社会企业家开创新民主模式

Silicon Valley’s stereotypical approach to solving public problems is to invest in social entrepreneurship. Bypass lumbering government bureaucracy to find innovative solutions that harness economic incentives to create social value. In place of government-run Schools, find corporations to fund charter schools. Instead of foreign aid, fund Kiva, a platform that allows individuals with capital, however small, to lend directly to development entrepreneurs who need it.

硅谷解决公共问题的模式化做法是投资社会企业。绕过迟缓的政府官僚体制，找到利用经济激励创造社会价值的创造性解决方法。找到企业资助特许学校，以替代政府办学。不是直接对外援助，而是资助Kiva平台，无论数额有多小，拥有资金的个人都可以通过该平台直接借钱给需要资金的创业家。

The tech titan perhaps most identified with the concept and practice of social enterprise is Jeff Skoll, first president of eBay, whose eponymous foundation has invested directly in social entrepreneurs around the world, as well as establishing the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School, Oxford university, and the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.

最能体现社会企业的概念和实践的科技业巨子可能是eBay的首任总裁杰夫•斯科尔(Jeff Skoll)。他的与自己同名的基金会直接投资给全世界的社会企业家，他还在牛津大学(University of Oxford)赛德商学院(Saïd Business School)建立了斯科尔社会企业中心(Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship)，并举办一年一度的斯科尔社会企业世界论坛(Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship)。

The growing class of social entrepreneurs that Skoll and others fund stands between the private and public sectors, applying new tools and approaches to the work government has traditionally done. But in a new book, Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works, Skoll Foundation chief executive Sally Osberg and Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, present a model of social enterprise that directly engages government in a number of critical ways.

斯科尔和其他人资助的不断扩大的社会企业家队伍立于私人部门和公共部门之间，将新的手段和方法运用到传统上由政府完成的工作上。但在一本新书《超越更好：社会企业是如何运作的》(Getting Beyond Better: How Social Entrepreneurship Works)中，斯科尔基金会的首席执行官萨莉•奥斯贝格(Sally Osberg)和罗特曼管理学院(Rotman School of Management)前院长马丁•罗杰(Roger Martin)提出了一种社会企业模式，以多种极其重要的方式直接让政府参与进来。

They offer a helpful definition of social entrepreneurs, as distinct from direct social service providers and social advocates. Social entrepreneurs, they write, “seek to shift a stable but suboptimal equilibrium in a way that is neither entirely mandated nor entirely market driven. They create new approaches to old and pernicious problems.”

他们提出了一种有益的社会企业家定义，与社会服务的直接提供者和社会事业的倡导者区分开来。他们写道，社会企业家“寻求以一种既非完全授权，又非完全市场驱动的方式，改变稳定但并非最优的均衡。他们创造应对旧的、有害的问题的新方法。”

Social entrepreneurs who fit this definition include Muhammad Yunus, the pioneer of “microfinance”, or Molly Melching, the founder of Tostan, who found a way to convince African villagers to reject female genital mutilation on their own terms.

符合这一定义的社会企业家包括“小微金融”的先行者穆罕默德•尤努斯(Muhammad Yunus)，以及Tostan的创始人莫莉•梅尔欣(Molly Melching)，后者找到办法说服非洲的村民放弃以他们的方式对女性行割礼。

It is interesting, and significant, that social entrepreneurs have found ways to work with government rather than around it. They increase “the willingness or ability of the government to invest” in a particular government service “by reframing the way its value is articulated”. Madhav Chavan, for instance, found a way to measure the efforts of Indian teachers in terms of actual student learning, creating an incentive for the government to invest not in inputs (the numbers of teachers in the field), but in outcomes — the numbers of literate students. As Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health, puts it: “Nongovernmental organisations can and should strengthen the faltering public sector.”

社会企业家找到了办法和政府合作，而不是围绕着政府开展工作，这很有趣，意义也很重大。“通过重构价值的表达方式”，他们提高了对特定政府服务的“政府投资意愿或者能力”。比如，马达夫•恰范(Madhav Chavan)找到一种办法，以实际学习的学生数量衡量印度教师的工作，不仅推动政府投资于投入（实地教学的教师数量），也投资于产出——有文化的学生数量。就如Partners in Health的创始人保罗•法默(Paul Farmer)所说：“非政府组织能够且应该加强衰落的公共部门。”

The public sector, however weak, provides vast scale. And, for all its flaws, it is a source of legitimacy. What is more, it turns out that private entrepreneurs can do more public good when they team up with government. The ride-sharing company Lyft, for instance, has partnered with government planning agencies in California on data-sharing projects to help provide a more detailed picture of how it fits into the regional transport network. It has also shared data about how many customers call Lyft to be picked up or dropped off near train, bus, or subway stations, raising the possibility of an integrated public-private transit system.

无论多么衰落，公共部门所提供的规模是巨大的。而且，虽然有诸多缺陷，公共部门是合法性的来源。此外，事实表明，在和政府合作的时候，私人企业家能够更好地造福大众。比如，拼车公司Lyft和加利福尼亚州的政府规划机构合作开展数据分享项目，就Lyft如何融入地区交通网络描绘一幅更详尽的图景。该项目还分享有关有多少通过Lyft叫车的用户在铁路、公交或者地铁站附近上车或者下车的数据，提高公共-私人交通运输系统一体化的可能性。

For its part, the American Public Transportation Association has published a report on “Shared Mobility and the Transformation of Public Transit.”

美国公共交通协会(APTA)方面则发布了“共享移动性和公共交通转型”的报告。

There are similar examples in other industries. Airbnb has agreed with the cities of Portland and San Francisco to help streamline disaster response by identifying hosts who will take in needy citizens in the event of an earthquake or other emergency and sharing that information with city planners. Uber has launched a pilot project with Macomb County in Michigan to offer free rides for jurors and has begun a programme in several cities to increase the number of Uber drivers with wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

其他行业也有类似的例子。Airbnb已经和波特兰、旧金山等城市达成协议，通过确定哪些房主能够在发生地震或者其他紧急情况时接收有需要的市民，并将这一信息与城市规划者分享，来帮助简化灾难应对流程。优步(Uber)和密歇根州马科姆(Macomb)县合作启动了一个试点计划，为陪审员提供免费乘车服务，并在几个城市启动了增多有轮椅无障碍车辆的优步司机的项目。

The larger point here is the emergence of an ecosystem for public problem-solving in which government is no longer the only or even necessarily the primary actor. It includes universities, public policy organisations, direct service and advocacy groups, social enterprise and far-sighted private enterprise. All must learn to work together more closely. If they do, the result will be a new model of effective, engaged and connected democracy.

这其中更重要的一点是一种解决公共问题的生态系统的诞生，政府不再是唯一、甚至不再是必不可少的主要参与者。这个生态系统包括了大学、公共政策机构、直接服务和倡导群体、社会企业和有远见的私人企业。所有参与方都必须学会更紧密地合作。如果他们做到了，结果会是一种饶有成效、多方参与、相互联通的新民主模式。