The Social Entrepreneur's Handbook: How to Start, Build, and Run a Business That Improves the World [Hardcover]

Rupert Scofield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 23, 2011

Make the business of society your business

No one knows the business of social entrepreneurship better than Rupert Scofield. Cofounder and president of FINCA International—a nonprofit microfinancing institution with 7,000 employees serving 750,000 customers in 21 countries—Scofield has been a social entrepreneur for 40 years.

In The Social Entrepreneur’s Handbook, Scofield leads you through the entire process of starting up and running a nonprofit, sharing personal success stories and advice on what not to do—valuable lessons he learned the hard way. The process, while risky, isn’t as difficult as you might think. Practically speaking, you need only two things: an idea and a plan. The former comes from you and you alone. This book supplies the latter.

The Social Entrepreneur’s Handbook illuminates the path to building a successful nonprofit from the ground up. You’ll learn how to:

• Create a realistic plan for getting started in your chosen cause
• Assemble the perfect team for putting your plan into action—and keeping it rolling in the right direction
• Develop a business model specifically designed to run a nonprofit organization
• Keep yourself, your staff, and your cause in solid financial shape

One of the many beauties of social entrepreneurship is that it’s never too late to start. You can be right out of school or working in the highest ranks of corporate America. It doesn’t matter. Social entrepreneurship begins with a noble cause, which turns into a passion, and soon becomes a mission worth dedicating your life to.

The Social Entrepreneur’s Handbook is the one and only resource you will need to attain your dream of working full-time in service to others—and making a real, measurable difference in the world.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Whether your mission is as ambitious as pulling millions of people out of poverty or as modest as feeding people in your neighborhood, now is the perfect time to get started. Social entrepreneurship has never been more needed, more valued, and more achievable than it is today.

In The Social Entrepreneur’s Handbook, author Rupert Scofield—president and CEO of FINCA International—gives you a practical plan for doing what you might have thought wasn’t possible: becoming a driving force for good by using business practices typically reserved for amassing personal wealth. Scofield teaches you how to:

• Focus your passions for social or environmental change into a single, achievable pursuit
• Create a business plan that uses commercial entrepreneur best practices for socially beneficial ends
• Mitigate the personal, financial, and professional risk that comes with running a nonprofit organization

Becoming a social entrepreneur is among the biggest decisions anyone can make—and one of the most rewarding. When you put your talent and hard work into amassing not capital but social capital, you’ll finally see those changes you’ve been thinking, dreaming, and talking about take shape.

About the Author

Rupert Scofield is president and CEO of FINCA International. Under his leadership, FINCA has grown from 60,000 clients and a loan portfolio of $5 million to more than 750,000 clients and a loan portfolio of more than $300 million. An agricultural economist, Scofield has 30 years’ experience as a social entrepreneur in Africa, Latin America, Eurasia, and the Middle East.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (March 23, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071750290
• ISBN-13: 978-0071750295
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #260,518 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in New York, 1949, to a downwardly mobile blue blood couple from Boston and Dayton, Ohio, Rupert Scofield grew up on the mean streets of Levittown, Long Island, where he was taunted and bullied mercilessly all through high school because his father made him wear wing tips and cuffs during the era of Cuban heels and clam diggers. His father flew 90 missions in a B-25 over France and Italy, got the girl but then led a life of quiet desperation, climbing no higher than Assistant Treasurer of a New York bank. Resolved to never work for "the man", and especially never have a career in banking, Scofield today is President & CEO of a global financial services empire spanning 21 countries of Latin America, Africa, Eurasia and the Middle East, serving 750,000 of the world's poorest with $350 million micro loans.

Scofield's writing career began at the age of ten with a short story, "The Last Request", published in the Camp Chewonki Chronicle in 1959. The story dealt with a boy who spends summer break with his vampire uncle in Bulgaria (he knew the living dead came from Eastern Europe, just got the country wrong). A 29-year hiatus followed this early success pioneering the vampire rage currently gripping the nation. Scofield next broke into print with "Agrarian Reform and Grassroots Development: Ten Case Studies" (Boulder, Lynne Rienner, 1990), contributing a chapter on the Land Reforms of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. A Spanish translation of "The Sheraton Murders" ("Hermanos de Sangre", Editorial Molino de Viento, 2008), based on the Death Squad murders of two American labor organizers and a Salvadoran peasant farmer union leader in the dining room of the Sheraton Hotel in El Salvador in 1980, was published in El Salvador in 2008. The translator, a Salvadoran poet and journalist, said "As I was undertaking the translation, I couldn't get the characters out of my head. Rupert understands the Salvadoran people almost better than we do ourselves."

