Lack of Volunteers

After completing last week’s management dilemma, I have decided that most Americans have a willingness to volunteer, but are often unable to spare any time. Today our society demands that in order to survive, we must work harder and longer. After 8 or more hours of work, family obligations, and home responsibilities, most average people are exhausted. In our ‘working’ country, free time is diminishing before our eyes. Furthermore, due to these various ‘busy’ factors, most Americans have resorted to giving donations to charitable organizations rather than their time. How do you think this will affect our non-profit organizations in the future? If everyone decides to simply write a check for a charity, who’s going to run it?

Social Entrepreneurship

During our class discussion last week about Social Entrepreneurship, and Venture Philanthropy, I became really intrigued. In the hand out given in class, I learned that social entrepreneurs “act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss and improving systems, inventing new approaches, and creating solutions to change society for the better.” After looking into the subject a little more, I began to really support the idea of NPO working towards finding a solution to the cause of a specific problem rather than temporarily providing some relief. I also liked how the focus was primarily to make changes in society rather than just slapping band-aids on things that are broke. I really liked the quote by Bill Drayton, which states, “Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish, or teach how to fish. they will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry. ” Why just give a band-aid when you can potentially work towards preventing the scratch or fixing the problem. I believe if everyone supported this idea, many of society’s problems such as hunger and the homeless could potentially be eliminated. We just need to start focusing on the long-term goal and make changes, rather than simply providing a quick temporary solution.