WILMAs SEED

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WILMAs SEED

• A Course for Leaders of Community-Based
  Development through Social Enterprise
• May 2009

World Institute for Leadership and Management in
Africa www.wilma.us and www.wilma.us/archive
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What is WILMAs SEED?

• WILMAs SEED is a course of instruction and
  mentoring for small groups of future leaders of
  Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurship for
  Development (SEED).
• SEED creates opportunities for undergraduate
  students with outstanding leadership potential
  who will be graduating from the worlds top
  universities.
• The SEED program starts formally with a two-week
  seminar conducted by a WILMA Senior Mentor, who
  adopts, prepares, instructs, mentors, and
  champions a group of (about) six students who are
  taking this course.
• The seminar may be held in any participating
  college or university with which WILMA has
  reached an agreement.
• This course plants the seed of a sustainable
  social enterprise that, if successful, will
  reward this group with profit, work, and
  accomplishment over their lifetimes.

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What Do Students Learn in the Seminar?

• The group surveys key contributions to the theory
  and practice of social enterprise and
  entrepreneurship for development, testing its
  capacity to analyze this material.
• The group acquires a shared vision of
  comprehensive, community-based, grass-roots
  development.
• The group studies current business models that
  are suited to the pursuit of this vision,
  including the WILMA Business Ecosystem, with its
  basic module, the Joint Venture Commercial Estate
  (or JVCE).
• The group conceives a plan for a JVCE serving a
  specific community, with at least one profitable
  venture.
• The group forms a venture team and starts the
  process of creating a detailed business plan for
  their JVCE, working with the leaders of the
  specified beneficiary, community- based
  organization (CBO).

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Services of the Course(1 of 2)

• WILMAs SEED serves students of the course
  through Social Enterprise Incubation Centers
  (SEICs).
• These are the functions of SEICs
• act as host organizations for the Seminar in
  collaboration with nearby universities
• help the student groups (venture teams) to
  engage assistance from graduate schools of
  management and relevant technical fields
• teach short courses in business, management, and
  technology that are pertinent to each groups
  needs

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Services of the Course(2 of 2)

• build capacity in community-based organizations
  (CBOs) to own social enterprises, partnering with
  development agencies (NGOs, churches, civil
  society)
• connect plans for JVCEs and their enterprises
  with WILMA one-stop shops for SME finance called
  investment banks for social capital
• engage larger businesses (nodal firms) as
  partners of JVCEs and their enterprises
• contract with WILMA Network Partners as mentors
  to help each venture team to achieve success in
  building its JVCE

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SEED Partners

• A Social Enterprise Incubation Center organizes
  student venture teams, CBO leaders, and WILMA
  Network Partners to work with these institutional
  partners of SEED
•  established businesses producing diverse goods
  and services for local use, having an interest in
  investing in production on JVCEs (nodal firms)
• one or more colleges or universities, preferably
  nearby, that are interested in education for SEED
  
• development agencies (NGOs, churches, civil
  society) that support community-based,
  community-owned social business as a way to
  sustain local progress
• investment banks for social capital, providing
  long-term loans, equity capital, and recoverable
  grants for SEIC start-ups
•  

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Why Universities Are Interested in SEED

• The Executive Perspective The university
  acquires a new role as incubator of
  community-based social enterprises worldwide, led
  by its own students, who thereby build their
  ethical intelligence and social responsibility.
• The Faculty Perspective Diverse university
  courses acquire links to experiential learning
  through the conception, planning, and
  implementation of social businesses, with results
  that inform these courses and their teachers.
• The Student Perspective Students interested in
  developmental leadership acquire a sense of life
  mission that frames their academic studies and
  energizes all aspects of their university life
  mental, physical, social and religious.

