectual capital, which is knowing how to do things or accessing the people who do.

“Financial capital is in some ways to fill the gaps of your intellectual capital – to pay for things that you can’t acquire in other ways. And to boost growth and reach.

“And then relational capital, which helps you not to burn out. It’s more than accessing people who know stuff. It’s people who care about you – people who understand the journey. “

The Next Level of Evolution for StartSomeGood

Today, StartSomeGood builds capacity for early-stage social innovators in several ways.

They run accelerators on behalf of corporate partners.

They have the Good Hustle, a ten-week social enterprise design course. And they offer other workshops.

They run live crowdfunding events called Pitch for Good.

They run inspirational events such as their annual Starting Good virtual summit.

They provide the Starting Good Network, an exclusive community for those committed to changing the world.

And they continue to innovate on their crowdfunding platform. StartSomeGood now offers a recurring crowdfunding model.

Learn More About Tom Dawkins and StartSomeGood:

StartSomeGood: https://startsomegood.com

Recurring Crowdfunding model: https://startsomegood.com/recurring

Good Hustle: https://www.goodhustle.online

Starting Good virtual summit: https://www.starting.gd

Starting Good Network: https://startsomegood.com/starting-good

Tom Dawkins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomdawkins

Tom Dawkins on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomjd