By Mike Nowak

AFTER SPENDING FIVE minutes with Amber Nystrom, you'll start to believe it's possible to both be your own boss and save the world. Nystrom is the director of Social Fusion, a San Francisco-based agency set up by the Women's Technology Cluster to incubate nonprofit and socially minded for-profit businesses in a variety of fields. With experience in the United States and abroad as a small-business consultant, policy lobbyist, and women's rights advocate, she's now seen as one of the foremost figures in the burgeoning industry of social entrepreneurship. The Bay Guardian recently asked her how to get off of one's butt and start making a difference.

Bay Guardian: "Social entrepreneurship" is a term that's heard a lot these days. Can you describe what it means and give some examples of social entrepreneurs in the Bay Area?

Amber Nystrom: An entrepreneur is a highly creative person who marshals small amounts of resources to bring about large-scale change. And a social entrepreneur is exactly that, but it's also someone motivated by the joint goal of both financial and social returns, instead of just financial returns alone.

There are a couple of great examples here in the area. David Green, founder of Project Impact in Berkeley, has achieved a really extraordinary international impact. As someone who wears a hearing aid, he began to see that poorer people, particularly in developing countries but also here in the United States, couldn't afford hearing aids themselves. So he spent a couple of years asking large manufacturers to produce them for less. He was turned down, so he said, "If no one else will do it, maybe I can." And he did. And then he did the same thing with sutures, and then he did it again with cataract surgery.

Another person with a great story is Temp Keller, the founder of Resources for Indispensable Schools and Educators. Temp is an Ivy League graduate who started teaching in a low-income school in East Palo Alto. He really enjoyed it and found it challenging, but he started noticing a trend: some of the best teachers would come with enthusiasm, but they'd only stay for a year or two. Just when they were getting good, they'd leave because there wasn't enough support. Literally, working out of a janitor's closet in the school, he started tapping into the Internet. He saw that almost all of the programs for new teachers focused on bringing teachers in. But he saw from working on the inside that the problem was keeping them there. So he pulled together time and resources and formed a fellowship program serving about 25 teachers, helping to get them financial resources and some recognition.

RISE identifies teachers who are demonstrating improved learning in low-income schools and invites them to join this RISE network. These teachers are provided with a strong professional network of their peers and businesses who have committed to giving a discount to the teachers and schools in the network. The main point is that it's a social enterprise: it's a nonprofit that is also revenue-generating.

These are both classic social entrepreneurship models; instead of just forming an enterprise or a business, one of the defining aspects of a social entrepreneur is that they're never satisfied with just a solution. They focus on systemic solutions – on processes that can be replicated and expanded, so that you serve greater and greater numbers of people.

BG: What's the current climate for social entrepreneurship in the Bay Area? It doesn't seem like there's as much money out there as there was a few years ago.

AN: You know, I think that's both a good thing and a bad thing. Is it a good time to be a social entrepreneur? Yes, in general. We're at a tipping point, where it's still a young field, and yet it's growing rapidly. It's attracting very talented individuals who are coming to look at this space as an intersecting point between what's working in business and what really needs to happen on the social side in underserved markets. And so every day there is something new happening, and San Francisco is the heart of it.

Absolutely, there has been a very big drop in philanthropic giving since the bubble burst, and that can definitely be a negative thing. But the positive result is that it has actually motivated a lot of innovative nonprofits to rethink how they're operating their infrastructure, and they've become more independent as a result.

BG: What would you say to someone who may have a great idea but is afraid to leave the comfort of a steady job?

AN: I always advocate first for looking at what's out there rather than starting your own thing. There are a lot of businesses and social enterprises starting up, and so my first advice would be to go to conferences and other events and get a taste of it first – meet some other social entrepreneurs and ask yourself, "Is this the kind of environment that's interesting to me?"