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Why Businesses Are Interested in SEED
Building reputation investing in the education
of SEEDs select elite maximizes Good Will in the
target markets of the future and builds personal
relationships there. Creating markets a SEED
Ecosystem demands new technologies, equipment,
and processes in underserved areas, creating
markets for innovative suppliers worldwide.
Creating reliable supply a SEED ecosystem
builds reliable, scalable, and quality-assured
supplies of primary and value-added products
boasting a local brand. Creating Joint Ventures
established businesses may be JV partners of
community-based social enterprises, underpinning
good management and profitable outcomes. Diversify
ing careers WILMAs SEED creates a recruitment
pool for JV partners, which in turn provide
diverse career opportunities.
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Why Development Agencies are interested in SEED

• Local Initiative, Control, and Responsibility
  (what WILMA calls LICR) is necessary for
  bottom-up development that is driven by
  well-educated entrepreneurial energy.
• Financial independence (freedom of control by
  donors) is necessary for LICR.
• Successful business is necessary for financial
  independence.
• The SEED Ecosystem is the best way to organize
  business so that it achieves the social
  objectives of development a just, peaceful, and
  free society that protects and grows the common
  wealth by harnessing education to the
  entrepreneurial energy of its citizens.
• Public and non-profit agencies use SEED to
  channel capacity-building grants and high-risk
  capital (leveraged by lower-risk tranches of
  special funds) to social entrepreneurs and
  enterprises on the ground.

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A Unique Opportunity for Students(1 of 2)

• While dealing with subjects normally taught to
  graduate students, WILMAs SEED appeals to
  undergraduate juniors who are planning their
  postgraduate futures.
• The Seminar itself is the initial practical
  experiment of a self-organizing group in
  developmental leadership the group initiates,
  organizes, leads, and pays for it, with the
  guidance of a Senior Mentor and help from an
  SEIC.
• The groups goal is to create a social enterprise
  of a certain structure that serves a specified
  community in a location that they
  determineagain, with comprehensive help from an
  SEIC. This structure is called a Joint Venture
  Commercial Estate (JVCE).

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A Unique Opportunity for Students(2 of 2)

• The power and responsibility to lead is vested in
  students dedicated to a mission on the basis of
  a shared community of interest (or affinity).
• This affinity group may become the management
  team of their JVCE or have other roles in its
  progress. The founding management team will
  normally hold equity.
• The location of the social enterprise should be a
  place that one or more of the students know
  intimately, and the interest of the group in this
  place is a basis for its affinity.
• The students view this course as a career
  potentially engaging their lifelong interest,
  whether as owners, managers, investors, or
  professionals.

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Qualifications for Students(1 of 2)

• Strong interest to take advantage of the unique
  features of WILMAs SEED
• Ability to play a leadership role within a team
  dedicated to its mission
• A record of academic achievement in diverse
  fields of the liberal arts (including science and
  engineering)
• Experience of study, travel and project
  development in diverse cultures

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Qualifications for Students(2 of 2)

• Knowledge of a specific place and its culture
  that is a potential location for a social
  enterprise of interest to the group
• Fluency in English, use of electronic media,
  practical business skills
• Personality confident, innovative, forceful in
  discussion, good listener, shows empathy,
  sensitivity to cultural differences, humility

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How Communities Benefit(1 of 2)

• Communities benefiting from WILMAs SEED are
  defined by areas of residence (villages, towns,
  urban areas, anywhere).
• These communities are represented by
  Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) that are
  associations of their members, which are heads of
  households residing in the given area.
• The CBOs are certified by an SEIC as being
  democratically governed, dedicated to the service
  of their members, not corrupt, legally
  registered, financially accountable under local
  law, and able to own and manage part ownership of
  a social enterprise.

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How Communities Benefit (2 of 2)

• This social enterprise has a particular structure
  and is called a Joint Venture Commercial Estate,
  or JVCEa kind of industrial park.
• CBOs acquire equity ownership of JVCEs by
  contributing land, security, local knowledge of
  needs and business opportunities, connections to
  government, cultural assets, skills, and labor.
• Communities benefit from their CBOs through the
  profits, products, and employment generated by
  their JVCEs.