A former All-American lacrosse player, father of three and recently cashiered Professorial Lecturer at Georgetown University, Scofield has spent the better part of his life dodging revolutions, earthquakes and assassins in the Third World, and once ran for his life from a mob in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for those in the non-profit field November 13, 2011

By Alain B. Burrese TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

"The Social Entrepreneur's Handbook: How to Start, Build, and Run a Business That Improves the Word" by Rupert Scofield, President and CEO of The Foundation For International Community Assistance, provides a lot of useful information and guidance for anyone involved with non-profits. I wish I'd read it when I was more involved with non-profit organizations. While I don't believe the book's claim that this is "the one and only resource you will need to attain your dream of working full-time in service of others - and making a real, measurable difference in the world," I do believe that it is a very good book for anyone working with non-profits.

The author likens the book as a survival guide for anyone who joins the ranks of a modern nonprofit, and I'd agree that it does provide much to help. However, I didn't like "Handbook" in the title, because to me a "handbook" has more lists, worksheets, procedures, etc. This book does not really contain those. It doesn't have the step-by-step formulas that I think of when I think of "handbooks." I sort of like one of the author's original working titles for the book better, "Confessions of a Social Entrepreneur."

The book contains eighteen chapters, divided into five parts, and is full of personal examples and encouragement for those working in the non-profit arena. It starts out with advice on identifying your constituency, your big idea, and finding a mentor. The second part delves into recruiting the best people for an organization. Good information on personnel issues. The next part of the book focuses on money, always an issue with nonprofits. The advice here can help organizations with fund raising.

Part four goes into building and running an organization with topics such as business models, structure, and systems. All of these are very important for the growth and longevity of an organization. Strategy is also discussed in one of the chapters. The final section, part five, looks at areas that are often neglected, such as innovation, governance, and some daily challenges when working for a non-profit.

While this isn't the only book that should be on a non-profit's CEO, Executive Director, Board Member, or employee's bookshelf, it is surely one that is a good read and provides strategies and suggestions that will enable the social entrepreneur to better succeed at his or her chosen mission. Recommended for anyone in the field, or who wants to enter the field.

Reviewed by Alain Burrese, J.D., author of the Tough Guy Wisdom series

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Are You Ready to Start Your Own Non- Profit Organization? July 14, 2011

By Bryan Carey TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Non- profit organizations number in the thousands and while some of them have become quite large and powerful, each started with an individual or a group of people who had a vision. Many people presently have charitable visions and dream of starting a non- profit, but are not sure what to do or where to begin. This is where the Social Entrepreneur's Handbook may be able to help. Written by the CEO of FINCA International, this book is a resource guide with helpful hints and tips that cover everything from the initial setup to hiring to fund raising and beyond.

I have entertained the thought of starting and running a non- profit organization, but I was often uncertain and had dozens of questions that needed answers before I would consider taking the plunge. And now that I have read this book, I have a better understanding and respect for what the employees of a non- profit organization go through each day as they seek out donors, hire new employees, balance their books, and abide by their organization's charitable mission. The book covers most of the setup and operational process involved in running a non- profit and it lets the reader know exactly what to expect if he/she decides to try to turn a non- profit dream into reality. What I find most helpful about this book isn't just its usefulness as a non- profit setup guide, I also like that most of what it recommends can be applied to most any business. The section on hiring was especially useful because I can relate completely to some of the characterizations of employees that the book talks about. The "Destroyer" and the "Chief Destruction Officer"- two employee types talked about in the book- remind me of some of the people I worked with at my last job. I also like what the book says about interviewing and evaluating employees because this, too, can be applied to any organization.

With a title like The Social Entrepreneur's Handbook, this may seem like another boring management guide, but it is actually quite entertaining as well as informative. The author didn't write this book in the dry, often monotone style so common with most books in the management genre. Rather, he wrote the book in a very lightened- up way, with small doses of humor on most every page. Readers will chuckle many times as they come across some of the author's funny descriptions of everyday people and ordinary actions and they will appreciate how the author was able to take what many would consider a dry, boring subject and make it more enjoyable.

