How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition [Paperback]

Journalist Bornstein (The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank) profiles nine indomitable champions of social change who developed innovative ways to address needs they saw around them in places as distinct as Bombay, India; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and inner-city Washington, D.C. As these nine grew influential when their ingenious ideas proved ever more widely successful, they came to the attention of Ashoka, an organization that sponsors a fellows program to foster social innovation by finding so-called social entrepreneurs to support. As Bornstein interviewed these and many other Ashoka fellows, he saw patterns in the ways they fought to solve their specifically local problems. To demonstrate the commonality among experiences as diverse as a Hungarian mother striving to provide a fuller life for her handicapped son and a South African nurse starting a home-care system for AIDS patients, he presents useful unifying summaries of "four practices of innovative organizations" and "six qualities of successful social entrepreneurs." Bornstein implies that his subjects are in the tradition of Florence Nightingale and Gandhi; the inspiring portraits that emerge from his in-depth reporting on the environments in which individual programs evolved (whether in politically teeming India or amid the expansive grasslands of Brazil) certainly show these unstoppable entrepreneurs as extraordinarily savvy community development experts. In adding up the vast number of current nongovernmental organizations and their corps of agents of positive change, Bornstein aims to persuade that, "without a doubt, the past twenty years has produced more social entrepreneurs than terrorists.".
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Wonderfully hopeful and enlightening.... The stories of these social entrepreneurs will inspire and encourage many people who seek to build a better world." --Nelson Mandela

"The book is must reading for anyone who cares about building a more equitable, and therefore more stable, world."--William J. Holstein, New York Times

"David Bornstein's How to Change the World provides a wonderful introduction to social entrepreneurship. It is engaging, inspiring, and informative, weaving Bornstein's thoughtful commentary with a set of rich, diverse, and instructive examples. It is the first book I recommend to interested students." -- Professor J. Gregory Dees, Faculty Director, Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business

"A fascinating book.... Well-documented cases of grassroots entrepreneurial activities to tackle such diverse social problems as child abuse, disability, illiteracy, and environmental degradation give life to it." --Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Business Week

"This pioneering book details the development of social entrepreneurship globally with useful case studies and thoughtful analysis throughout. It represents one of the core teaching materials we use at Oxford."--Dr Alex Nicholls, Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship, Said Business School, Oxford University

"One of the most powerful transformative forces in this century is social entrepreneurship and this book insightfully probes these entrepreneurial change agents driving this process. Enriching reading for students and practitioners seeking to build a better world."--James E. Austin, Snider Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, and Co-Founder of the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative

"I've told everyone within earshot about it. Besides, I'm confident that those who've read the earlier volume will appreciate the update...Buy extra copies of the book as gifts-someone you know may be looking for a future with meaning."--Portland Alliance