The Need For Social Entrepreneurs

The Huffington Post:

The bracing happy talk at social investment conferences and cheerleading predictions about social investment capital poised to flood into the developing world begs for a reality check. Meet Liberia-born Chid Liberty, Founder & Chief Executive of Liberty & Justice.

For the iOnPoverty cameras, he described the raw truth about impact investing. “People are very attracted to social entrepreneurship right now. They spend a lot of money flying to conferences all over the world to talk about how great an idea social entrepreneurship is, but, when it comes to check writing time, they start coming up with reasons not to write the check.”

“At some point, if we want to create something [good] in places like Africa, Asia, India, we need to take some very serious risks,” he soberly adds.

To start his social enterprise, Chid tossed a solid Silicon Valley career with a great salary, a nice car, a comfortable place to live in swanky Sausalito, Calif., and a seemingly endless capacity for late night drinking with his buddies. He talks about those days as essentially fooling himself about his happiness, but even then sensing the “seeds of misery.”

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