Starting a successful non- profit organization is no picnic, but The Social Entrepreneur's Handbook is a very useful guide to the non- profit establishment process and it is a book I am glad I took the time to read. I still don't think a non- profit organization is in my own future, but if you are one of those who aspires to a self- employed life of charity, then The Social Entrepreneur's Handbook could be just the book you need. It walks you through the process one step at a time, explaining how to create and establish a success non- profit organization and enjoy the high level of satisfaction that results from operating a business focused on charity rather than profits.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Entrepreneurialship At Its Best May 16, 2011

By Dr. Joseph S. Maresca HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

The author begins the work with a description of
classic non-profit organizational success stories
like the Peace Corps and Americorps. There is an
extensive comparative discussion of "The Small Pond"
vs. "The Big Pond" organizational scheme. These
discussions are conditions precedent to building
a successful non-profit model or superstructure
set forth in greater detail later in the
presentation.

This work is similar to Building Social Business by
Dr. Muhammad Yunus 2010. Building Social Business
describes the success of various Grameen enterprises.
The objective of the Grameen program is to overcome
poverty, have a sustainable economy and a modest
return on the investment; whereas, the objectives
outlined by Rupert Scofield are mainly the social
benefit within a non-profit organizational setting
versus a profit seeking enterprise. When loans are
paid back in the Grameen program, profits are
plowed back into the company not unlike the
function of retained earnings in a for-profit entity.

This discussion is helpful because there are
opportunities for non-profits in Egypt, Libya,
Tunesia, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Afghanistan
and many areas of the world. The challenge is
to establish the requisite funding and build
meaningful personal relationships by engendering
trust, dealing with goal incongruencies and
taking calculated risks . Another dimension is
building the organizational infrastructures
requisite to carrying out an identifiable
social mission in communities throughout the world.

The Small Pond refers to a smaller scale
organization with organic operational modes
because there are fewer people and less
structure. Accordingly, each person has
a wider span of control with a more decentralized
decision-making apparatus and less bureaucracy. The
Big Pond is the classic organizational hierarchy like
the military or organized churches. These structures
have more bureaucracy, formal standards, charters
and a clearly defined span of control and boundary
spanning functions. Organizational discretion tends
to be more highly centralized with many decisions
coming down from the top of the organizational
hierarchy. Which organizational structure is best?

Much depends upon available financial resources,
expertise, timeliness and many other factors too
numerous to list in a finite review. Decentralized
decisions tend to be made outside headquarters
while centralized decision-making is found in
larger organizations with more clearly defined
spans of control. The post-Revolutionary War
in America ceded more powers to the States in
favor of a smaller central government.

Once a big idea emerges (like Cloud Computing), people
tend to copy and emulate it. A big idea blossoms and
spreads outward like a huge octopus. A starting venture
needs a clearly definable mission with a cadre of
knowledgable people who can spread out in the field and
recruit customers and other key employees. The author
encourages the reader to recruit top minds or human
capital and build a big tent . Hire builders and fixers
and not organizational destroyers. The most important
aspect of hiring is screening for people who can
identify with the mission enthusiastically.
In addition, a modicum of organizational quiesence is
critical with a minimum of sum zero conflict.
Some conflict is always necessary in order to thrash
out contrasting views to identify the optimal
strategic direction , achievable benchmarks,
implementation methodology and goal incongruencies
of strategic constituencies involved in this
whole process.

The challenge is to do the following:
o Set Reasonable Expectations
o Inspect
o Discuss
o Evaluate and lastly to Reward

Grass roots networks are a popular way to make an
organization known. The classic modes of operation
are public speaking, organizing public workshops,
the internet and phonebanks to contact potential
clients to grow the business and encourage
outreach into the community.

The federal government is another good resource
as are state governments. In 2009, a full 49%
of the federal budget went to contractors and
grantees. Other resources are private capital
and entrepreneurial knowhow.

Overall, The Social Entrepreneur's Handbook
provides an easy-to-follow roadmap which outlines
the formulation and implementation of non-profit
sector projects of varying complexity. The book
will be sought by non-profit sector operators,
eleemosynary institutions, academicians,
journalists, government contractors and
a wide spectrum of the general public .

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