If so, then ask, "What, in particular, is interesting to me about this environment?" Let's say you have a particular passion about children. Well, what is it about children that is particularly compelling to you? And where do your strengths lie – in education, athletic training, financial know-how? If possible, don't form your own enterprise. Go join another one and learn the ropes, because there are already some extraordinary ones out there that really need support. If you do decide that this is for you, you can very easily start something small on the side as you explore and learn.

And if you do decide that you are going to really found and run an enterprise, remember that 90 percent of small businesses fail. So in order to succeed, you really need to do your homework. Make sure that the idea you think is extraordinarily new is actually new. Make sure that there's a very significant need and that there's a fairly large population that isn't being served. And make sure you know where the money is going to come from, whether through philanthropy or investment.

BG: Well, that last point is a tough one. If someone said, "I've got an idea, and I know it's a good one, and I have the motivation to see it through ... but I don't have any money," where would you recommend they look?

AN: Well, the classic response – and this is not the response that anybody wants – is that your first round is your friends and family. And that's true for a for-profit or a nonprofit, because if you can't get your friends and family behind you, then it's probably a good indicator that you should go back and look at your idea again.

The second step, either as a for-profit or a nonprofit, is to look to individual investors. There are a lot of events here in the Bay Area that are specifically focused on those individuals who are interested in giving to or investing in social enterprises (see "Enterprising Resources").

The third step is to look to corporations and foundations. I typically don't advise looking to foundations as a first step because most of them want to see some traction already. But if you do approach a foundation, do some homework. Make sure you're a really strong fit, and also make sure that you can find someone that knows someone there, so that you're not just sending in a cold letter.

BG: It seems like there's a tendency among social progressives to be mistrustful of business, and a tendency among businesspeople to see social causes as insignificant. Do you feel any of that hostility, or do you think there's a pretty good understanding on both sides?

AN: I think we still have a long way to go to promote understanding and trust on both sides. I hear all the time "Well, that's too nonprofity," meaning "not run well" – when, in fact, some nonprofits are far more efficient than a lot of businesses. And on the nonprofit side, you'll hear "We couldn't possibly do that – all they're interested in is money."

That said, I think that social entrepreneurship is providing a bridge between these two domains. You're increasingly seeing people who have a Wall Street background coming over fully into a social-purpose business. And you're also seeing people on the nonprofit side that are working very effectively in teams of business leaders and are transforming what a lot of people think of as "business as usual."

BG: What do you think are the key elements to becoming a successful social entrepreneur?

AN: First, once you're really certain it's what you want to do, never give up. Successful social entrepreneurs are absolutely determined and relentless in following their dreams.

Second, be very clear with yourself about what you love to do and what you're really good at – and what you're not. Surround yourself with people who complement you and do the things that are not in your core competency. If you're not detail-oriented or a numbers person, make sure you have somebody who is.

Third, don't be afraid of failure. You're going to have to make failure your friend. And realize that we oftentimes cannot decide what lot we're given, but we can decide how we react. One of the most consistent successful traits of the best social entrepreneurs is that they actually revel in failure; when they reach a dead end, they look at that failure as a success, and they translate it and combine it with something else.

The good news is that there's no straight-and-narrow path to becoming a social entrepreneur. If you really focus on what it is that makes you feel alive and passionate, and you go after that and go after it well, you're going to build a business, and you're going to invest yourself in it more than you've ever invested in anything before.

Enterprising resources

Social Fusion is a San Francisco-based incubator dedicated to supporting select for-profit and nonprofit organizations. www.socialfusion.org.

Young Women Social Entrepreneurs is a network of women who lead social enterprises and has chapters in San Francisco, New York City, Houston, and Portland, Ore. www.ywse.org.

Origo News is an e-mail news and event information list. www.origonews.com.

Social Enterprise Alliance is a national social enterprise organization that hosts regular events and conferences. www.se-alliance.org.

Social Venture Network offers information, advice, and forums for socially and environmentally conscious nonprofits and businesses. www.svn.org.

Conversations in Social Enterprise sponsors a lunch series attracting a diverse audience of social entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors, and philanthropists. www.wtc-sf.org/sflunchseries.html.

M.N.